Viam

Viam is a cloud robotics platform that lets me design, code and oversee machines from a single browser tab.

How to use Viam

1. Sign up on the website and create a new organisation.
2. Install the Viam agent on the robot’s single-board computer.
3. Add hardware parts in the dashboard and map each one to its port.
4. Generate starter code in Python, Rust, Go or JavaScript right from the interface.
5. Push the code to the robot, run live tests, then monitor logs and metrics in real time.
6. Invite team-mates, assign roles and set up scheduled software updates.
7. Connect extra services such as MQTT or AWS S3 for data storage if required.

The good and the not-so-good

Advantages

• Straightforward setup: I went from unboxing a Raspberry Pi to driving motors in under thirty minutes thanks to the step-by-step device wizard.
• Open source building blocks: Being able to read and tweak the underlying drivers gave me confidence when troubleshooting quirks with a lidar sensor.
• Multi-language support: Switching between Python for quick prototypes and Rust for production firmware kept the project flexible.
• Fair free tier: Twenty-five thousand monthly gRPC calls covered initial field trials without any unexpected bill.
• Live observability: Temperature spikes on the motor driver showed up instantly, letting me shut things down before damage occurred.

Drawbacks

• Patchy documentation: Certain pages reference legacy UI elements, so I ended up skimming GitHub issues for clearer hints.
• Limited third-party hooks: Direct links to Slack and Azure IoT are on the roadmap, yet I had to stitch together custom webhooks for alerts.
• Slow log refresh under poor networks: When the robot moved into a cellar, the dashboard paused for nearly a minute before new lines appeared.
• Calibration friction: The vision module demanded repeated white-balance runs in mixed lighting, stretching setup time.
• Pricing jump: Exceeding the free threshold sends usage to the growth plan quickly, which might pinch hobby budgets.

Wrapping it up

Viam made my robot prototype run reliably within a day, and the freedom to hack the code while still leaning on cloud management felt refreshing; smoother docs and deeper integrations would lift the experience even further.