Modern smartphone and tablet platforms allow rich user interfaces for interaction with wireless devices. Development of robust, reliable, and interoperable mobile connectivity applications requires a deep understanding of the underlying communications protocols, and their implementations and constraints within modern smartphone operating systems. 

Commonly these applications are connecting to the wireless device using Bluetooth low energy (BLE), Bluetooth Mesh, Near Field Communication (NFC), Wi-Fi, or via the cellular bearer. Bluetooth low energy or NFC are especially common, and are powerful options for initial device setup and provisioning given their simple and familiar usage models and robust security. For Internet-connected devices, or those with higher data requirements, Wi-Fi and cellular come into play. In these cases, protocols such as HTTP/WebSockets and MQTT allow scalable real-time interactions between phone and device via the cloud.

Elegant and effective native or cross-platform Android and iOS (iPhone/iPad) applications need to deliver great customer experiences. Careful UX/UI design is a critical and deliberate step, and efficient architectures and implementations can then ensure a smooth and responsive feeling for users.

Companion mobile applications can enable a broad range of additional features for connected devices. Wireless music and audio devices can leverage the smartphone’s powerful UI capabilities to allow configuration of filters, equalisers, and other DSP features. Consumer/IoT products can provide easy-to-use guided setup flows via wizard or tutorial-style sequences. More generally, all products can benefit from delivery of additional features in the field by firmware over-the-air update (OTAU), or remote license enablement. These actions can be triggered by user purchase from a product feature store within the application, or by general-release updates.

Software engineering is a challenging discipline that requires a structured approach from specification through development and validation. Virscient has rigorous processes and streamlined systems to ensure predictable delivery of robust solutions. Our in-house issue tracking, continuous integration, and automated unit/regression test systems help us to ensure efficient development of production-quality software in projects of any size.