Londinium, a lever espresso machine producer, and Fracino, a UK award-winning manufacturer of cappuccino and espresso machines, were looking to create a lever espresso machine that could create ultra-light nordic style espresso roasts, while still delivering on a traditional Italian blend and everything in between. They wanted to help customers minimize development costs and time to market, giving them at the same time detailed control over machine settings via a beautiful and easy-to-use mobile app.

Fracino used the Blynk IoT platform to build a beautiful, user-friendly app, powered by Espressif’s flagship SoC, ESP32. The resulting app connects espresso machines to the Internet and allows users to change various machine settings in order to experiment with taste.

In this case, the high integration of ESP32 meant that all software components such as connecting a device to a Wi-Fi network, registering users, and scheduling were available out-of-the box, so that Blynk IoT was then able to quickly create the end-customer application and help Fracino focus more on what they do best: build premium espresso machines.

 ESP32-based IoT solution created by Blynk for Fracino and Londinium Espresso. Photograph courtesy of Blynk.

For scheduling the remote machine start, Fracino used a built-in automation module provided by Blynk. This module allows cloud-based or stored-on-machine scheduling which operates even when there is no Internet available. This scheduling can even be tied to a specific time at the customer's location.

Additionally, Londinium gets extensive data insights on the usage of their machines, which was previously impossible. This will enable product enhancements in the future. Firmware over-the-air updates are also provided by Blynk and any improvements can be deployed to devices and apps in no time.