We support OEM teams building water systems, heating systems, and connected building devices with hardware and firmware designed for certification, 10–15 year field lifecycles, and manufacturing scale.
Water, heating, and connected building products often combine mechanics, electronics, firmware, and mobile apps. Early engineering decisions can shape field reliability and maintainability for years after the product is released.
Limited service access means early engineering decisions carry long-term consequences. Firmware architecture, electrolytic capacitor sizing, relay endurance, and component lifecycle selection must account for long-term field operation from day one.
Firmware and electronics need to remain stable across years of operation, OTA updates, component changes, and real field conditions. Power transients, relay loads, brown-outs, temperature swings, condensation, and surge events must be considered from the start, not discovered after deployment.
Modbus, Matter, Z-Wave, and manufacturer-specific protocols. A clean integration layer protects the core platform from protocol-specific changes, reduces long-term maintenance effort, and makes future protocol or device additions easier to manage.
Connected devices must account for EU Cyber Resilience Act requirements, secure boot, signed OTA updates, encrypted RF communication, and tamper detection across the full product lifecycle. Security architecture needs to be part of the core system design, reducing compliance risk, unsafe updates, and long-term exposure in the field.
Mechanical and electrical behavior are tightly connected in water and heating systems. Firmware must account for blocked valves, pump load changes, pressure build-up, delayed actuator response, and fault detection under real operating conditions, so the device can respond predictably when the physical system does not behave as expected.
Product architectures increasingly span sensors, actuators, mechanics, electronics, firmware, mobile apps, and cloud platforms. When system boundaries and responsibilities are not clearly defined, small integration gaps can turn into unstable behaviour, difficult updates, fragile dependencies, and costly field support.
Selected examples of specific work delivered across water, heating systems, and connected building devices.
Firmware development integrating a heat pump into an existing heating infrastructure, creating a complex hybrid system that combines multiple thermal and electrical energy sources with dynamic, cost-aware energy management. The work covered several interacting subsystems, evolving requirements, and limited access to the complete physical setup during development.
ARS developed firmware modules for load balancing, auxiliary heating, cooling control, and energy distribution, with dynamic energy management based on tariffs, solar availability, and demand. Automated testing frameworks helped validate complex system interactions early.
Software integration making a third-party gas boiler behave as a native subsystem within Windhager’s heating control platform, without redesigning the core platform. Development involved custom internal protocols, Modbus RS-485 communication, precise boiler-state and fault-code mapping, and implementation without direct access to the physical boiler.
ARS built a dedicated state machine, Python-based emulator, and automated test scripts to verify all operating modes, edge cases, and fault scenarios independently. The result was compatibility with a gas boiler from a third-party manufacturer, with minimal adaptation, while preserving the existing platform and infrastructure.
Compact temperature controller for a high-power 12 kW instantaneous water heating system, combining control logic and power switching in an integrated in-house solution. The design addressed tight space constraints, thermal regulation, long-term safety, and reliable operation inside a thermally constrained enclosure.
ARS performed feasibility and ROI analysis, complete hardware and firmware development, mechanical design, prototyping, testing, in-house EMC/EMI pre-compliance, and management of manufacturing.
Connected dosing device for potable water installations, designed to prevent corrosion, stabilize limescale levels, and improve water quality through precise dosing and continuous monitoring. The product needed autonomous operation without continuous cloud dependency, while the wider portfolio required a scalable connectivity concept that could be reused across multiple devices.
ARS developed a reusable cloud connectivity framework (GSM, Wi-Fi, Ethernet) implemented autonomous device logic, performed hardware design review, EMC risk assessment, prototype verification, certification, and transfer to manufacturing.
IoT monitoring device for water treatment systems, developed for continuous long-term deployment in home installations. The device collects and processes flow and pressure sensor data to assess system performance, track consumables, monitor CO₂ savings, and provide service notifications. Designed for high reliability, low power consumption, minimal maintenance, and low-disruption operation for end users.
ARS covered firmware development, cloud connectivity, secure IoT device provisioning, redesign review, PCB redesign, PCBA verification, HIL-based automated validation, EMC pre-compliance, transfer to manufacturing, and production test fixture development.
Certified Grade II alarm system combining security functionality, smart-home connectivity, and long-range wireless communication in a compact device. Supports Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, GSM/LTE with 2G fallback, Embedded Linux on a Cortex-A5 platform, 16 GB eMMC, TFT touchscreen, battery charging and monitoring, keypad, LED driver, and hardware/firmware security features. The design required reliable sensor multi-floor coverage without repeaters, compatibility with third-party smart-home devices, careful RF design for multiple antennas in a small enclosure, and cost-aware component selection.
ARS was responsible for hardware design and verification, custom Embedded Linux build, firmware development, RF design support, Grade II pre-compliance functional testing, environmental chamber testing, and manufacturing support.
Shock-resistant, splash-proof, and sabotage-protected alarm device with an integrated siren of at least 98 dB at one meter, tested according to EN1125, EN179, and EN1634 standards. The product was already on the market, but the client wanted to improve its long-term field reliability, battery performance, firmware stability, and manufacturing efficiency across multiple product variants.
ARS performed a complete PCB redesign, optimized the design for multiple product variants, reduced BOM cost by more than 13%, and developed new, stable firmware across product versions. The redesigned hardware and firmware improved battery life from an average of 9 months to more than 24 months, while PCBA manufacturing support, EMC testing, and certification support helped prepare the product for more reliable production and field operation.
Deep domain experience with heating bus protocols, alarm Grade II design, and connected appliance certification.
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