Hardware
Status LEDs are often treated as cosmetic elements — an afterthought once the core system works. In practice, they are one of the most powerful diagnostic tools in a product. When LEDs reflect real system state accurately and deterministically, they: * Reduce debug time * Prevent false fault assumptions * Eliminate unnecessary resets * Improve
Hardware
Hot-plugging is rarely part of the official user flow. But it happens anyway. Cables are inserted while power is on. Sensors are connected mid-operation. Boards are swapped during diagnostics. Debug tools are attached under load. Users try things “just to see.” In many current-state embedded products, hot-plugging is tolerated only
Software
The App Store Release Bottleneck You've just discovered a critical UX issue in your production app. The fix is simple, reorder two buttons, change a label, maybe adjust a layout constraint. Easy, right? Not quite. You're looking at a minimum two-week timeline: code the fix, test
Firmware
In embedded systems development, there's a particularly frustrating class of bugs that every developer encounters: code that works perfectly in debug mode but mysteriously fails when compiled for release. At Hoomanely, where we develop precision pet health monitoring devices with clinical-grade accuracy, this phenomenon has taught us valuable
AI
When an edge AI system starts to fail, it rarely fails all at once. Memory pressure creeps up. DMA stalls appear sporadically. Inference deadlines start slipping. Power draw spikes in ways the lab never showed. The question is not whether something will break in production — it’s what you choose
Hardware
In many embedded products, sensors are judged by their datasheet performance: resolution, noise floor, and accuracy. Yet in the field, sensor quality is rarely limited by the sensor itself. It’s limited by what the rest of the system is doing at the same time. Motors spin. Radios transmit. Displays
Software
A production RAG system feels “fast” when it’s consistent: answers arrive quickly, follow-ups don’t suddenly slow down, and costs don’t jump with traffic. The biggest lever to achieve that isn’t usually the model—it’s retrieval. When retrieval is engineered like a disciplined subsystem (with budgets,
Design
When users set up Everbowl for the first time, they are connecting a physical device to a digital experience. Unlike purely app-based onboarding, smart hardware onboarding introduces uncertainty. Users are often unsure whether the device is pairing correctly, connecting to WiFi, or functioning as expected. To address this, we designed
Firmware
Modern embedded systems demand efficient inter-task communication (ITC) mechanisms that balance performance with reliability. When building high-performance sensor systems, every microsecond counts—especially in real-time applications where hardware interrupts must trigger rapid processing pipelines. This exploration examines two fundamental FreeRTOS ITC approaches: traditional queues versus direct task notifications, revealing critical
Technology, Insights and Ideas.
AI
We wanted centimeter-level alignment between our RGB camera and a low-resolution thermal sensor to measure eye temperature accurately. At 30–50 cm distance, small geometric errors translate into large thermal overlay shifts. A 3–4 cm depth misestimate can move the projected thermal blob several pixels — enough to shift from
Hardware
Status LEDs are often treated as cosmetic elements — an afterthought once the core system works. In practice, they are one of the most powerful diagnostic tools in a product. When LEDs reflect real system state accurately and deterministically, they: * Reduce debug time * Prevent false fault assumptions * Eliminate unnecessary resets * Improve
Hardware
Hot-plugging is rarely part of the official user flow. But it happens anyway. Cables are inserted while power is on. Sensors are connected mid-operation. Boards are swapped during diagnostics. Debug tools are attached under load. Users try things “just to see.” In many current-state embedded products, hot-plugging is tolerated only
Software
The App Store Release Bottleneck You've just discovered a critical UX issue in your production app. The fix is simple, reorder two buttons, change a label, maybe adjust a layout constraint. Easy, right? Not quite. You're looking at a minimum two-week timeline: code the fix, test
Firmware
In embedded systems development, there's a particularly frustrating class of bugs that every developer encounters: code that works perfectly in debug mode but mysteriously fails when compiled for release. At Hoomanely, where we develop precision pet health monitoring devices with clinical-grade accuracy, this phenomenon has taught us valuable
AI
When an edge AI system starts to fail, it rarely fails all at once. Memory pressure creeps up. DMA stalls appear sporadically. Inference deadlines start slipping. Power draw spikes in ways the lab never showed. The question is not whether something will break in production — it’s what you choose
Hardware
In many embedded products, sensors are judged by their datasheet performance: resolution, noise floor, and accuracy. Yet in the field, sensor quality is rarely limited by the sensor itself. It’s limited by what the rest of the system is doing at the same time. Motors spin. Radios transmit. Displays
Software
A production RAG system feels “fast” when it’s consistent: answers arrive quickly, follow-ups don’t suddenly slow down, and costs don’t jump with traffic. The biggest lever to achieve that isn’t usually the model—it’s retrieval. When retrieval is engineered like a disciplined subsystem (with budgets,
Design
When users set up Everbowl for the first time, they are connecting a physical device to a digital experience. Unlike purely app-based onboarding, smart hardware onboarding introduces uncertainty. Users are often unsure whether the device is pairing correctly, connecting to WiFi, or functioning as expected. To address this, we designed
Firmware
Modern embedded systems demand efficient inter-task communication (ITC) mechanisms that balance performance with reliability. When building high-performance sensor systems, every microsecond counts—especially in real-time applications where hardware interrupts must trigger rapid processing pipelines. This exploration examines two fundamental FreeRTOS ITC approaches: traditional queues versus direct task notifications, revealing critical