“Foxglove cut our debugging time in half, allowing us to deliver new features and fixes faster than ever, improving both our operational efficiency and competitiveness.” Brenden Gibbons, VP of Software Engineering at Square Robot

Square Robot, founded in 2016 in Boston, Massachusetts, is a robotics technology company at the forefront of submersible robotic inspections for aboveground storage tanks (ASTs). The company serves a wide range of industries including midstream, downstream, petrochemical, utilities, rail, and mining, offering a safer and more cost-effective alternative to traditional tank inspections. Square Robot’s mission is to keep critical infrastructure online, reduce emissions, eliminate hazardous confined space entries, and increase operational efficiency. Their innovative approach provides comprehensive inspection services, delivering high-fidelity data through a fleet of specialized robots designed to operate in challenging environments around the world.

Challenges without Foxglove meant multiple tools and lengthy debugging times.

Prior to adopting Foxglove, Square Robot’s development and operations workflows relied on open-source Robot Operating System (ROS) tools like RViz and rqt, alongside command-line utilities for data inspection and debugging. While mostly functional for software developers, these tools posed major barriers to other departments, such as Systems and Electrical Engineering, who lacked the configured Ubuntu-based ROS environments necessary to access and interpret robot data. Field engineers faced additional hurdles, having to maintain dual-boot setups on their laptops to switch between Ubuntu and Windows. This configuration slowed their ability to interact with robots in hazardous environments and complicated real-time operations.

Collaboration across departments was a recurring bottleneck. When field reports identified issues, developers manually sifted through rosbags uploaded to cloud storage, often exporting data repeatedly in csv format to share with other teams. This process was slow, inconsistent, and resource-intensive, with multiple engineers replicating the same work across different machines and operating systems. As Square Robot scaled its robotic operations globally, the limitations of this workflow threatened to undermine efficiency and response time, making it clear that a more scalable, accessible solution was needed.

Adopting Foxglove streamlined workflows and enabled collaboration.

The decision to integrate Foxglove was driven by a need for greater cross-department collaboration and streamlined data management. Initially, a small subset of the software team evaluated Foxglove for daily development tasks. The team confirmed that critical data visualizations—such as sensor outputs, 3D environments, and camera feeds—along with easy, in-depth analysis, worked seamlessly within Foxglove. With these early successes, the company phased out its reliance on RViz and other ROS-based tools to adopt Foxglove company-wide.

Foxglove’s cloud-based data management revolutionized how Square Robot managed rosbags. Instead of downloading files from an S3 bucket and manually reproducing visualizations, teams could now upload and access data through a centralized interface. This simplified debugging workflows, allowing multiple departments to collaborate on the same data in real time. Field operations also saw immediate benefits. By transitioning entirely to Windows-based laptops, field engineers eliminated the need for dual-boot setups. A very short time spent reviewing Foxglove’s user interface was all it took for field teams to seamlessly connect to robots and access real-time data.

Within less than a month, Foxglove was fully operational across Square Robot. The integration not only reduced IT overhead but also enabled faster diagnosis and resolution of issues, ultimately enhancing the company’s ability to scale its global operations

‍With Foxglove, everyone—from software engineers to field teams—can quickly understand and analyze robot performance without needing specialized environments.” Brenden Gibbons, VP of Software Engineering at Square Robot

The impact of using Foxglove scaled operations around the globe efficiently.

Foxglove fundamentally transformed Square Robot’s ability to execute its mission. The platform addressed a critical business problem by eliminating bottlenecks in data sharing and enabling efficient cross-departmental collaboration. Where teams once struggled to maintain consistent visualization environments, Foxglove provided a solution that worked across multiple operating systems and required no specialized setups. This shift reduced debugging time by 50%, saving hundreds of hours in manual data handling and redundant analysis.

Field engineers no longer needing dual-boot configurations significantly lowered IT overhead and improved on-site responsiveness. New employee onboarding also accelerated, with hires able to start visualizing and debugging data within hours instead of days. The streamlined workflows enabled by Foxglove have accelerated development cycles, reducing time to market for new features and fixes.

These efficiencies positioned Square Robot to scale its operations globally with confidence. By empowering their teams with the tools to diagnose and resolve issues faster, Square Robot continues to provide safer, more efficient, and more environmentally friendly inspections to its customers, reinforcing its leadership in robotic AST inspection services.