Choosing Your IoT Software Foundation: Bare Metal, RTOS, or Embedded Linux?

In the world of IoT development, the "Full Stack" reality means that a failure in any layer - hardware, firmware, connectivity, or cloud - leads to a total product failure. One of the most critical decisions an engineering team faces early in the development cycle is choosing the software foundation. Should you go with Bare Metal, an RTOS, or Embedded Linux?

This choice isn't just about code; it’s about risk mitigation, hardware constraints, and long-term scalability. Here is how to navigate the technical divide.

1. Bare Metal: The Technical Craftsman’s Choice

Bare metal development involves writing code that runs directly on the hardware without an underlying operating system. This is the domain of specialized microcontrollers like the PIC16 or dedicated BLDC driver MCUs.

• When to choose it: Ideal for simple, low-power, and cost-sensitive devices where every microamp of battery life counts or device has to perform single task with perfect precision.
• The Advantage: You have total control over the hardware and minimal overhead.
• The Trade-off: Increasing complexity makes management difficult. Tasks like managing a network stack or complex file systems become arduous without OS-provided abstractions.

2. RTOS (Real-Time Operating System): The Deterministic Middle Ground

An RTOS provides a scheduler to manage multiple tasks, ensuring that time-critical operations - like motor control or sensor sampling - happen exactly when they need to. Common choices at Hacod include Zephyr and FreeRTOS.

• When to choose it: When your device requires multi-tasking and connectivity (like BLE, LoRaWAN, or Thread) but still needs to run on resource-constrained hardware.
• The Advantage: It offers a balance of "low-latency" performance and "deterministic" behavior. It also provides better abstraction than bare metal, speeding up development.
• Modern Security: We often leverage the Rust programming language for RTOS-based firmware to eliminate memory safety vulnerabilities at the compiler level.

3. Embedded Linux: The Enterprise-Scale Powerhouse

For devices requiring high-level abstractions, complex networking, or multimedia, Embedded Linux (often running on ARM A7/M4 cores) is the gold standard.

• When to choose it: If your product requires a full UI, extensive connectivity protocols (MQTT, cellular IoT), or Edge AI capabilities like TinyML.
• The Advantage: Access to a massive ecosystem of libraries and drivers, which significantly reduces time-to-market for feature-rich applications.
• The Trade-off: Higher power consumption and hardware costs. It is generally not suitable for simple battery-powered sensors.

The Decision Matrix: Which is Right for You?

The Hacod Approach: Engineering for the "Valley of Death"

At Hacod, we understand that 75% of IoT projects fail before mass production. We mitigate this risk by treating firmware as a foundational layer rather than an afterthought.

Whether we are engineering responsive, low-latency interfaces for Matter-enabled ecosystems or migrating legacy C/C++ firmware to Rust for mission-critical security, our focus remains on Design for Manufacturing (DFM). We ensure your prototype isn't just a demo - it’s a factory-ready product.

Ready to build the connected future?

Contact our engineers for a technical feasibility assessment