Reducing certification risk at the design stage hazardous environments

Hazardous-area electronics demand high reliability, but conventional wired approaches often deliver it at great cost and complexity. WirelessHART, an industrial wireless standard for low-power, highly reliable communication in harsh environments, lowering wiring through a self-healing mesh network while maintaining robust performance. The appeal is clear, but designing and certifying WirelessHART devices for ATEX-rated environments introduces technical and regulatory challenges that many manufacturers underestimate. That is why ByteSnap Design has launched a service focused on WirelessHART product development and certification support.

The service follows a three-step process: 

• An initial feasibility discussion to review goals and requirements.

• A detailed feasibility study that provides certification mapping and timeline clarity.

• And full project delivery including hardware, firmware, RF design, ATEX compliance, FieldComm testing, and field validation.

The company is one of the UK’s few engineering consultancies with proven, first-hand WirelessHART expertise, including successfully guiding a major industrial client to certification. As an Analog Devices Design Partner, it employs pre-certified, validated hardware to help clients lower certification risk from the earliest design stages and accelerate time-to-market.

By working with the company, manufacturers reduce certification risk and avoid late-stage redesigns, allowing them to bring certified WirelessHART products to market faster and bid confidently for projects that mandate approved wireless solutions.

 Employing FPGA architectures to lower risk in ATEX and hazardous-area designs

In hazardous-area designs, WirelessHART and ATEX constraints often expose the limits of generic processors and off-the-shelf silicon. As power budgets tighten and timing margins shrink, late-stage feature changes can force redesigns that delay certification and stall product roadmaps. This is where FPGA-based architectures offer a practical advantage.

With over 18 years' of experience, the company helps UK manufacturers transition to FPGA-based systems,  not as a technology showcase, but as a way to regain control over performance, power, and long-term product evolution, even as requirements change.

Avoiding real-world wireless failures in hazardous environments

Many WirelessHART and ATEX-certified devices still encounter problems once deployed, despite meeting regulatory and design requirements. Real-world operating conditions – continuous low-power operation, variable RF environments, installation tolerances, and long-term EMC exposure – often reveal behaviours that are difficult to predict from lab testing alone, leading to reduced battery life, intermittent connectivity, and unexpected field issues.

Managing these deployment-specific risks demands experience beyond certification and architecture alone. The company applies practical expertise across low-power RF, embedded Linux, antenna design, and early EMC pre-compliance testing to identify and resolve real-world performance issues before products reach the field.

Reducing development risk when resources and timelines are constrained

When delivery timelines are tight and internal engineering resources are stretched, development risk increases quickly. In these situations, manufacturers require partners who can deliver clear technical direction, structured problem-solving, and design decisions that stand up to certification, deployment, and long-term operation.

The company brings this approach from the outset, embedding reliability, cybersecurity, and maintainability into products rather than addressing them late in the development cycle. By engaging early, teams gain not just extra engineering capacity but the foresight required to reduce risk and shorten time-to-market.

The company can bring clarity and momentum to embedded, IoT, ATEX, FPGA, or wireless projects. Book a no-obligation design review, request a proposal, or talk directly with one of its engineering consultants by visiting the 'Learn more' button link.