IoT Development Company in Austin

Silicon selection and certification set the shape of an Austin IoT programme well before anyone designs the cloud tier. Projects run as a scoped Austin IoT proof of concept over eight to twelve weeks, covering hardware bring-up on a dev kit (Silicon Labs EFR32, Nordic nRF52, ESP32-S3, or NXP i.MX), a basic firmware image, a single-gateway edge tier, and a cloud telemetry dashboard, a production IoT product (custom PCB, firmware, gateway, cloud back end, FCC ID and UL certification) including a six-to-nine-month engagement, certification testing, and an EVT/DVT/PVT hardware cycle, or a full industrial IoT platform for Samsung-fab-class, Tesla-Gigafactory-class, or Oncor-grid-class clients where scope includes IEC 62443 control evidence, NERC CIP segmentation, and multi-site rollout. Austin rates sit above San Antonio and El Paso because of the Silicon Labs / NXP / Tesla / Samsung talent premium. We give fixed-fee proposals rather than open T-and-M estimates.

Most Austin IoT products need FCC Part 15 Subpart B (unintentional radiators) and Subpart C (intentional radiators — any 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, sub-GHz, or BLE radio), and many add Part 22, 24, or 27 for cellular IoT (NB-IoT / LTE-M) modules. We run pre-scan in our development lab, then route formal testing through Austin-area accredited labs (UL Lafayette is the closest UL site, with FCC-recognized labs in Round Rock and Cedar Park). UL safety dossiers cover UL 60730 for HVAC and appliance controls, UL 991 for safety-related controls, UL 2900-1 / 2900-2-1 for connected product cybersecurity (medical and healthcare adds 2900-2-1), and UL 9540A for any battery storage. For ISED Canada IC certification on cross-border shipments we leverage FCC test data with an SRSP-300 review. Test fees and lab time are scoped as pass-throughs at cost in the fixed-fee SOW.

Yes. Post-Uri, Austin Energy, Oncor, CenterPoint, ERCOT-side DER aggregators, and distributed solar + battery operators have funded substantial IoT investment in grid-edge sensors, smart inverters, demand-response devices, and outage-resilient telemetry. We build to IEEE 1547-2018 for distributed energy resource interconnection, IEEE 2030.5 for SEP2 utility communications, NERC CIP-002 through CIP-014 for any bulk electric system interconnect (most Austin-scale DER work falls below the BES threshold but still inherits CIP-013 supply-chain risk requirements), and the ERCOT Nodal Operating Guide section on telemetry timeliness. Firmware includes battery-backed store-and-forward so devices stay observable through a 2021-class grid event when cellular goes intermittent, and OTA paths assume the worst-case connectivity profile common to West Texas and Hill Country sites.

Yes. We have shipped CAN-bus telemetry, BMS firmware adjacencies, charger network monitoring, and manufacturing-line IoT for automotive Tier-1 and Tier-2 suppliers, including teams in the Tesla Gigafactory Texas supply chain and Austin EV-adjacent startups. We work to ISO/SAE 21434 for cybersecurity engineering, ISO 26262 ASIL ratings for any safety-related firmware (typically ASIL B for charger and telematics, ASIL D only on safety-critical motion control which we usually stay out of), SAE J1939 for heavy-duty CAN, and AUTOSAR Classic or Adaptive when the OEM tier demands it. UNECE WP.29 R155 cybersecurity and R156 software update regulations apply to vehicles homologated for European markets, and we ship the documentation for that path. We will not take on safety-critical ASIL D motion control as a generalist firmware shop — we partner with specialist automotive houses for that scope.

The Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (TDPSA, effective July 1, 2024) gives Texas residents access, deletion, correction, portability, and opt-out rights over personal data, with broader-than-most-state coverage of biometric identifiers (faceprints, voiceprints, fingerprints, gait, retina). The older Texas CUBI (Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier) statute layers on consent and destruction obligations. For Austin IoT products (smart cameras, voice assistants, wearables, building access readers, vehicle telematics) we implement on-device or edge-side biometric processing where possible to avoid creating new biometric data flows back to the cloud, document a Data Protection Assessment for high-risk processing, build opt-out plumbing into firmware OTA so a TDPSA opt-out request can flow to the device within a reasonable window, and produce a TDPSA-aligned privacy notice. The Texas Attorney General enforces TDPSA — we have seen the first wave of inquiries hit ad-tech and biometric vendors first.

AWS does not yet have a full hyperscaler region in Texas, so our default cloud landing zone is AWS us-east-2 (Ohio, ~35ms from Austin) for IoT Core, Timestream, and Greengrass, with the AWS Local Zone Austin (launched 2021, in the Austin metro carrier hotel ecosystem) for sub-10ms edge workloads where local processing matters. Azure South Central US is physically in San Antonio (~80mi from Austin), giving sub-15ms RTT for Azure IoT Hub and Data Explorer. GCP customers route to us-south1 (Dallas) at ~25ms RTT. Oracle Cloud has an Austin region (OCI Ashburn-adjacent build-out moved Austin OCI workloads to the Phoenix or Ashburn region for production while Oracle Austin keeps engineering presence). For ITAR or defense-adjacent IoT we route through AWS GovCloud (US-West Oregon or US-East Ohio) with appropriate ITAR personnel controls. Cross-border residency to ca-central-1 for Tesla / Magna shared programs is documented in the data processing agreement so TDPSA and PIPEDA auditors get a clean answer.

A typical Austin IoT product (custom PCB, custom firmware, gateway, cloud back end, FCC ID, UL, mobile companion app) takes nine to fourteen months from kickoff to FCC-cert production units in hand, assuming a single-radio design, Silicon Labs / Nordic / ESP32 reference architecture, and a reasonable cost target. Month 1 to 3 is hardware schematic capture, layout, and EVT bring-up. Month 4 to 6 is firmware feature-complete, cloud back-end live in staging, and DVT build for FCC pre-scan. Month 7 to 9 is formal FCC and UL testing, design fixes, PVT build, and certification grant. Month 10 to 14 is pilot manufacturing run, factory test fixtures, and ramp. If your product needs a custom cellular module instead of a pre-certified module, add three to five months and roughly USD $80,000 to $150,000 in certification cost. We work with Austin-area contract manufacturers in Round Rock and Cedar Park for short-run NPI before larger CM transitions.

Most custom IoT hardware and firmware work qualifies for the federal R&D tax credit under IRC Section 41, which returns a percentage of qualified research expenses (typically 6 to 10 percent effective benefit depending on credit method and entity structure) against federal tax liability, with the Section 174 capitalization rules (effective 2022, partially restored under the 2024 Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act for domestic R&D) adding nuance to timing. Texas has no state R&D credit equivalent to California's, but does offer the Texas Sales and Use Tax exemption on qualified R&D equipment and software (Tex. Tax Code Sec. 151.3182). Eligible IoT activity generally includes novel hardware design, firmware development under technical uncertainty, protocol experimentation, and antenna or radio-tuning iteration — not routine integration. We deliver time-tracked logs, technical narratives, experiment histories, and failed-hypothesis documentation aligned with IRS Form 6765. Final eligibility sits with your R&D tax consultant or CPA.