Educational remote laboratories allow educators and students to perform experiments with real hardware remotely, addressing geographical and financial barriers in engineering education. However, their potential is often limited by the cost and complexity of specialized physical equipment. The REDTAIL project bridges this gap by integrating high-fidelity simulations with real hardware, creating a more immersive and scalable remote lab experience. This paper presents the REDTAIL unified platform and its accompanying software development kit (SDK), which empowers educators to develop custom simulations, utilize a library of default and community-built assets, and deploy them seamlessly within their courses. Development of default simulations shows the tool chain’s capability to create effective simulations with varying levels of complexity and cross-domain communication between hardware and simulations. Furthermore, we report on successful undergraduate classroom deployments, validating the platform's suitability for higher education. Ongoing development and outreach aim to expand the simulation repository and refine the SDK, advancing the platform's role in promoting a more accessible and scalable future for engineering education.