Mender blog

The term over-the-air (OTA) updates is today often used interchangeably with “software updates” in the context of connected devices and IoT.

However, the term originates from the telecom industry, where it has been used for a much wider scope than just software. For example, a special type of SMS message from the cellular provider to all phone subscribers can change the way phones are configure...

Going from prototyping to production, one has many options to choose from to develop their IoT project. Yocto and other open source build systems such as Buildroot provide an automated, reliable and reproducible way to generate custom distribution images. Additionally, choosing a build system gives you complete control of the software and you can configure it to do anything you wish. It enab...

Updating and deploying software to a large number of connected devices in the field with thousands or tens of thousands of devices, can pose a significant risk with negative repercussions.

Regardless of how well tested the software and update process is, you will only know how well the deployment works for your customers after it has been released into the field. Differences in time zones, netwo...

During 2015 we spent a lot of time talking to users and companies in the embedded space. Our early findings which continued to be confirmed during the market research showed that 50% of all connected devices had no way to be remotely updated. Besides some outliers, the other 50% had homegrown solutions to do over-the-air updates (OTA). Common for almost all homegrown solutions were their fragili...

As a user of countless web accounts for banking, utilities, social media, ecommerce, email, and more, you have probably heard that it is a very bad idea to use the same password across several (or even all) accounts. If one of those sites get compromised (e.g. one of your social media accounts) an attacker may be able to use this information to log in to your online banking.

If we think about th...