Nerves Firmware
Embedded Elixir on the BEAM: supervised, fault-tolerant device software on a minimal Nerves Linux image. GenServers for hardware, Circuits for GPIO/I²C/SPI/UART, and a system that restarts cleanly instead of bricking.
Embedded Elixir
Nerves · BEAM · NervesHub
Nerves development & consulting.
Production embedded systems built on Nerves and Elixir — fault-tolerant firmware, over-the-air updates, and a clean path from prototype to a deployed fleet. The reliability of the BEAM, running on real hardware.
Nerves Development & Consulting
Where real hardware meets production Elixir.
Nerves is the sweet spot between two of Big Cove's strengths: building real hardware and shipping production Elixir. We design the board, write the firmware in Elixir on Nerves, wire up over-the-air updates with NervesHub, and connect devices to a Phoenix backend in the cloud.
That means one team, from silicon to server — no handoff between the people who know the hardware and the people who know the platform. For connected products that have to stay up, update safely, and scale, it's a combination very few shops can offer.
Capabilities
From the board to the backend.
OTA & NervesHub
Fleet-wide over-the-air firmware updates with NervesHub — signed, reliable, and recoverable, with automatic rollback if a device fails to boot. Push fixes and features to deployed devices without a truck roll.
Hardware bring-up
Custom boards brought to life on Nerves: device drivers, peripheral integration, and a system image tuned for your hardware. We design the board and write the firmware that runs on it — the whole vessel.
Cloud integration
Devices that talk to a Phoenix / Elixir backend — telemetry, remote control, and real-time dashboards over channels. The same language end to end, from the sensor on the board to the browser.
The exact shape of a Nerves product
Big Cove is unusual: we ship the hardware and the cloud. TrackMyWake runs on-vessel devices reporting to a multi-tenant cloud platform; the Nemo Gateway is connected hardware built to survive the field. Nerves is the framework that unites exactly those two worlds — and it's home turf.
FAQ
Nerves, answered.
What is Nerves?
Nerves is an open-source framework for building and deploying embedded software in Elixir. It packages the Erlang VM (the BEAM) with a minimal Linux into a small, robust firmware image for devices like the Raspberry Pi and custom boards — giving you Elixir's productivity and the BEAM's fault tolerance on real hardware.
Why use Elixir / Nerves for embedded instead of C?
For connected products, the BEAM's supervision means a crashed component restarts cleanly instead of bricking the device; concurrency is first-class; and over-the-air updates are built in. You still drop to C or Rust where you need raw performance — but for networked, long-lived, fleet-deployed devices, Nerves is a strong fit.
Can you do over-the-air (OTA) firmware updates?
Yes — via NervesHub, hosted or self-hosted: signed, full-image OTA updates with automatic rollback if a device fails to boot, so you can update a fleet safely without physical access.
Can you take a Nerves prototype to production?
Yes — from a Raspberry Pi proof-of-concept to a custom board, a hardened firmware image, OTA infrastructure, and the cloud backend behind it. We cover the whole path, in-house.
Do you build the cloud side too?
Yes. We build Phoenix / Elixir backends and dashboards, so your devices and your platform speak the same language end to end. See our TrackMyWake hardware-to-cloud platform.
Nerves Consulting
Building a connected product and considering Nerves?
Building a connected product and considering Nerves?
Let's talk.
Tell me about the device, the fleet, and where it needs to run — and I'll tell you whether Nerves is the right call, and how I'd build it.
Set a course info@bigcove.io