Deviceplane wants to provide over-the-air updates for Linux edge devices

Deviceplane, a member of Y Combinator Winter 2020 class, is developing a set of open-source tools for managing, monitoring, and updating Linux devices running at the edge.

“We solve the difficult infrastructure problems that all these companies face, including network conductivity, SSH access, remote update orchestration and deployment, hosting, application monitoring, and access and security control. It is 100% open source, available under the Apache license. You can host it yourself or run it on a hosted version,” founder and CEO Josh Curl told TechCrunch.

He has seen it work with a variety of equipment, including robotics, consumer devices, drones, autonomous vehicles and medical devices.

Curl, who has a background in software engineering, got interested in the problem and discovered that most companies were using proprietary solutions. He said that after studying the problem, he discovered that the set of infrastructure resources required to manage, monitor and update these devices didn’t change much across industries.

Over-the-air updates are an important part of keeping these devices secure, which is a major concern with edge devices. “Security is a challenge, and one of the basic principles of security is simply updateability. So if you as a company are hesitant to update because you’re afraid of something breaking or you don’t have the infrastructure to do those updates, that makes you hesitant to do the updates and that slows down the pace of development,” Curl said.

Customers can connect to the Deviceplane API via Wi-Fi, cellular, or Ethernet. If you’re worried about someone getting the hang of it, Curl says the software assigns your device a unique identity that’s hard to fake.

“Devices are assigned an identity in Deviceplane and this identity authorizes them to make API calls to Deviceplane. The access key to this identity is stored only on the device, making it impossible for someone else to spoof this device without physical access to It.

“Even if someone were able to spoof this identity, they would not be able to deploy malicious code on a spoofed device. “Devices never have access to control what software they run – that’s something that can only be done by the developer who pushes updates to the devices,” Curl explained.

The company intends to offer both hosted and installed versions of the software as open source, which it sees as crucial. It hopes to make money by supporting companies that perform more complex installations, but believes that offering the software as open source will spark developer interest and help build a community around the project.

As for joining YC, Curl said he had friends who had participated in the program in the past and recommended he join as well. Curl sees being part of a cohort as a way to build her business. “We were excited to connect with the YC network and to leverage that network in the future. I think YC has funded a lot of companies in the past that could be Deviceplane customers, which could accelerate growth in the future. “

Curl wasn’t ready to share download numbers yet, but it’s still an early-stage startup looking to build a business. It uses an open source model to generate interest while helping solve a difficult problem.