Hardware
Custom electronics, designed and built properly.
I take hardware from a rough idea through to a small run of finished, manufacturable boards. If you need something to exist as real hardware and you don't have the electronics capability in-house, I can make it happen.
What I do
The awkward, constrained end of hardware.
I specialise in the awkward, constrained end of hardware: low-power and energy-harvesting designs, sensor systems, wireless connectivity (LoRa, mesh, wifi), and unusual displays like e-paper and electrochromic. If a project needs to run for years on a coin cell or a postage-stamp solar cell, that's the work I enjoy most.
What an engagement can cover
- Concept and feasibility, including component selection and rough costing
- Schematic design and PCB layout
- Firmware and embedded software
- Design that accounts for CE / UKCA / FCC requirements from the start
- Small-batch assembly and handover
Selected work
Things I designed, built, and shipped.
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Fire String
Real-time fire simulation on an RP2040, driving an LED string with colours derived from black-body radiation curves, running at around 80fps with a browser-based configurator over Web Serial.
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Houseplant watering monitor
Capacitive soil moisture sensing built to run for over a year on a single battery, now being redesigned around solar energy harvesting and an ultra-low-power electrochromic display.
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Tiny2048
A playable game of 2048 on a compact custom ESP32 board. The display is a grid of addressable RGB LEDs, and an accelerometer reads the tilt of the board for input.
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Small-batch products
Badges and gadgets designed, assembled, and shipped from my own workshop, so I understand manufacturability, yield, and unit cost from direct experience rather than theory.
These are all things I designed, built, and shipped myself. You can buy several of them in my store.
How it works
Clear steps, costs known up front.
Every project is a little different, but a hardware build usually runs in three steps, and you'll always know the cost before committing to the next one.
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Tell me the idea
Send me a rough description and I'll let you know how I can help, quickly and for free.
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A short feasibility piece
If it's a fit, the first paid step is usually a short feasibility piece, typically 3 to 5 days, covering component selection, rough unit cost, and the main risks.
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Design and build
From there we agree a fixed price or day rate for design and build. Prototyping engagements typically start from around £4,500, and you'll always know the cost before committing to the next stage.
Get in touch
Have something to build?
Tell me what you're building and where you've got to. I'll let you know how I can help, quickly and for free.