Over the past decade, IoT and embedded sensing technologies have advanced rapidly across various domains and applications. However, one sector has lagged in reaping these benefits: health and scientific research. This niche market often requires project-specific solutions, involving small production runs and a high degree of flexibility to deliver tailored, turnkey systems. As a result, it garners less attention from major IoT hardware manufacturers.

The future of Research lies in fully centralized IoT solutions that offer seamless, open access to data resources. Centralized IoT Systems in Research have the potential to deliver transformative benefits, enabling greater efficiency, collaboration, and innovation. We believe that Research is not just about observing and understanding major issues, but also about demonstrating how those can be effectively adressed.

In this discussion, we’ll go geep in the current challenges and outline how we are addressing these gaps, driving innovation, and staying ahead of the competition in the years to come.

At one end of the spectrum, consumers have access to a variety of affordable, lightweight connected devices for monitoring their health and daily habits. However, these devices often prioritize design, affordability, and compactness over data quality and reliability. Marketing tactics and cost-cutting efforts frequently lead to compromises in performance. Many of these devices rely on closed or proprietary communication protocols, allowing manufacturers to lock customers into their exclusive apps or hardware. Additionally, many are built around subscription-based models, with service quality often declining as online platforms are phased out or discontinued.

On the other end of the spectrum, tech enthusiasts can enhance their quality of life by deploying security systems, automating tasks, and drastically reducing energy consumption while improving home comfort. This is possible thanks to the availability of affordable sensors and remotely controlled devices. The key enabler here is free, open-source software like Home Assistant. Additionally, many commercial products now offer integrations with these platforms, allowing tech enthusiasts to centralize their data, automate processes, and run systems at minimal cost, all while ensuring their hardware won’t become obsolete.

If Home Automation represents the democratization of IoT, the question is: where does research currently stand, and where should it go next?

The Internet of Things is not only transforming consumer applications and research but also revolutionizing industrial operations. Over the past decade, smart sensors have become standard in production processes, improving automation and enabling data collection at the machine level. In the past, data in industrial settings could only be accessed locally by supervisors or, at best, remotely on a per-machine basis.

Metrics that were once hard to measure or seen as unimportant are now being collected and shared across entire production systems. By analyzing data from hundreds of machines, industries are uncovering new insights that can be turned into valuable services that boost productivity, reduce downtime, and minimize waste.

As an example, global regulations are increasingly requiring industries to report on energy use, carbon footprints, and resource efficiency, tracking energy consumption data is therefore becoming mandatory on new machinery. Automated analysis of the generated data promotes continuous improvement and enables performance comparisons by various actors:

• For machine manufacturers: They can gain valuable insights into machine performance across various industrial groups and software versions, enabling them to more accurately assess the impact of R&D improvements.
• For machine operators: They can compare their machine’s speed and efficiency to others within the same industrial plant, while receiving tailored recommendations and settings to address inefficiencies.
• For industrial groups: They can access detailed analyses of manufacturing plant efficiency, across competitors, shifts, products, or configurations, and evaluate metrics like return on investment—empowering them to make well-informed decisions, to optimize processes and remain competitive.

Centralized systems therefore play a crucial role in maximizing the potential of this data. But obtaining these capabilities requires significant R&D efforts.

Research institutes often face challenges in adopting IoT solutions due to limited resources and expertise. That’s where Outerbeam steps in. We provide tailored IoT solutions designed to break down barriers to innovation and empower research projects to succeed. We do build modular sensing systems, user education materials, achieve cost-effective deployments, do centralized data management, fleet management interfaces, and process automation.

Our priority is to maintain scalable pipelines that deliver continuous updates and improvements, ensuring your devices stay current with the latest hardware and software. This allows you to focus on methodology and analysis, while we handle the engineering required for high-quality, long-term data collection.

As your partner, we prioritize transparency and control, giving you confidence in both the technology and the collaboration. Together, we’ll help your project reach its full potential.

Every device we create receives free software updates and and can be seamlessly integrated into any projects. To achieve this, we leverage cutting-edge development tools to provide free software updates and ensure our devices excel under the most rigorous software testing. These tests encompass both physical environments and advanced virtual simulations, allowing us to model thousands of scenarios for unmatched reliability. By utilizing widely supported open-source communication protocols, we deliver unparalleled device configurability. This enables seamless integration into new projects and unrestricted access to your data—free from proprietary software limitations and far surpassing what competitors typically offer.

