The Device Chronicle sat down with Nuno Mota, Head of Platform Engineering at Nonius Labs, to discuss how his team modernised their edge infrastructure using Yocto Linux and Mender Enterprise to achieve secure, seamless, and automated Over-the-Air (OTA) updates across global live environments.
Special thanks to Marisa Pires, Marketing Manager at Nonius Labs, for facilitating this interview.
Founded in 2005, Nonius has established itself as a global leader in digital infrastructure, serving 5,900 sites and over 635,000 rooms across 118 countries with a network of more than 50 partners. Serving hospitality, maritime, and healthcare sectors, the company’s comprehensive portfolio spans TV & Streaming, Wi-Fi & Networks, Voice, Digital Signage, and Guest Engagement solutions.
At the core of this technical engine is Nonius Labs, a dedicated R&D division responsible for building the software platforms that connect the company’s vast ecosystem. Nonius Labs develops four primary software platforms acting as the crucial glue between API feeds and AI layers, managing integrations across more than 200 partner technologies, from property management systems (PMS) to smart locks.
Their cloud footprint features CloudOS, a containerized infrastructure supporting SaaS and hybrid deployments, alongside VisionOS, a specialized middleware layer for embedded TVs and set-top boxes (STBs) built on third-party SDKs. However, managing physical hardware at the edge presents a distinct set of operational challenges.
Nuno Mota: Our edge appliances operate in mission-critical environments - hotels, cruise ships, healthcare facilities - where 24/7 uptime is mandatory. Guests expect TV services, Wi-Fi, and interactive digital features to work seamlessly at all times. Downtime or disrupted services are unacceptable, so any software update or maintenance must occur without risking system stability or guest experience.
Nuno Mota: As the company grew, our edge deployment suffered from OS fragmentation. We were running a mix of Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora servers. This operating system sprawl created significant maintenance deficits. Updates had to be executed manually, server by server.
We initially used an OTA client called swupdate with Buildroot OS, but as our device ecosystem expanded - encompassing edge appliances, caching units, transcoders, and gateways across both x86 (Intel) and ARM architectures - we realized we needed a more cohesive, enterprise-grade architecture.
Nuno Mota: We made the strategic decision to merge all our disparate edge platforms into a single, unified distribution: Nonius EdgeOS, built on top of Yocto Linux.
When evaluating update management, Mender was a clear choice. It offered tight, native integration with Yocto and robust A/B atomic rollbacks. By combining Yocto and Mender Enterprise, we consolidated all our hardware onto a single OS baseline, enabling standardized OTA fleet management across diverse Intel and ARM appliances while sharing the same underlying open-source software stack.
Nuno Mota: Security and risk control are central to our deployment workflow. Once software passes development and QA approval, release artifacts are pushed directly to our Mender Enterprise cloud server. From there, our Customer Success Engineers manage the rollouts in controlled phases.
Instead of triggering a high-risk "upgrade blast" to all devices at once, we use Dynamic Groups in Mender to perform phased canary deployments. We test new releases on small subsets of devices before expanding the rollout. If an anomaly occurs during an update, Mender’s best-in-class A/B dual-partition strategy automatically rolls the device back to its last known good state and logs the error output. That error log visibility is invaluable for our engineering team to diagnose issues quickly without affecting the end client. Nonius developers can also use the Mender APIs to extend port forwarding so they can do advanced troubleshooting on the appliances.
For Nonius Labs, consolidating Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and Buildroot systems into a single Yocto-based distribution, Nonius EdgeOS, changed how the team manages its global footprint. Updates no longer happen manually, server by server. Releases now move from QA to Mender Enterprise and roll out in phased canary deployments using Dynamic Groups. If an update fails, A/B rollback returns the device to its last known good state, and the logged error output gives engineers what they need to diagnose the issue. For edge appliances in hotels, cruise ships, and healthcare facilities, where downtime directly affects guests and patients, controlled and recoverable updates are an operational requirement.
The Device Chronicle thanks Nuno Mota for sharing the Nonius Labs approach to scalable OTA fleet management, and Marisa Pires for facilitating the interview. To learn more about Nonius and its hospitality, maritime, and healthcare solutions, visit nonius.com. For more information on scalable software update management, visit mender.io.