Turning IoT Keg Data into Business Intelligence, as a Draft Beverage Startup’s Dedicated Team for 6 Years
BarTrack builds the IoT hardware that measures draft beer as it’s poured. In 2019, the founders came to MobiDev for the layer on top of that hardware: software that could turn live keg data into something bar and restaurant staff could actually use.
We built a cross-device platform: a PWA for real-time monitoring, analytics that reconcile pour data against POS sales, automated BI reporting, and a live digital menu. BarTrack’s team kept the sensors and the backend in-house the whole way. Six years on, we’re still their dedicated team.
The Story Behind BarTrack’s Software Platform
BarTrack’s founders had already proven the hard part: an IoT-based system for tracking and optimizing draft beverage pouring, validated with a win at the 2018 JMU Business Plan Competition (a $25,000+ scholarship) and, from there, over $15M in investment. What they didn’t have in-house was software capacity to spare, as building the sensors and the backend was already using up their own engineers.
As they extended the system into a platform that plugged into venues’ POS solutions, they needed a team to build that layer without pulling their own people off the hardware. That’s what brought them to MobiDev in 2019.
Business Value of Building Cross-Device Analytics Platform
Here’s what BarTrack got out of the platform we built for them.
- One platform, any device. Staff checks keg levels, inventory, and temperature in seconds, from whatever’s on hand. No more walking the floor to check by eye.
- Waste caught as it happens, not after. Pour and sales data talk to each other automatically, so staff can spot a leak or over-pour the same day instead of finding it in a monthly reconciliation.
- Reports anyone can read, with zero manual work. No spreadsheets, no data background needed. Daily and monthly numbers just show up, ready to act on.
- One menu, updates everywhere at once. Change what’s on tap and every taproom TV updates instantly. Nobody’s re-typing a chalkboard.
- The company grew on top of this platform. BarTrack reported over 300% growth in 2023 vs. 2022, and had raised over $15M as of 2022, backed by partnerships with POS providers and Micro Matic.
Project Scope of BarTrack’s Monitoring & Analytics Platform
12 experts, working alongside BarTrack’s in-house hardware and backend team throughout.
Stage 1. Cross-device PWA. A single bar management platform, built after tech research confirmed PWA as the right approach: real-time keg levels, inventory, and temperature/pressure, the same experience on desktop, tablet, or phone.
Stage 2. POS integrations and analytics. Integrations with several of the most widely used POS systems, plus custom ETL processes, to compare internal pour data against external sales data, feeding the Hourly Reports that flag waste per beverage.
Stage 3. Automated BI reporting. Daily, Weekly, and Monthly reports in PDF and XLS, built to make a large, previously unavailable dataset digestible for non-technical users.
Stage 4. Real-time digital menu. A fully customizable, real-time on-tap display for taproom TVs, pulled from the same underlying data.
Stage 5. Division of responsibilities held as the product grew. BarTrack’s in-house team kept IoT sensor integration and backend development; MobiDev owned the analytics platform front end and PWA, the same split since day one in 2019.
Deliverables of BarTrack’s Software Platform
- Cross-device PWA (desktop, tablet, mobile) for real-time bar management
- POS integrations across multiple providers, with custom ETL pipelines
- Hourly Reports comparing pour vs. sales per beverage
- Automated Daily/Weekly/Monthly BI reports (PDF, XLS)
- Real-time digital menu for in-venue TV displays
Tech Stack
Building an IoT product and need a software team that won’t touch your core IP?
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