Riders set up and tune their foil drive from their phone
CodeFish built the Foil Drive app for iOS and Android. It talks to the drive, the smart battery and the remote over Bluetooth, and turns motor-controller settings into choices a rider understands.
Foil Drive makes electric assist units that turn a hydrofoil board into something you can ride without waves or wind. The hardware was proven. The setup experience was not.
Foil Drive units run on VESC, an open-source motor controller made for e-skateboards and e-bikes. Its own configuration tool is powerful and generic. It is not something you hand a new customer at the water's edge.
Foil Drive needed its own app: one that knew its products, spoke to the controller, battery and remote, and kept riders inside settings that suit the hardware. Nobody had documented how to talk to the controller over Bluetooth.
Most connected-product apps fail on one unknown: can the phone reliably talk to the device? We answer that before you commit to a full build.
For Foil Drive, that meant a technical review in February 2023. We worked through the controller's source code to learn how it communicates, then sent a command from a phone and set a Foil Drive motor to 2,000 RPM. The same idea sits behind Ignite, our fixed-price proof of concept.
We then built a de-risking prototype in React Native, the same stack as the final app, so nothing was thrown away. That prototype became the foundation of the production app.
A QR scan tells the app the rider's exact unit and hardware generation, and it writes the right motor configuration and firmware for that kit. Riders choose a power mode and set boost, throttle response and tilt cut-off in plain language. Live battery health shows cell voltages, temperatures, charge and cycle count.
It works offline, because riders use it by the water with no signal. Foil Drive controls which settings are available, so riders stay inside safe limits, and new firmware reaches customers through the app, not a service visit. We still work with Foil Drive on it today.
For a device maker, that means one branded app on iOS and Android from a single codebase, firmware updates without service visits, and fewer support calls as the product sells into new markets. Foil Drive now reaches riders through more than 400 dealers and schools, according to foildrive.com. See how we approach mobile app development.
Foil Drive was named Beyond Borders Business of the Year at the 2026 South Australian Premier's Business and Export Awards. The judges noted more than 80 per cent of its revenue is earned offshore, through more than 300 dealers.
The award is Foil Drive's. Our part is the software every one of those riders uses to set up their kit. Read more in our post on the award.
