Eliminating risk and securing scalable growth with robust OTA update capabilities 


The energy transition is slowly unfolding across the globe as OEMs and producers alike begin to favor alternative energy over traditional sources. Although electric energy is cleaner than fossil fuels, the creation of batteries can contribute a large carbon footprint and some inherent waste.

On a mission to facilitate and promote sustainability throughout the energy transition, Octave Energy, a Belgian leader in smart and flexible energy solutions, offers both first-life battery systems and repurposed end-of-life batteries from electric vehicles as energy storage sources.  The Octave Energy in-house Energy Management System intelligently manages battery systems, solar panels, and charging stations to enable smart, sustainable energy use and build a cleaner, brighter future.

Objectives

	Ensure all devices in the fleet are consistently configured
	Support business growth from 100 to potentially thousands of devices
	Minimize downtime during updates while ensuring reliable recovery
	Reduce time and resources spent on OTA infrastructure to focus on core technology
	Establish an OTA solution that can support business needs for over a decade

Octave Energy develops and deploys advanced battery systems designed to maximize energy efficiency and uptime. As their customer base and field deployments grew, so did the need for a scalable, secure, and reliable way to manage software across an expanding fleet. Initially, Octave Energy managed updates using a combination of secure shell (SSH) access and AWS Greengrass, deploying application-level changes to its products running a Linux-based operating system (OS). Operating system updates had no automated pipeline; Octave Energy relied on device-by-device updates via SSH, an error-prone method that left the fleet vulnerable and inconsistent. The combination of SSH and manual intervention worked during the company’s early years, supporting deployments of less than one hundred devices. But as Octave Energy prepared to support its growth and scale, the limits of its initial update strategy became clear.

Without a robust over-the-air (OTA) update strategy, the risk of a fragmented and inconsistent fleet increased significantly. Even small mistakes—such as typos during manual updates—could result in devices diverging from the standard configuration, introducing operational risk and reducing fleet reliability. Moreover, Octave Energy lacked key capabilities such as batch updates, rollback functionality, and OS-level consistency. Octave Energy could not easily recover devices if an update failed or roll out updates in a controlled, fault-tolerant manner. The lack of a robust OTA update mechanism made it difficult for Octave Energy to guarantee maximum uptime and avoid expensive site visits in the event of an inoperable product.

As energy infrastructure becomes more connected and regulated, Octave Energy also recognized the need for a more secure and compliant update mechanism. The gaps in traceability and potential security breaches in its existing update strategy would only grow more critical as its fleet expanded.

Developing an in-house solution was not viable. Octave Energy’s core mission is to promote sustainability through battery systems, not to engineer and maintain an OTA update framework. Octave Energy also found that other options, like Balena, introduced unnecessary complexity and higher costs. Alternative platforms would also require replacing some of Octave’s existing AWS services, breaking alignment with the company’s technical architecture and strategic priorities. Mender, by contrast, offered a focused solution that complemented Octave Energy’s setup without forcing a complete redesign. After considering alternatives, Octave Energy settled on the need for fleet-wide consistency, secure rollback and recovery, and a streamlined update process that allows the team to stay focused on product development and scalable growth. 

OTA Software Update Solution Technical Requirements

	A/B partition architecture for safe updates and automatic rollback
	Fleet-wide deployment to replace device-by-device manual process
	Secure remote access and management capabilities without relying on SSH keys
	Ability to work alongside existing AWS IoT infrastructure without requiring complete platform replacement

After identifying gaps and challenges with their manual and fragmented update process, Octave Energy conducted a thorough evaluation of available OTA solutions. The team considered multiple providers, but ultimately selected Mender for its ability to provide fleet consistency, fail-safe update features, and a process that seamlessly integrated into operations, ensuring scalability while maintaining cost efficiency.

Unlike broader platforms that attempted to replace existing infrastructure, Mender offered a focused and flexible OTA solution that aligned with the long-term goals of Octave Energy. Key features like rollback capabilities and dual partitioning provided the safety and reliability that Octave Energy needed to scale confidently, without the risk of bricking devices or requiring costly field interventions. The features built into Mender offered the team the assurance to move fast without compromising security or stability.

One decisive factor in choosing Mender is its adaptability to Octave Energy’s specific hardware environment, including Revolution Pi (64-bit) and Raspberry Pi Rev5 (64-bit). Few OTA vendors offered out-of-the-box support for both of these hardware environments, and Mender’s ability to deploy correctly across multiple hardware configurations made it a standout choice. Once validated on their target hardware, Mender became the clear frontrunner.

Today, Mender fits cleanly into Octave Energy’s existing development and validation workflows and CI/CD pipeline. Fully deployed, Mender provides a scalable, secure foundation for delivering updates across Octave Energy’s growing fleet, allowing the team to focus on what they do best: building exceptional battery systems.

Realizing robustness and speed at scale

By integrating Mender, Octave Energy moved from a time-consuming, manual update process to a scalable and secure OTA update infrastructure that supports its long-term strategy. The batch update and rollback functionality enables Octave Energy to ensure its entire device fleet receives the latest security patches at once, eliminating manual processes and the risk of typos or configuration drift.

With Mender, Octave Energy significantly improved its security posture, more than doubling its internal security confidence rating. The professional documentation and vulnerability management of the Mender team allow Octave Energy to focus on product development while trusting that device security is handled reliably and consistently.

Today, Octave Energy now anticipates that its OTA update infrastructure will meet business needs for the next five to ten years—more than doubling its previous outlook. Being supported by a resilient infrastructure is critical as Octave Energy scales deployments of its battery systems and moves toward larger fleets. Mender enables them to maintain uptime, reduce update risk, and eliminate manual labor at scale, supporting both operational efficiency and long-term product excellence.

 
Technology ecosystem:

	Revolution Pi 64-bit, Raspberry Pi Rev5 64-bit
	AWS Greengrass for software component deployment
	Comprehensive OTA Update Infrastructure for OS-level updates