Viam is a leading software platform that enables users to build hardware devices and grow hardware businesses. They empower developers and businesses to create IoT solutions, robotics applications, and custom hardware tools without the traditional complexity of hardware development. Their platform serves everyone from hobbyists building plant watering devices to enterprises creating commercial hardware products.
Viam was founded with a simple goal: making hardware development as accessible as software development. Starting from a founder’s desire to build a chess-playing robot, Viam has evolved into a comprehensive platform that handles everything from device configuration and control to user management and billing for hardware businesses.
The Challenges
For Viam, authentication presented a multi-layered challenge:
- Platform Authentication: Users needed to securely log into the Viam development platform to configure machines, control devices, and access sensor data from cameras, microphones, and other hardware components.
- Customer Application Authentication: Viam’s customers build their own branded mobile applications using Viam’s Flutter SDK and APIs, with centralized, managed identity that Viam’s customers don’t have to build on their own.
As a platform handling sensitive IoT data including home security cameras and personal device information, Viam needed an authentication solution that would:
- Provide enterprise-grade security for sensitive IoT applications.
- Support multi-application architecture with unified user management.
- Scale financially as they grew from a few customer applications to potentially thousands.
- Offer dedicated security architecture for sensitive data, even in the cloud.
- Integrate seamlessly with their existing cloud infrastructure.
- Provide reliable support for a growing startup.
Why FusionAuth?
After using another authentication provider, Viam migrated to FusionAuth for several key reasons:
- Multi-Application Architecture & Scalable Financial Model Unlike their previous provider, FusionAuth’s multi-application support was perfectly suited to Viam’s platform model. This was crucial for an engineering team planning for significant growth and needing predictable costs.
“Because we’ll have so many different customer apps built within the same ecosystem of Viam, we were looking for a product like FusionAuth that had a model that financially made sense and that scaled with us as we started with a few customers building on top of Viam and hopefully many more.” “The multiple auth apps was really the answer for us.”
- Dedicated Security Architecture For handling sensitive IoT data, Viam needed robust security guarantees, a core concern for any engineering leader responsible for such data.
“FusionAuth’s dedicated architecture is, by definition, a stronger security model, which is a key part of the value we offer to our customers. Security is at the forefront of what we’re doing… if we’re letting people have access to the cameras that may be in your home, that may be in your office, they’re facing your children, you want to know that we’re taking security as seriously as we possibly can.
- Exceptional Startup Support As a startup, Viam valued FusionAuth’s responsive support, which is critical when implementing and maintaining core infrastructure like authentication.
“We’re a startup and working with another startup who cares so much about our support experience and that when we have any needs, any issues that we were able to reach out and get answers that is a huge value to us.”
- Unified User Management FusionAuth enabled Viam to manage authentication for both their direct platform users and their customers’ end users in a single, coherent system, simplifying a complex requirement for the engineering team.
“We are intentionally a broad application. We want people to come up with all of their crazy ideas and to be able to use our app for whatever it is, whether it’s fishing, cooking, security. And we’re trying to help our customers build their businesses faster. So, we get to take out the whole elements of them needing to manage their own customers and we manage them for them through FusionAUth.
The Implementation
Viam implemented FusionAuth to support their dual authentication pathways:
- Direct Platform Users: Developers and businesses logging into Viam’s main platform to build and manage hardware applications.
- Customer Application Users: End users of applications built by Viam’s customers, such as Canyon Runner (a boating application that tracks boats globally and monitors environmental data).
FusionAuth’s architecture allows Viam to:
- Store all users in a unified database while differentiating between applications.
- Provide custom branding for each customer application.
- Manage user authentication, authorization, and billing on behalf of their customers.
- Support both email/password and social sign-in options.
The migration from their previous provider took approximately one week, with careful planning to ensure zero user loss. The FusionAuth support team was actively involved throughout:
“During that week I know that all of FusionAuth support was on top of it and responding to us. The SLA was extremely fast. The migration was something we were pretty nervous about—naturally migrations can be stressful—but the support team was there for us the whole time.”
Results at Scale
Viam has successfully built their platform business model on FusionAuth’s foundation:
- Platform-as-a-Service: Viam manages authentication, billing, and user management for all their customers, removing complexity from their customers’ development process.
- Unified Identity Management: All users across multiple customer applications are managed through a single FusionAuth instance with proper application segregation.
- Security at Scale: Handling sensitive IoT data from home cameras, office security systems, and personal devices with confidence.
- Customer Success: Viam uses FusionAuth to help its customers build their businesses faster, by managing authentication for them.
The Future
Viam continues to expand their platform capabilities and is exploring additional FusionAuth features. The company is particularly interested in passwordless authentication features like magic links and passkey integration.
“Something that I think a lot about is how can we make the login experience easier for our customers? Magic links is something that I would be interested in looking into in the future—a future where people don’t have to remember their passwords.”
Viam is also considering implementing single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) as they continue to scale. Viam’s focus on helping customers build hardware businesses faster is supported by FusionAuth’s reliable infrastructure, allowing them to focus on innovation rather than authentication complexity.
Key Benefits of FusionAuth
- Multi-Application Support: Seamless management of multiple customer applications under unified identity management.
- Dedicated Security: Providing the guarantees necessary for sensitive IoT applications.
- Startup-Friendly Support: Responsive, knowledgeable support crucial for growing companies.
- Platform Enablement: Allows Viam to offer authentication as a managed service, removing complexity for customers.
- Scalable Architecture: Infrastructure that grows seamlessly as Viam adds new customer applications.
- Reliability: Consistent performance handling daily authentication for hardware applications worldwide.
Viam’s success with FusionAuth demonstrates how the right authentication infrastructure enables platform companies to scale while maintaining security and providing exceptional customer experiences.
