Thomas Froment, Program Manager for Development Tools at the Eclipse Foundation, talks about how AI-native, vendor-neutral tooling is transforming the way IoT and LoRaWAN developers build, test, and ship products.

In this episode, he explains what Eclipse Theia is, why it matters, and how open-source toolchains give companies more control, privacy, and long-term resilience than proprietary AI editors. Drawing from his experience leading Theia, Open VSX, and other Eclipse development-tool initiatives, Thomas breaks down the rapidly evolving AI workflow landscape and why embedded engineers should pay attention.

• What Eclipse Theia actually is: a framework for building fully customizable, AI-native development environments designed for embedded and IoT toolchains
• How Theia differs from VS Code and Cursor, including privacy, extensibility, transparency, and the ability to integrate hardware, local workflows, and cloud systems in a single toolchain
• Why open-source governance and vendor independence matter for companies developing IoT devices, especially in regulated or security-sensitive environments
• The explosive growth of Open VSX and the shift toward extension ecosystems not controlled by a single vendor
• The role of Model Context Protocol, AI agents, and domain-specific prompting as organizations integrate AI deeply into engineering and testing workflows
• How teams use Theia to build hybrid local-plus-cloud development environments that support hardware-in-the-loop testing, device constraints, and long-tail IoT edge cases
• Emerging use cases for lightweight and local AI models inside IoT products, and why customization of prompts and agent behavior becomes essential
• Collaboration tooling within the Theia ecosystem, enabling real-time co-editing, code reviews, and multi-developer workflows for embedded teams
• Why IoT and LoRaWAN companies need to think in terms of entire toolchains rather than just IDEs, and how open-source components allow a tailored pipeline from development through testing and deployment

Guest Links:

• LinkedIn
• Eclipse Foundation

My guest today.,Thomas Froment,

is not a LoRaWAN native.

2

He's the program manager over at Eclipse

Foundation, running the Theia program

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and walking people through

how AI is going to be integrated

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into businesses and specifically open

source tool chains like Theia.

5

So we talk about the difference

between Theia and Cursor,

6

what Theia can do, what it might be good

for if you're looking for privacy

7

or customization or security versus

using some of the other tools out there.

8

Fascinating conversation

with a guy deep into AI

9

and really relevant to what we are doing

in the general IoT world.

10

This show is sponsored

by the Helium Foundation.

11

To check out what they're doing.

12

Go to Helium.Foundation.

13

Now let's dig into the conversation

with Thomas Froment.

14

Thomas, welcome to the show.

15

Thanks so much for coming on.

16

So thank you for inviting me.

17

I'm really excited

to have you on as kind of this

18

not outsider to LoRaWAN,

but certainly not this LoRaWAN core piece

19

is that you're coming into this

from an AI core piece.

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So let's probably start off with what

Theia is so people understand

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what we're talking about

before we get into it. Yeah. That's true.

22

Thank you

I was going to start by a disclaimer

23

saying, Okay,

I am not not a LoRaWAN expert

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I am working for the Eclipse Foundation

as a program manager.

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I'm working on the development tools

part of the Eclipse Foundation.

26

And as you said,

Theia is one of the key project

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and AI capabilities of Theia

Theia’s platform is a framework

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to develop tools

and to develop IDE like tools.

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It's a kind of new generation

of tooling as the Eclipse Foundation,

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and it comes with a very exciting

and very great AI features.

31

And like all the open source project

at the Eclipse Foundation under

32

under no governance, so hopefully

we will come back to this later on.

33

But yeah,

34

this is also why I accepted to join you

in this podcast because yeah, I say, okay,

35

we have people who have more expertise

on any on this topic,

36

but we know many companies were already

using this technology to develop

37

some tooling and building blocks

or to customize toolchains.

38

And why Theai?

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I don't know if you want me to,

to go into all the details.

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Right now,

but it's an open source project.

41

So we'll open source framework

with building blocks and fronts.

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To give you a few example,

when you start doing AI,

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you want some basic capabilities

like connecting to what we call MCP.

44

MCP, the kind of standard way

of connecting to any system we have.

45

You have thousands of systems

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if you want to connect to any tool,

a check system,

47

a corporate system, or whatever

your drive, Google Drive, Google White,

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whatever you want and you want to cut

when you want to connect to this stuff.

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Of course,

you need some software components.

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And in the Theia open source project

you have this component

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you can integrate then and you can

make them part of your own toolchain.

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And exactly why I say, okay, it's

very relevant

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to show what you have in

as part of this framework.

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I just give the model Context protocol,

the MCP,

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as an example of what is available

among the building block of tier.

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But you have basically all the basic,

most important block.

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Of course, to drop agent as well.

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Literally today,

more and more people are looking at

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how to integrate

agent AI agents into their systems.

