This presentation is from my time leading GridPoint's Nerves firmware team, where we migrated an existing device onto Nerves, and created a greenfield Nerves device. GridPoint helps businesses, like restaurants and retailers, manage their energy expenses. These businesses need to optimize the balance of energy savings with patron comfort. Additionally, they can participate in demand response programs, earning incentives for reducing energy usage during peak demand times. GridPoint achieves this with their energy management controller, which acts as the site's brain, connected to thermostats and other devices, and relays that data to the cloud. This setup allows customers to monitor and control energy use remotely and track their savings.
The existing platform had become dated, leading to reliability and deployment issues. To address these challenges, GridPoint adopted Nerves, a framework for running Elixir on embedded systems. This transition involved significant modifications, including updating hardware support and ensuring the devices could be maintained and upgraded remotely. The new system integrates various peripherals, such as thermostats and load meters. Data is aggregated and pushed from the controller to a Phoenix web server, stored in a time series database, and accessible through a web dashboard or mobile app.
The project also involved updating the controller's user interface to Scenic, an Elixir UI framework designed for embedded devices. GridPoint aims to minimize the demand on customer support by creating a more user-friendly interface and providing remote troubleshooting capabilities through Nerves Hub. The controller runs the Microchip SAMA5D27 processor, which lacks a 3D graphics accelerator, and therefore initially faced performance issues with Scenic's OpenGL driver. Jon Ringle contributed a Cairo implementation to scenic_driver_local, significantly improving rendering performance and making Scenic viable for microprocessors without 3D acceleration. The new wireless architecture of the system will also streamline installations and reduce costs, ensuring seamless operation and maintenance of the energy management controllers in various commercial settings.