Developing RTOS for Activity Trackers
We developed the RTOS (Real-Time Operating System) for our activity trackers using the Zephyr kernel and its libraries. This is another lesson I learned the hard way by spending too much time developing a system that wasn't essential.
As a software developer working on the side to develop pet activity trackers, I wanted our software stack to be top-notch (much like many other developers when they start building their first product or startup). When it comes to firmware development, there were official SDKs from each chip manufacturer, but we chose to go with our own RTOS based on Zephyr. Why Zephyr? Because of its Linux Foundation backing, support for multiple protocols, lightweight kernel, OS APIs, and examples of complex OS features in their documentation 😊.
I found a great developer remotely who was an expert in Zephyr. As he started building, the more features he added—around Messaging Queues, Semaphores, OS Threads, Mutexes, NVM storage, and DTS bindings—the more I fell in love with RTOS development.