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And for

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that's again, yeah, it's

if you start from scratch

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or you try to develop it by yourself,

it's yeah, you will you will experiment.

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And basically today with all this tool

or it's moving very, very quickly.

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We have a lot of innovation.

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And every day even myself,

I discover a new tool

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and sometimes a new tool having

after a few weeks, millions of users.

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So people are really excited

about using this technology

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because it brings great benefits

in terms of productivity and so on.

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But it comes also comes with new risk.

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You guys are seeing usage grow yourself

right that you're seeing this in Theia.

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Yeah we see usage grow.

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This is one of the

you know it's a clear foundation.

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Most most of the time

people know the foundation.

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Thanks to the

the eclipse ID which is 20 years old.

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And but at the foundation

we have many new project.

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And this one here is one of the most fast

growing project we have.

77

We are releasing, a release every.

78

When I say we, it's not myself,

it's a community.

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It's a community based core of the open

source developers are delivering

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a new release every two weeks

with, more than 100 contributors.

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So you see, it's a very,

very active project,

82

and they are basically integrating

the most recent AI features.

83

People are working on new models,

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new start outs, protocols

that are coming all the time.

85

So yeah, it's

one of the most fast growing.

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And along with tier

we have the marketplace called Open Race.

87

It's also a part of my very Mr.

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Foundation

as a as working on the development tools.

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It's another open source project.

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But it's not only a project,

it's also a service.

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And basically it's an alternative

to the Microsoft marketplace of extension.

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I don't know if people are familiar with

this system, but basically the VS code

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extension mechanism is a kind of defacto

standard for extensibility

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mechanism and software

people are using VS code.

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Was attending

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the things conference recently

and basically everybody was using VS code.

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And we know that

and as extension mechanism,

98

we are relying on a marketplace.

99

And one of the key feature of to to be

compatible with the standard marketplace.

100

So you can connect to as an IDE

or as a tool using building blocks.

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You can connect it and benefits

from the Microsoft bucket of extension,

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or you can use you a separate marketplace,

the VS code.

103

Open this one.

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And in that case with tier

plus openly six,

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you have a fully independent and not no.

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You know you cut any risk to be one door

locked would say

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or to have any dependency

on a single though.

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And this is kind of the big thing here

is that a lot of folks are using VS code

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or cursor.

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I use cursor every day, and the argument

for using tier is the privacy piece.

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The security piece,

and that it's an AI native IDE

112

versus vs code, which was an IDE.

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And then they kind of chucked AI into it.

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Am I getting that kind of right.

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Yeah, it's it's about privacy.

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And so it's so transparency I would say

transparency and seeing a customizability.

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I think when you walk in this domain

of embedded software, IoT and so on,

118

you need to customize your environment

to your specific needs domains.

119

You need to connect with hardware.

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And you have

you need to mix web based or cloud

121

based systems with local systems

because you you have the test environment.

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Most of the time you need to run it

locally.

123

All these use cases

need customization in your toolchain.

124

In general.

125

You say you see,

I say toolchain and not IDE.

126

It's not only an industry

or my perspective.

127

Most of the successful tool

that we see today, first of all, as you

128

said, are ever proprietary

or single vendor tools.

129

But beyond that, it's very,

very difficult to customize.

130

Then if you want to make these kind of

131

I read deployments

that are local, NLM or local tooling,

132

plus a web based and cloud based tooling

and makes all of them in your toolchain.

133

It's very tricky,

and basically most of them,

134

you cannot do it

because you fully depend wander.

135

And this is where open source makes sense.

136

Here.

137

You can as soon as you will need

to customize

138

on your environment,

on your domain, on your test.

139

Yeah. Okay.

140

You see, what

this is for me is a key differentiator.

141

And why and so enthusiastic

about even bicep.

142

Yeah yeah.

143

And it's tracking for me now.

144

I mean I watch the YouTube piece

that you had the TM,

145

but this idea that we're kind of looking

at the classic open source piece where

146

and on the one side you get open source.

147

You can do anything you want with it

transparent,

148

you can customize it as much as you want,

go crazy because it's all right there.

149

And usually that's more difficult to use,

150

but more powerful is typically that's

my experience is like a neo non nerd.

151

And on the other side

you've got stuff like cursor

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or someone like me who doesn't have

the coding experience comes in

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and I can say like, all right,

I'm going to do whatever with IoT,

154

whether it's figuring out a codex or what

are codex with the LoRaWAN or whatever.

155

Is this kind of the big general piece?

156

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I see you. Yeah. Okay.

157

You you give the example of course of

they are very powerful tool and for sure.

158

And that's why we see such a huge

and increasing traction

159

to all these tool first,

but also to on TR and open V6.

160

I was looking at the metrics.