We adhere to the highest standards, it allows us to stay ahead of industry trends by delivering products that are a generation ahead.

Overcoming Embedded Development Challenges

To address the specific demands of scientific research, we develop custom firmware tailored for each of our embedded devices. However, embedded software development comes with its own set of challenges: working on dedicated hardware with limited computing and debugging capabilities, writing low-level C code, compiling, flashing targets, and diagnosing malfunctions—all of which can be time-intensive. Additionally, validating the various onboard functions requires thorough and continuous testing on real hardware.

We have prioritized deploying and utilizing cutting-edge software development tools. Our approach includes adopting continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, leveraging microcontroller emulators, and utilizing static code analyzers. We also maintain dozens of slave boards that automatically test and report on the robustness of every software iteration in real time.

This methodology enables us to deliver production-ready software in record time while maintaining the highest development standards. By continuously validating our code and addressing issues early, we ensure reliability and efficiency.

In essence, this commitment to advanced tools and rigorous processes sets us apart. Embedded software development comes with its own set of challenges, we overcomed them. It not only streamlines development but also underscores the difference between professional engineering and casual experimentation—an investment that consistently delivers long-term value.

Embracing Open Source.

We select, deploy and adapt the most appropriate open-source solutions and contribute financially to the Open Source projects we deem essential.

Open-source software enables our team to stay at a human scale and concentrate fully on the quality of our embedded solutions, rather than developing and maintaining expensive, complex, ephemeral architectures that will only be used by a very limited number of users.

100% Self-Hosted.

Not in a remote cloud, not overseas. At home in our hands, and even possibly yours. We physically own and maintain the hardware running all the services we are providing, rather than renting servers and software as a service from large corporations (SaaS).

Scalable Linux Servers.

As your research project grows in size, additional hardware resources may be required. Depending on your needs, we will find the most suitable options. Alternatively, we can collaborate with your IT department to set up your own dedicated server.

Because our business model isn't based on selling computing power, cloud storage or bandwidth, we enable you to use the allocated hardware to its full potential, at no hidden cost.

No secrets, unlimited possibilities.

We are open to providing secure access to any service, or even deploy services on demand for developers within your team. This means you have control over the solution we provide, to use it, abuse it or even tweak it.

Decentralized data storage.

Because data is at the heart of our business, we take the subject seriously. Each project's data are backed up both locally and across multiple locations. Our servers synchronize their data daily via secure VPN tunnels, guaranteeing data preservation even in the event of a disaster.

Furthermore, we can deliver daily, weekly and montly backups of your data to your mailbox or to the cloud service of your choice, free of charge.

Espressif Systems

Espressif Systems is our trusted supplier of ultra-low-power (ULP, <100mW) embedded solutions. This Shanghai-based company is renowned for its ESP32 and ESP01 system-on-chip (SoC) devices. A leader in the field, Espressif consistently pushes the boundaries of what’s possible with embedded technology and is a trusted partner for hundreds of companies worldwide.

Espressif provides a robust framework that simplifies the development of professional IoT devices. Continuously evolving, this framework supports the latest wireless and security standards across a range of microcontrollers, empowering developers to create innovative and secure solutions.

ARM-Based Single-Board Computers (SBCs)

For solutions requiring greater computational power, we leverage ARM-based single-board computers (SBCs). These affordable, energy-efficient devices (LP <15W) deliver significantly higher performance than ULP systems. They are well-suited for tasks such as feeding high-frequency databases, hosting services, performing edge calculations, or being remotely maintained and updated. SBCs are typically powered by a DC source or large batteries, offering flexibility in deployment.

Linux Servers

We believe in transparency when it comes to leveraging open-source software for our solutions. Local Linux servers are far from the complex, hard-to-manage systems they are often perceived to be. We can assist you in deploying Linux servers for a variety of use cases, including:

• Enabling multiple users to perform intensive computing processes within a virtualized environment.
• Providing total control over the data and services we deliver.

Sharing knowledge is fundamental to achieving our shared goals. By openly collaborating, we ensure that the systems we build are effective, manageable, and scalable, contributing to the success of every project.