Service · App development

Custom IoT app development for your connected devices.

Custom apps for smart home, industrial IoT, fleet and asset tracking, smart building and Bluetooth devices. We build the mobile app, the web dashboard and the cloud backend that connect your sensors, machines and products with an interface your end users genuinely trust.

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An IoT app is more than an interface — it is the top of a three-part structure.

The Internet of Things is the collective term for systems in which physical devices — sensors, machines, vehicles, buildings, consumer devices — are connected to a digital layer that displays, controls or orchestrates their data. For the end user, an IoT app is often the only visible part: the smart thermostat in the living room, the dashboard on which a fleet manager tracks his vehicles, or the mobile app with which a maintenance engineer reads a sensor on a machine.

That app, however, sits on top of two layers that are just as crucial. The device layer consists of the hardware itself — sensors, actuators, controllers, sometimes a microcontroller with embedded firmware — and it determines which data is available at all and how reliable it is. The connectivity layer ensures that data leaves the device: over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy, LoRa, 4G, 5G or NB-IoT, and via protocols such as MQTT, CoAP or HTTP. Only on top of those two layers sits the app layer — and that is where our core lies.

We mainly build that app layer: a reliable mobile app, a web dashboard for administrators, a scalable cloud back end that ingests and analyses device data, and the integrations that connect everything to your existing IT, from CRM to ERP to a maintenance management system. Where needed, we handle the device and connectivity layer together with hardware and firmware partners, so you have one partner directing the entire project.

Our approach in four points.

App-first

We optimise for the end user, not the hardware supplier

Cross-platform

iOS and Android from a single codebase via Flutter or React Native

Cloud-native

AWS IoT Core, Azure IoT Hub or GCP — depending on your stack

Secure by design

Device authentication, TLS, OTA updates and GDPR built in from sprint one

The IoT app projects we build.

IoT is broad — we are usually asked about three patterns. Almost every project is a combination of two or more of them.

Engagement 01

Consumer app for smart home and Bluetooth devices

End users, App Store and Google Play

A consumer app that lets your users control their thermostat at home, dim their lighting, view their security camera, or pair a Bluetooth product such as a hearing aid, fitness device, BLE beacon or smart lock. At its core is a reliable onboarding flow in which the user discovers the device, pairs it with their Wi-Fi network or phone, and then operates it without fuss.

For BLE products, a segment we are increasingly asked to build for, we build the full Bluetooth handshake: scanning, pairing, GATT service discovery, characteristic read and write, and notifications. This includes the edge cases that often cause problems in practice: reconnecting after backgrounding, a foreground service on Android for long-running connections, and clear error handling when the connection drops. An app that keeps working when the user is just out of range or briefly picks up their phone.

BLE pairingWi-Fi provisioningPush notificationsApp Store publicationMulti-deviceFamily sharing

Engagement 02

Industrial IoT and predictive maintenance

Machine monitoring for manufacturing and service

For manufacturers, machine builders and maintenance organisations that want to connect their machines to a mobile or web dashboard. The chain typically runs from an industrial sensor (vibration, temperature, energy, acoustics) via a gateway or PLC integration to a time-series database in the cloud, and from there to a dashboard that shows planners, technicians and management the same data in a form that suits their role.

We often integrate this IoT platform directly with a maintenance management system and with broader manufacturing software: as soon as a sensor deviates from its baseline, an inspection task is created automatically in the CMMS. For machine builders with an installed base at end customers, we build a white-label app through which their customers can see the status of their installations themselves, a service layer on top of the product that adds value to maintenance contracts.

Vibration monitoringOPC UA / ModbusTime-seriesAnomaly detectionCMMS integrationWhite-label customer portal

Engagement 03

Fleet, asset and logistics tracking

Vehicles, containers, equipment and cold chain

For transport companies, equipment rental firms, infrastructure managers and logistics operators who want to track vehicles, containers, machines or valuable goods, not just their location but also their condition, usage and status. We build the mobile app for drivers and mechanics, the web dashboard for planners and management, and the backend that combines GPS, telematics and sensor data into one workable whole.

For cold chain and pharma, temperature tracking with deviation alerts is a standard part of the scope; for equipment rental, the focus lies on operating hours, location and theft prevention. These projects almost always connect to your existing planning and invoicing systems. See also our page on fleet management apps and the broader theme of smart API integrations, which is how we build these integrations.

GPS trackingTelematicsCold chainGeofencingOperating hoursERP integration

What you have at the end.

A working IoT app in production, plus everything needed to run, develop and scale it yourself.

iOS and Android mobile app

Built from a single Flutter or React Native codebase, or native where truly necessary.

Web dashboard

For administrators, planners and management: the same data, a different role.

Cloud backend

Device ingestion, time-series storage, analytics and APIs for your stack.

Codebase + documentation

Full source code, infrastructure as code and an architecture overview.

Managed service (optional)

Monitoring, OTA updates, security patches and ongoing development.

When a custom IoT app is the right choice.