161

We have something like a ten times

the factor grow on open

162

V6 traffic today we we this month

we expect to have more than 1 billion

163

of download extension download

compared to 100 million last month.

164

So you say in just one month the usage.

165

And this is because all this tool,

like you saw that you mentioned,

166

but not only cure.

167

So I can mention many others heavily

depending

168

on these extensibility mechanism.

169

And they're relying on the translation

open v6 marketplace.

170

Yeah okay.

171

So with that is the background of what

what it is and kind of how it works.

172

I keep an eye on the trends in IoT.

173

And the thing I'm seeing now is that

174

a lot of people are asking this idea,

like, how is IoT data being used by AI?

175

And that starts to be something

that is well within your wheelhouse,

176

where you say like, okay, here's

177

how we see people

potentially using their in their IoT

178

kind of workflows, whether it's

collaborating in real time or your ability

179

to run locally, any of those things

kind of spark ideas for you to say,

180

hey, Theia is a good use case

or good, good tool if you have X, Y, or Z.

181

Yeah,

because as I said, it's not only an idea.

182

You of course you say,

okay, it's known as IDs

183

because IDs, one of the application

184

that has been developed

with what we call the Theia platform,

185

and we are exactly the same model

as the eclipse ID was in the past.

186

Eclipse ID was not only an ID,

it was a platform.

187

And we have exactly the same model 40.

188

Yeah. Okay.

189

So what is the perfect customer

190

or really user of Theia

look like for you in the IoT space?

191

Like what?

192

What will they need

that only Theia can give, I think.

193

Yeah, really?

194

The part where I really believe

it's that we have a need.

195

TR is about setting up development

and testing toolchains.

196

Because as I said today,

if you want to, to take into account,

197

first of all, your environment

constraints, plus privacy and the question

198

on your dependency

some of the time, from what I see

199

from the industry, people don't

really care today about vendors looking

200

actually,

201

because they know that they are

they are maybe taking some risk or

202

relying on a single vendor, open source,

or even an appropriate solution.

203

But at the end of the day,

tools are so powerful.

204

That's okay.

205

They are ready to take this risk.

206

And they say, okay, let's go for it.

207

But specifically on in the field of IoT.

208

And again, I am not an expert,

but from my past experience,

209

or even if with the current users

210

or people who are members of the

of the working group simulation,

211

I see that

as soon as they want to to, to customize

212

and to make this hybrid configuration

with, with remote and local,

213

also take into account, as you say,

the privacy and security constraints.

214

Then they are

215

basically forced

to look at something like TR.

216

So this isn't the only solution of course,

but at least with TR okay,

217

we can really look at how it is

done and check

218

and make sure that they will put in place

this setup.

219

And that's why I for me

the key word is toolchain.

220

It's you have a tool chain.

221

You you need to not only build

and develop your components,

222

but you need to integrate with hardware

and software into your your environments.

223

And for sure, if you have to do it today

224

and from what I hear

from the people working in industry,

225

not me, but from from them,

there is no perfect solution.

226

Consequence

is that today the way they work is

227

they are using the powerful tool,

even if it takes the risk to be locked,

228

but it does not cover the full toolchain

and the full use cases

229

that they need to take into account

to put in place and from the development,

230

testing and integration environments.

231

So for me, if you want to take

the global picture and global touch

232

and problematic, it's good to have a look

at at this kind of project.

233

Yeah.

234

I mean, the more I hear about it,

the more exciting it gets.

235

Or it's like, okay, this is I can see it

being this super powerful thing.

236

If it's more than just this IDE,

if it's this whole kind of basically,

237

it's the AI tree

238

that you're going to hang all your stuff

on, whether that's interacting with it

239

and writing code or having the thing

do whatever it is that you want.

240

Let's talk a little bit more

241

about the customization piece,

how to handle prompt customization.

242

That's a really big thing,

certainly for for me as I go through.

243

Is that something that you guys

are focusing on paying attention to?

244

Of course, I don't say

it's it's a it's an easy topic,

245

but for nobody, it's it is actually

if you you can of course you can generate

246

you can do some via coding

and and get some great improvement

247

in your productivity, new software

development, productivity.

248

But at the end of the day,

if you are building a business,

249

you have to take into account

these requirements.

250

And so then you have the choice

between okay,

251

developing a lot of things by yourself.

252

And again

I don't say it's an easy task for nobody.

253

It will be.

254

Yeah.

255

But integrating end to end software

on that way or a system and testing system

256

design testing and and even integration

deployments

257

is the kind of thing

you have to do anyway.

258

So if you have just basically

you have the choice of having

259

just a very small part of your issue

solved and giving you an improvement

260

in terms of productivity

on one side or building.

261

Yeah, your your business

with full and on integrated environment.

262

But yeah, you are free.

263

Yeah I understand what you say

when you say okay, it's for me.

