Building a Connected Guest Experience Platform

Project statement

Making physical locations programmable.

Attribution and context

Work completed as part of my role at Innovated Studios.

Context

It’s a rugged, connected platform for guest environments.

Problem

A device fleet has to behave as one product in environments where connectivity and operating conditions are not guaranteed.

Constraints

The platform must account for unreliable connectivity, provisioning, remote configuration, battery management, credential compatibility, monitoring, security, recovery, and environmental constraints.

My role and personal contribution

I wrote the firmware. I also worked on product design, the overall architecture, cloud, the hybrid edge/cloud setup, engineering leadership, and coordinating hardware and software.

System

Physical experience, credentials, edge, cloud, operations.

Decisions and tradeoffs

Hardware, networked behavior, and operations have to hold together as one product, not as a pile of connected parts.

Verified outcome

Public specifications include RFID, NFC, BLE, 5G, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, GNSS, remote telemetry/control, IP65, and 24+ hours of active runtime. AXIS Port is deployed in theme-park environments in Orlando and California.

Lesson

The interesting part isn’t connecting a reader to the cloud. It’s making the entire system behave like one product.

Relevant domains

• Firmware
• Product architecture
• Hybrid edge/cloud
• Hardware/software coordination