Four patterns in which a standard platform gets stuck and custom software pays off — based on the projects we see in practice.

Hardware

Your device is your product

If you bring a physical product to market yourself — a smart thermostat, a BLE fitness device, an industrial sensor, a wearable — the app is an inseparable part of your brand. A rented dashboard from a platform provider has a different logo, different behaviour and different priorities from yours. A custom app gives you control over the end-user experience and keeps the IP within your organisation.

Integration

Deep integrations with your IT landscape

When an IoT installation needs to exchange data with your own ERP, CRM, planning, invoicing or maintenance system, standard IoT platforms often get stuck at the last mile. A custom backend with APIs that fit your existing systems exactly saves you from endlessly exporting data via intermediate steps.

Scale

Many devices or many events per device

For consumer products with tens of thousands of active devices, or for industrial installations generating thousands of events per machine each day, the choice between platforms such as AWS IoT Core, Azure IoT Hub or a self-managed MQTT cluster becomes very concrete. We help you weigh that decision together with your architect, with an eye on costs at scale, not just for the first thousand devices.

Compliance

Privacy or sector requirements that generic platforms do not cover

Health tech under the MDR, energy or water meters under sector regulation, smart buildings under the GDPR, critical infrastructure under NIS2 or IEC 62443: for IoT with sensitive data or safety implications, audit trails, data residency and device attestation are not optional. Custom software lets you make all of that explicit.

Modules that appear in almost every IoT app.

The building blocks we draw on. The combination and depth vary from project to project.

Onboarding

Device discovery and pairing

The first five minutes of a user's experience are crucial. A smooth onboarding flow, whether Bluetooth scanning, Wi-Fi provisioning or QR code pairing, determines whether a user keeps using your product or lets it gather dust in a drawer. This includes clear error handling if pairing fails and a simple flow for adding a second device.

Real-time

Live updates and push notifications

Sensor values that update live without the user having to refresh, alerts when a threshold is exceeded, and push notifications on iOS and Android via Firebase Cloud Messaging or APNs. For industrial applications with WebSockets or MQTT over WebSocket; for consumer apps usually via push-driven sync.

Offline

Local caching and sync

A good IoT app remains usable in a tunnel, a lift, a remote meter cupboard or a production hall without coverage. Local caching of last known values, a queue of outgoing commands and conflict-free synchronisation once the network returns. For BLE apps, this also applies to the Bluetooth connection itself: the app needs to know what it can keep doing without the server.

Dashboard

Visualisation and history

Time-series charts for temperature, energy, operating hours or vibration data; heatmaps for smart buildings; map views for fleet and asset tracking; role-specific dashboards for management versus operations. Custom where it matters, Grafana embed where a standard solution is perfectly adequate.

Auth

Users, roles and device access

User authentication via email, magic link, social login or SSO; role management for accounts with multiple staff members; device sharing for consumer flows in which several family members operate the same device. Includes an audit log of who accessed which device and when.

OTA

Over-the-air firmware updates

For products with embedded firmware: an OTA update pipeline with integrity checks, a rollback mechanism and staged rollout. We typically build the cloud side and the app side of that pipeline; the embedded firmware side we handle where needed together with a hardware or firmware partner.

Analytics

Time-series, anomaly detection and rules

A time-series database — InfluxDB, TimescaleDB or AWS Timestream — as the foundation, with a rule engine on top that detects deviations from baseline and takes action on them: a notification to the user, a work order in the CMMS, a webhook to your own system.

Integrations

APIs to your existing stack

REST and webhook integrations with your CRM, ERP, ticketing system, planning or invoicing. For industrial IoT, this often also runs in the other direction: data from your production systems that enriches the IoT app with context, such as which product is currently running on this machine.

Security

Device authentication, TLS and encryption

X.509 certificates per device for mutual TLS, encryption at rest and in transit, key management via AWS KMS, Azure Key Vault or HashiCorp Vault, and a security baseline based on IEC 62443 or the NIST IoT framework. Privacy by design for consumer data, GDPR-compliant logging for personal device data.

How an IoT app project runs.

01Introduction→ 02Device and architecture review→ 03Build in sprints→ 04Rollout and management

Step 01

Introduction

A no-obligation conversation about your device, your end users and your existing IT. What data is there, what is missing, and who will need to work with it later.

Step 02

Device and architecture review

We model the chain: device, gateway, protocol, cloud, app. We choose the platform, whether AWS, Azure, GCP or a custom MQTT setup, and the interfaces with your existing systems.

Step 03

Building in sprints

A working app in two-week sprints. We test early with real hardware rather than simulators — only on real devices do you see BLE quirks and network edge cases.

Step 04

Rollout and management

Phased move to production: first a pilot group of end users or a single installation. App Store and Play Store publication. Ongoing management and expansion.

What we integrate with and build.

For each project we choose what suits your hardware, your scale and your existing IT. For the broader context of where this project fits, see our page on app development. For the overlap with service and maintenance software: manufacturing software.