264

It's, it will cost maybe me a lot.

265

If I want to start.

266

You will.

267

My next startup.

268

Maybe you will pay

an additional cost at first.

269

But in that case, you can use to add

that to it.

270

It's basically is ready to use it.

271

And really what you can really compare it

with overrides

272

like so windsurfer, etc..

273

Sure.

274

So can you talk me

through the collaboration tools, the

275

the ways that people have to work together

with things

276

that might be different

from something they've seen before?

277

Yeah.

278

The collaboration tools, you mean? Yeah.

279

We have a project which is integrated with

to called the Open Collaboration Tools.

280

Open collaboration tool is really a way

for multiple developers to share

281

the screen and develop and make, code

review, real time collaborative edition.

282

So yeah,

this is a kind of additional features.

283

And this is a separate open

source project, by the way.

284

But like most of the AI features, it's,

285

combination of various open

source project and you can integrate them

286

all together

to, to bring these kind of new features.

287

Yeah.

288

And beyond that,

I don't know if you exactly what you,

289

you expected some on this side,

but for me, what is interesting

290

behind this kind of open source project

is for sure you have, this foundation,

291

this opportunity to, to, to to enable this

multiple, companies collaboration.

292

And it brings a lot of value.

293

But because there we have

they are all bringing their requirements.

294

And of course, sometimes you

you will find somebody ready

295

to implement your, requirement.

296

But most of the time the answer from

the community will be, okay,

297

you want this. So feel free to to start

298

the implementation

and feel free to contribute to it.

299

I mean, it is super exciting

to think we're living through this time.

300

That's this massive explosion of AI,

and there's all these tools out there,

301

and this is one of them.

302

And it's really important for businesses

to look at their practices and say, hey,

303

how do we want to integrate AI into

what we're doing?

304

And certainly for IoT businesses, it's

a big part of it.

305

I know I've talked to

306

whether it's the kind of one man shows

or the really big organizations.

307

They're all saying, hey,

we're we're integrating the saying and,

308

and there's a huge push in this industry

309

to make sure it's fully integrated

because it's such an advantage to use it.

310

Well, move your last use case.

311

And I'm thinking of in terms

of thinking of this industry,

312

is what I see more

and more people who say, okay, of course

313

we need lightweight models

and not only local model is not only

314

a question of privacy, but a question of

of size and resource consumption.

315

Yeah.

316

And I see some people from the community,

from today's

317

community

who are experimenting this to see, okay,

318

oh, can I manage to have local models

and then to bring these AI features

319

this time, not only for my development

environments, but for for my products

320

and to integrate into my product

some new AI features.

321

And typically in that case,

you are typically in the kind of,

322

use case

where you need to be able to modify

323

and to to tune the source code and,

and the prompting.

324

The it is, fully it's fully something

325

that should be done collaboratively

326

because, yeah,

if you rely on a vendor all time,

327

the prompting part is the circuit party,

the part which is really hidden

328

beyond the get the see, it's working

well again, it's great tool.

329

But yeah, if

330

you need to customize your prompting,

especially if you want to target

331

this kind of specific deployment

with lightweight models and local models.

332

Yeah, it is rad to see.

333

And there's all these little constraints

that the IoT side has, especially LoRaWAN,

334

where

there are the low bandwidth constraints

335

and your resource constrained

and the rest of it and saying, okay, okay,

336

we're not just working in that in an IDE.

337

There's this entire tool chain,

as you're saying, to say, hey,

338

from from soup to nuts,

how do we integrate this whole thing?

339

That's got to be pretty exciting

to work in there.

340

So very cool. Thomas,

thanks so much for making the time.

341

I know you're really busy with clips.

342

Thanks for coming on and explaining

a little bit about what the is doing.

343

Thank you very much. Have a good day.

344

That's it for

345

this episode of The Business of LoRaWAN.

346

I built this for you,

the one person in about 100,000

347

who actually has an interest in how

this tiny little slice of the world works.

348

Of course,

this isn't just about you and me.

349

It's about everyone in law.

350

When and how we can work together

to make an exceptional thing.

351

LoRaWAN is a dispersed community

with little pockets of knowledge

352

all around the world,

and most of them don't

353

talk to each other as much as I'd like.

354

So the first and best thing

we can do to make this show better

355

is to get more guests

on who I don't even know exist.

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I want to talk to strangers.

357

Strangers who are your friends.

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Please

introduce me to the most rad LoRaWAN air

359

you know, or point on my way

or help reach out and give me a name.

360

When it comes to running down

LoRaWAN guests, I can track a falcon

361

on a cloudy day

if you can remember metsci.show,

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you can find me that's M-E-T-S-C-I

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dot S-H-O-W, metsci.show

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Okay, so sharing knowledge

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I'm Nik Hawks.

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