From concept to code with a generous helping of hardware

This project blends some seriously slick tech — the DW3120 for ultra-wideband precision, the QCC5141 for premium Bluetooth audio, the nRF91 for global cellular and GPS, and the nRF7002 for fast, efficient Wi-Fi. Together, they power a next-gen audio healthcare device built for smart, connected, real-time monitoring. With high-quality sound, seamless cloud connectivity, and pinpoint location tracking, this little board brings big brains to the world of wearables.

Sometimes the tools you need just don’t exist — so we built our own. This project started when we realised there wasn’t a manometer fast enough to capture the rapid pressure changes we were working with, let alone one that could stream data over Bluetooth. So, we designed one from scratch. Compact, precise, and lightning-fast, it’s become one of those behind-the-scenes tools that make the rest of our product development possible.

Rows of lithium-ion cells charging and discharging around the clock for three straight months — part of our accelerated life testing program. When off-the-shelf gear couldn’t keep up, we built our own battery cycling rig from scratch. Custom control, live data logging, automated safety — and just enough LEDs to make it look slightly terrifying. Another tool we designed so we could build the real thing.

You’d think it’s trivial — until you’re staring at a checkout page with ten options and second-guessing your life choices. Thankfully, our PCB suppliers don’t make it easier, offering every shade from stealth black to “please don’t short this” purple. Fun fact: green is usually the cheapest and most reliable… but honestly, it’s a bit boring.

Your first prototype is always human pick and place. Yes, that means real hands, tweezers, and an unreasonable amount of patience. We do it to save you money and shave days off early development. It’s tedious, but absolutely essential for those very first builds when every component placement matters. Here you can see some perfectly applied solder paste, courtesy of our in-house solder paste printer — affectionately named Palo. Because even machines deserve a name when they’re part of the team.

One of the tougher ones. An 8-layer HDI board with blind and buried vias, carrying DisplayPort, DSI, and USB 3.1 — all with length-matched differential pairs packed into one design. Enough to make you cry. (I think I did cry.) Routing those high-speed traces felt like solving a 3D puzzle under a microscope. But here’s the best part: it worked first time. Bonus points if you can tell me what those squiggly traces are for…?

Some of our favourite tools from the embedded world — Zephyr, Docker, and of course VS Code. Together they keep our firmware reliable, consistent, and portable across a wide range of MCUs. We build everything inside Docker for reproducible environments, develop and debug in VS Code, and rely on Zephyr’s rock-solid RTOS foundation to handle the complex bits. Whether it’s Nordic, ST, or something custom, the workflow stays the same — predictable, scalable, and fast.

We work with all major mechanical design tools like SolidWorks and Onshape, and every PCB we design is fully modelled and exported as a STEP file for seamless integration into your mechanical assemblies. It’s a lot better than discovering nothing fits the hard way — trust us, we’ve been there. This is an extra cool project of mine, but I can't tell you yet 🤫but look at that antenna

End-of-line testing isn’t exactly the glamorous part of hardware design — but it’s one of the most important, and we forgive you if you forget about it. We think about it early, long before production starts. By adding test points into the PCB design and building our own functional circuit testers (FCTs) for manufacturing, we make sure every board is fully verified before it ships. The result? Excellent test coverage, higher yield, and fewer surprises down the line. Not sexy, but seriously effective. Here is an example of one of our automated test stands, tested every function of the PCB in under 30s....🚀💨

We even try to take a few hipster product shots along the way. After all, there’s real beauty in tiny details. And as our mechanical engineer friends like to sing — “P. C. B… make it smaller, make it smaller.” Every millimetre counts when you’re cramming high-speed, high-density electronics into compact enclosures. Shrinking things down never gets old — just trickier.

Pigzbe was a bold little project — a digital piggy bank designed to teach kids about money in the age of cryptocurrencies. It blended play, education, and technology into a bright, friendly device that made saving feel like a game. Behind that cute pink shell was some seriously clever engineering — custom electronics, playful UX, and secure digital wallets all working together. It was ahead of its time, but like many good ideas, it didn’t make it to the finish line. RIP little pig 😢

Here’s another design built around the nRF91..., streaming physiological metrics straight to the cloud. Compact, power-efficient, and always connected — this board keeps health data flowing in real time, wherever it’s needed. Sometimes the best ideas just keep coming back for another round.

Usually it’s unwise to publicly share your mistakes… but this one shows just how far we’ll go to make sure your product ships on time. When the choice is respin or bodge, you can probably guess which one we went for. Introducting the "dead bug". A little creativity, a lot of patience, and just enough copper wire to make you wince. 🤦‍♂️

A fun day out at York EMC for a round of pre-compliance testing. Always a bit nerve-wracking, but also strangely satisfying to see months of design work put to the test — literally. Note to self: don’t leave your coffee next to the expensive RF gear. On the plus side… it passed first time. 😉

An insane learning curve, but once you’re over it, Zephyr makes embedded software suddenly feels a whole lot easier. Here we’re writing a custom Zephyr driver for a new project. The real magic? We only ever have to write it once. From then on, it just works — portable, reusable, and rock-solid across platforms.

From dense HDI stacks to high-speed differential pairs, Altium Designer is where the magic happens. It’s where ideas become copper — every trace placed with purpose, every via with intent. Clean design, tight layout, and just the right amount of OCD. As someone once said... we code in copper.

Custom, but very safe batteries for an e-bike project — built in-house thanks to our trusty battery welding setup. Designed for reliability, tested for safety, and wrapped up in tidy 3D-printed housings. Because sometimes the only way to get exactly what you want is to build it yourself (sparks and all). ⚡

Say hi to our in-house SLA (Thelma) and FDM (Louise) printers. Together, they handle everything from tiny precision parts to rugged functional prototypes. Whether it’s a quick fit check or a full-on enclosure mock-up, these two make sure ideas don’t stay stuck on screen for long. Rapid prototyping? We’ve got it covered — with attitude. 🖤🖨️

It’s not our bread and butter — yet — but it’s a growing part of what we do, especially when it comes to cloud integration. Meet Solr, our home-grown solar forecasting and energy management system. It predicts the next day’s solar generation and commands the inverter to charge from the grid in offpeak if a shortfall’s expected. Everything’s logged and visualised beautifully through Grafana and InfluxDB. On a good day, the whole of Illysky runs on sunshine. ☀️

A project close to my heart. More cellular fun — but this time with a twist: it needed to be intrinsically safe (ie, ATEX). The challenge? Take an existing design and battery and make it compliant for explosive atmospheres. They said it couldn't be done, you're wasting your time... but careful redesign, some maths, a helpful compliance engineer, and a lot of testing later… done! Proof that safety and innovation can share the same circuit board.