App & frontend

FlutterReact NativeSwiftKotlinNext.jsReactBLE stack

Cloud & data

AWS IoT CoreAzure IoT HubGCP IoTMQTTInfluxDBTimescaleDBKinesis / Pub/SubGrafana

Connectivity and security

BLE / BluetoothWi-FiLoRaWANNB-IoT / 4G / 5GCoAPX.509 / mTLSOTA updatesIEC 62443

Frequently asked questions about IoT app development.

What exactly is an IoT app, and how does it differ from a standard mobile app?

An IoT app — Internet of Things app — is a mobile or web application that communicates directly or indirectly with physical devices: sensors, machines, vehicles, buildings or consumer devices. The difference from a standard app lies not in the user interface but in the chain behind it: a device layer (the hardware), a connectivity layer (BLE, Wi-Fi, LoRa, mobile networks) and a cloud back end for data ingestion and analysis. This makes building one more complex than a purely web-driven app, and places additional demands on offline behaviour, security and real-time updates.

Do you also handle the hardware and firmware, or only the app?

Our core expertise is the app layer: the mobile app, web dashboard and cloud back end. We do not handle firmware and embedded development in-house — programming a microcontroller or designing a PCB. For projects that require this too, we work with established hardware and firmware partners whom we know well. You then have a single lead partner coordinating the entire process, rather than two agencies working in parallel. For projects where the hardware already exists — a Bosch sensor, a manufacturer's wearable, an industrial controller — we build on the existing protocols.

Flutter, React Native or native iOS and Android — what do you recommend?

For most IoT apps, Flutter or React Native are excellent choices: one codebase for iOS and Android, a faster time to market, and by now excellent support for BLE, push notifications and background tasks. We choose native development — Swift for iOS, Kotlin for Android — when deep integration with OS-specific features is required, when performance requirements are very strict, or for Bluetooth cases where we need control down to the lowest level. We advise per project based on your device, your target audience and your maintenance preferences — not on a principled preference for any one approach.

How reliable is Bluetooth Low Energy in practice?

BLE is fundamentally reliable, but in practice there is a gap between the demo and a product that thousands of end users rely on for months. The difficulties lie in the edge cases: reconnecting after the app is suspended on iOS, foreground services on Android for long-running connections, handling multiple devices in parallel, and dependable pairing across all phone models. That is why we always test on real hardware and on multiple physical devices, as simulators do not reveal these problems. A well-built BLE app never fails outright: if the connection drops, the user receives clear feedback and a recovery flow is immediately available.

Which cloud platform do you recommend: AWS IoT Core, Azure IoT Hub or GCP IoT?

All three are production-ready. We usually choose based on where your existing IT sits: if your organisation already uses Azure, IoT Hub is the obvious choice thanks to shared identity management and governance. For AWS-based teams, we almost always opt for IoT Core combined with Timestream or TimescaleDB. GCP IoT was long an elegant option, but Google has since retired its managed IoT service, so we now build at the MQTT/Pub-Sub level instead. For projects with very specific scaling requirements, or a wish to keep data sovereignty closer to home, we occasionally host a dedicated MQTT cluster with a European cloud provider.

How do you handle security and GDPR compliance for an IoT app?

Security is built into the architecture, not added in a final sprint. As standard we apply: X.509 certificates per device for mutual TLS, encryption at rest and in transit, keys held in a managed keystore (KMS, Key Vault, Vault), an audit log of device and user actions, and an OTA update pipeline with integrity checks so you can patch firmware vulnerabilities. For GDPR: data minimisation as a starting point, a record of processing activities for the device data, explicit consent flows in the app and — for large or sensitive projects — a DPIA. For industrial IoT we follow the IEC 62443 framework; for health tech and critical infrastructure we look at the relevant sector requirements.

What determines the cost of an IoT app project?

Four factors usually weigh most heavily: the number of device types the app must support (one uniform flow versus multiple product lines), the complexity of connectivity (purely cloud-driven, or also BLE with an onboarding flow), the depth of the cloud layer (visualisation only, or also analytics, anomaly detection, OTA and multi-tenancy), and the integrations with your existing IT. A Bluetooth app for a single consumer product is a different project from an industrial platform with thousands of gateways, ERP integration and compliance requirements. After a short scoping phase, we provide an honest estimate. We do not publish a price list up front, because without your context any figure is a guess.

How long will it take to go live with a first version?

A clearly defined first version — for example a consumer app with BLE onboarding for one product line, or an industrial dashboard on existing sensor data — can be running in a pilot within a few sprints. A broader project with multiple device types, a custom cloud backend, an OTA pipeline and deep integrations requires several sprints. We always work in phases: first the core with a limited pilot group, then scale up. Only once the core runs stably do we unlock the next layer.

Talk to us about your IoT app.

A thirty-minute introductory conversation, no obligation. We listen to your device, your end user and your cloud choices — and give direction you can use, even if it turns out a standard platform is the best route.

Schedule an introductory call Email fabian.vandijk@appfront.nl