Firia

Firia designs and builds the technology behind connected products, from the electronics and firmware inside a device to the cloud software and dashboards that collect its data. The firm says it works closely with its clients from the first stage, keeps the customer involved in each cycle, and describes its engineers as quick to understand what is critical to a client's business. The firm aims to make devices already deployed in the field manageable as assets, and to link their data to AI tools.

Hardware, firmware and compliance testing

The firm's hardware work covers electronics design, PCB layout and global compliance testing and certification, so that a product can meet the rules of the markets it is sold into. Its firmware and embedded software teams have experience with most microcontroller vendors and CPU architectures. Its wireless engineers build and integrate networking protocol stacks, including mesh networks designed for high scalability.

Cloud, web and mobile software

The software side builds embedded, mobile, desktop and cloud applications. This includes gateways, back-end services, web applications and the user interfaces that operators and customers see. The firm also offers UX and UI design, and its product strategy work uses a design sprint and customer discovery to decide what should be built before the engineering starts.

Wireless monitoring for utility-scale solar fields

One published project is a monitoring system for utility-scale solar fields, where a single site can carry thousands of devices. The firm describes it as a low-cost, reliable system built from mesh networks, hardened embedded electronics, firmware, Linux gateways, LTE modems, a cloud back end and HTML5 web applications. The system gave operators a view of the site that they had not had before, and it allowed cloud analysis while still working alongside legacy SCADA control systems.

Vibration and temperature monitoring for distribution centers

A second project rebuilt a system for a condition monitoring provider that was struggling to meet the demands of a very large online retailer. The firm designed wireless sensor nodes to measure equipment vibration and temperature, then built the software chain from node to gateway to cloud. Anomalies are caught by analytics that combine processing on the device with cloud functions, so that urgent notifications reach staff quickly.

Asset tracking and hospital equipment

The firm describes an asset tracking system it built for an internal customer with millions of assets. Its work included modeling the data flow and performance against cost targets, designing low-cost edge gateways with several IoT radio links, and building the real-time system with a cloud back end and a web front end. It also developed the manufacturing test fixtures used in high-volume production. In healthcare, the firm says it delivered field upgrades for widely deployed hospital equipment, improving nurse-call performance, and assisted a client with FDA compliance remediation by helping build quality systems and process documentation.