Case Study

Bootloader Updates for Emergency Response Vehicles

Bright Ideas, Built to Respond

Bringing high-reliability embedded systems to the world of emergency vehicle lighting.

The Client

HiViz Lighting is a mission-driven company dedicated to improving safety and efficiency for fire and emergency services through best-in-class scene lighting and equipment mounting solutions. Rooted in a deep understanding of first responder needs, HiViz delivers rugged, high-output LED lighting systems (designed and manufactured in the USA) that help crews work faster, safer, and with greater visibility in critical moments. Their commitment to quality, innovation, and service has made them a trusted partner to fire departments and emergency vehicle manufacturers nationwide.

The Challenge

HiViz needed a robust and user-friendly way to update firmware on their embedded lighting controllers—devices deployed on emergency vehicles where reliability and uptime are non-negotiable. Their team aimed to simplify field updates while minimizing risk and complexity wherever possible.

The core challenges included:

• Bootloader Design: Developing a reliable and compact bootloader that could safely manage firmware updates without bricking devices or requiring special interfaces.

• Field-Friendly Updates: Updates had to be intuitive for non-technical users in the field.

• Fail-Safe Operation: Ensuring the update process was resilient to interruption; guaranteeing a working firmware image under all conditions, even if power was lost mid-update.

• Long-Term Maintainability: Providing a firmware architecture that would be secure, scalable, and easy to maintain across a product line deployed in demanding, real-world conditions.

Our Approach

The engagement began with a focused 2-week scoping and architecture assessment phase, where LeafLabs worked closely with HiViz to map out system requirements, identify integration risks, and define a long-term update strategy tailored to their product line. This upfront investment ensured tight alignment across teams and de-risked the development of a bootloader that would meet both technical and operational needs.

From there, we implemented a lightweight, fail-safe bootloader and update mechanism tailored to HiViz’s use in the field. The system allows firmware updates, and the controller handles validation, flashing, and reboot automatically—no special tools or programming cables required. Now, future features and requests are possible for existing light systems.

This bootloader was engineered with real-world conditions in mind—from noisy power supplies to unpredictable environments.

The Impact

The result is a more reliable firmware update process for HiViz and their customers. This updated infrastructure saved HiViz both time and money. Before working with LeafLabs, HiViz often had to repair the lighting bars in their offices, and some were very challenging or even impossible to open up for debugging.

By building in fail-safes at the firmware level, the system has improved long-term maintainability, reduced service burden, and helped HiViz deliver even greater reliability in their mission-critical products.

Capabilities

• Embedded Systems Architecture & Development

• Interconnected PIC Microcontrollers

• Field-Ready Software Update Infrastructure

• Production-Grade Bootloader Design

• System Resilience & Fail-Safe Engineering

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