FlexStr8 SmartLabel
For FlexStr8, Inc.
Firmware and client-integration library for FlexStr8's SmartLabel temperature and humidity logger — a multi-year engagement that grew with the customer relationship.
Context
SmartLabel is FlexStr8’s thin disposable temperature and humidity logger — a label that ships inside packaging and is read over NFC by a phone or a host application. Applications during Embedded Crew’s engagement included cold-chain shipments of human and veterinary pharmaceuticals, and a pandemic-era diagnostic-puck variant in which the label verified sample integrity from at-home blood collection through return transit to the testing lab.
Scope
Embedded Crew’s involvement began with a single firmware bug — an intermittent failure that had blocked the product. After it was diagnosed and fixed, scope expanded over the years that followed:
- On-device firmware in C, on an MSP430-architecture microcontroller (non-TI silicon).
- The client-integration library — the production deliverable that any phone or desktop application uses to discover, communicate with, and extract data from a SmartLabel, over NFC.
- Reference Android (Java) and Windows (MFC) applications wrapping the library, intended for FlexStr8’s own customers as integration starting points.
- Schematic-bug corrections to the third-party PCB design, surfaced through firmware work and folded back into the hardware revisions.
Result
The engagement spanned multiple years, with scope expanding from the original firmware fix into the library and reference applications.