Device communications
Gems Connect: SMS and voice gateways that wake and control field devices
Two applications that turn USB modems into reliable messaging infrastructure: a desktop gateway for customers and a headless HTTPS SMS API used by the test rigs.
- Client
- Acustek
- Period
- March to August 2026
- Our role
- Sole developer
The problem
GEM-CELL devices sleep in the field and are woken by SMS. Customers needed a dependable way to send those messages and place calls from a desk, and the engineering team needed the same capability as an API for automated tests.
Gems Connect
A self-contained Electron application. Plug in one or more USB modems and it becomes an SMS gateway and voice terminal with per-modem status, signal monitoring, round-robin routing, a contact book, templates, auto-reply rules, webhooks and CSV export. Voice calls run in the browser window with a DTMF keypad and call history. It shipped as version 1.0 with about 102 test files.
Gems Connect Lite
The headless sibling: a Node and TypeScript service that exposes a modem as an HTTPS API behind API keys with expiry presets and a small admin console. Most of its 414 commits went into reliability, including a fix for a macOS USB handle leak, a bounded reconnect lifecycle and an outbox queue that cannot jam. It is what wakes the physical device in the desktop automation rig.
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