Hardware + Mobile · BLE Mesh control
Control every heater. Anywhere. Anytime.
Calcana's innovative heating technology deserved an equally innovative user experience. We developed native iOS and Android applications that connect directly to custom hardware through BLE Mesh for precise, real-time control.
Calcana Industries
Look up and feel the heat.
Sector
Gas-fired infrared heating · hardware + companion app
Engagement
Native app + control + diagnostics
Duration
Multi-phase build
Platforms
Native iOS + Android
Connectivity
BLE Mesh → custom control boards
Control
1–100% · single unit or group
Diagnostics
Packet-level instrumentation
Headline outcome
App cleared · hardware fault isolated
The client
Premium hardware, a second-rate app.
— VP Product, Calcana Industries
“The hardware felt premium. The app had to feel that way too, and it had to tell us the truth when something was broken.”
Calcana builds some of the best infrared patio heaters on the market. The kind that make a rooftop patio usable in October. But the promise, “look up and feel the heat,” only half-landed: the heaters were beautiful, an easy way that controlled them was not.
When something misbehaved, nobody could say what the fault was. Support became a guessing game.
The challenge
Control, scale, and honesty.
The limitations weren’t failures. They were ceilings. Individually manageable, but together they made the system harder to scale and harder to hand off than it needed to be.
01
Control that had to feel instant
Over a wireless mesh, even small delays make a dial feel broken. The experience had to be immediate, every time.
02
A patio is not one heater
Customers think in zones — the bar, the lounge, the whole deck. Group control had to be as natural as controlling a single unit.
03
“Managing vs maintaining”
Customers wanted ease of use to manage their heaters, control comfort and do it quickly.
— VP Product, Calcana Industries
“We didn’t want an app managed one heater. We wanted one that managed everything.”
The approach
We built native, then made the system tell the truth.
Rather than ship a hybrid wrapper, we built true native apps for the real-time feel — then instrumented the BLE Mesh at the packet level so any fault could be located, not argued about.
01
Map the mesh
Document every board, every hop, every failure mode in the wireless layer.
02
Model the control surface
Design unit-level and group-level control as one coherent mental model.
03
Build native, not hybrid
Native iOS and Android for the instant, premium feel the hardware deserved.
04
Instrument at the packet level
Capture what was actually sent and acknowledged — not just what the UI assumed.
05
Prove the app
Use the instrumentation to clear the software with evidence.
06
Hand the hardware team the truth
Deliver packet-level findings that isolated the real fault.
Design decisions that made a miss hard.
Feel
Native over hybrid
A wrapped web app could never hit the latency budget. Native was non-negotiable for control that feels instant.
Model
Group as a first-class citizen
Zones aren’t a power-user feature bolted on later — they’re how customers actually think, so we designed for them first.
Truth
Packet-level instrumentation
Every command’s round trip is measured, so “the app is slow” is not an excuse for ease of use.
Trust
Fail visible, not silent
When a heater can’t be reached, the app says so plainly — no fake confirmations, ever.
The solution
One app, every heater, the whole patio.
01 · The control app
From a single dial to the whole deck.
02 · BLE Mesh layer
Straight to the metal
03 · Diagnostics console
Proof, not opinion
04 · Group & scenes
Operator buy-in starts at the design stage
The results
A product that finally feels like one.
Metric
Before
After
Change
Metric
Control granularity
Before
on / off
After
1–100%
Change
full range
Metric
Group control
Before
none
After
zones + whole-deck
Change
new
Metric
Command feedback
Before
assumed
After
measured (packet)
Change
provable
Metric
Fault diagnosis
Before
guesswork
After
packet-level
Change
isolated
Metric
App-caused faults (post-instrumentation)
Before
unknown
After
zero
Change
cleared
Metric
Platforms shipped
Before
partial
After
iOS + Android
Change
native
The packet-level capture cleared the app and isolated the fault to hardware — ending a months-long blame loop in an afternoon.
Customers now run an entire patio — multiple zones, dozens of heaters — from one screen, the way they always pictured it.
Support calls shifted from “the app is broken” to specific, reproducible reports the team could act on.
The companion app finally matches the premium feel of the hardware it controls.
It stopped being a debate. The app showed exactly where the packets were dying, and it wasn't us.
For the first time the software and the hardware feel like the same company made them.
I can warm the whole deck before the first guest sits down, or dial the lounge back to eco. From my phone.
What’s next · Phase 2
Where the platform goes next.
01
Scheduling & scenes
Time-based and presence-based heating, so a patio warms itself before opening.
02
Energy insight
Per-zone runtime and consumption, turning comfort into a number owners can manage.
03
Fleet view for dealers
A multi-site console so installers can monitor and support every deployment they’ve sold.
This is our impact
We gave Calcana’s brilliant hardware the software it deserved.
Calcana’s heaters were excellent — the app just wasn’t theirs yet. We built native iOS and Android control that talks straight to their custom boards over BLE Mesh, then proved at the packet level that the app was doing its job and isolated the real issue.
Heat at
your fingertips
your fingertips
Customers control one heater or the whole group, 1–100%, from their phone.
Proven, not
blamed
blamed
Packet-level diagnostics cleared the app and pinpointed the fault to hardware.
One premium
product
product
