Monitoring, debugging and updating Nordic-powered IoT products made easy with Memfault device observability platform partnership

Oslo, Norway, June 24, 2021

The Memfault platform on the nRF Connect SDK enables Nordic customers to accelerate development and easily update products after release

Nordic Semiconductor today announces it has partnered with Cloud-based debugging specialist, Memfault, to enable developers using its nRF91, nRF53, and nRF52 Series low power cellular IoT and short range wireless solutions to access the ‘Memfault’ remote debugging and monitoring platform via its nRF Connect SDK. The integration of the platform in the nRF Connect SDK provides Nordic customers free access to all the features of the Memfault platform which will enable them to accelerate product development and ship products with greater confidence.

Out-of-the-box remote debugging

Connected devices are susceptible to software bugs and this is particularly evident when large numbers of customers start using the product in unanticipated and untested ways. Monitoring the health of devices and analyzing software issues in deployed end products are complex processes that burden product makers with direct resource costs, and can have a negative impact to brand reputation. Memfault provides out-of-the-box remote debugging features and fault analysis capabilities that can significantly reduce costs and save time.

Developers using the nRF Connect SDK with the Memfault platform receive notifications directly through the intuitive Cloud portal when a fault occurs. The interface displays the status of the device fleet and detailed reports with tailored diagnostic information for analysis. Memfault’s fault aggregation techniques show the occurrence of a specific fault across the entire population of devices, making developers aware that many issues have the same provenance. The frequency of occurrence, number of affected devices, and fault occurrence timeline can allow developers to identify if, for example, a specific device type or software update could have resulted in a fault and what impact that fault is having. With this information, developers can locate the root cause of the issue and push updates to fix it before end users notice it, at the same time reducing the resolution time from days to minutes and lowering the engineering and support overhead.

Shortened development time

“As the number of devices at the edge increases, driven by IoT connectivity technologies like Bluetooth® Low Energy [Bluetooth LE], Thread and LTE-M/NB-IoT, the risk of faults in the field and the impact they can have increases,” says Joel Stapleton, Principal Engineering Manager – Nordic Software Platform Group at Nordic Semiconductor. “To manage imperfect software and the huge growth in connected devices, there is a shift from having a product that is ‘good enough’ at deployment, to having a product which is maintained and updated over its lifetime.

“Nordic is partnering with Memfault to enable our customers to gather valuable insights during development, and to meet the expectations of their customers in production. In the past, only a few product makers have had the resources to build this kind of capability in-house. All Nordic Semiconductor customers can now take advantage of the Memfault platform and adopt this powerful capability for their products.”

“Memfault is excited to partner with Nordic to give their customers streamlined access to Memfault’s device observability platform,” says Francois Baldassari, CEO of Memfault. “Nordic’s commitment to the Zephyr Project and other open source initiatives shows it puts developers first, making them an ideal partner for Memfault.

“With this strategic partnership, Nordic and Memfault will lead the way in helping IoT device developers across all industries build stronger products faster. We’re already supporting live implementations together, and we look forward to providing Nordic developers with the tools they need to be successful at every phase of the device lifecycle.”

Slovenia-based innovation lab, IRNAS, who recently announced the launch of its smart power grid remote monitoring solution RAM-1 employing Nordic’s nRF9160 low power SiP with integrated LTE-M/NB-IoT modem and GPS in combination with the nRF52811 Bluetooth LE SoC, has used the Memfault platform to accelerate product roll-out.

“At IRNAS, we’re always making sure we are building our clients’ products with the best-in-class hardware and cutting-edge tools,” says Luka Mustafa, Founder & CEO at IRNAS. “For connected IoT devices, there’s no better pair than Nordic’s nRF91 SiP integrated with Memfault’s monitoring and debugging capabilities. With Nordic and Memfault, we are able to monitor key metrics like connectivity and low power states that allows us to shorten development time and build stronger connected devices.”

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