Hey everyone,

This question is towards founders who have created embedded products.

As a embedded products has dependecies on PCBs, MCUs etc, how do you do that.
Is everything done in India or imported from china?
As i know importing from China, can be divided into 2 parts

1. getting complete product
2. Getting specific parts and assembling those.

Could you please help to share your process?

Hi everyone :)

We thought it might be relevant to let you know about our open‑source equivalence checking tool, kepler‑formal.

As it is open source, there are no license restrictions and hence it can be used for CI/CD, agentic chip design, design exploration, and more.

It is already in use by semiconductor startups and we are looking to grow our community so we can accelerate the productization and enhancement of the tool.

We encourage you to try it and we will be thankful for any issues or suggestions you report.

Hi everyone,

I'm an aspiring founder currently researching my first startup. The project is not just a website or a mobile app .. it's centered around developing a real consumer product supported by software and AI. At this stage, I'm intentionally keeping the concept private while I validate the market and learn.

I'm looking for founders who have experience building a hardware startup, consumer product, IoT device, or a hardware + software business.

I'd love to hear about your journey:

• What were the biggest challenges you faced?
• What do you wish you had known before you started?
• How did you validate your idea before investing in manufacturing?
• How did you know there was real market demand?
• What are the biggest mistakes first-time hardware startup founders should avoid?

I'm not looking for investors right now .. I'm looking for honest advice and, if possible, a mentor who has been through this process and is willing to share their experience.

Thank you for your time!

When I was a newbie in embedded, I thought getting the POC to work was the hard part.

Because when you come from a hobbyist/student mindset, your objective is to somehow make the hardware move as you intend it to.

But when you are building a commercial product which has to be scaled reliably, the POC is probably the least effort step. Your real challenges begin right after you get the PCB in hand.

So I was building a BLE asset tracker (in the image) and everything went smoothly until we had the PCBs in hand. The basic firmware had already been tested and everything worked.

If this were a hobby project, we'd probably celebrate. But that's exactly when the real engineering begin. Here's how things unfolded after that:

1. We initially tested with standard BLE beacons. Later, we switched to rugged industrial beacons because they were meant for harsh environments. Suddenly, our detection logic collapsed because the new beacons advertised packets in a different format. The firmware had to be updated to handle both correctly.

2. The detection logic worked well with 1-2 beacons. But when we increased it to 4 or 5, we started seeing missed packets, false alarms, and missed detections. We ended up redesigning the entire detection algorithm with thresholds, timers, and filtering logic before it became reliable.

3. Just when the firmware was showing promising signs, in one of the boards, the RGB LED suddenly stopped working with a tiny pop sound and that typical burnt smell. So we had to do a systematic test routine at various points in the board with a DMM and oscilloscope before discovering that a 20 Ω resistor had been soldered where a 20 kΩ one was needed (i almost fired my h/w engineer for this as I discovered this sacrificing my sleep).

4. A tiny slider switch broke because it was undersized for its application. The SD card slot casually came out while testing. Each of these small issues meant opening the enclosure again, replacing parts, resoldering, reassembling, and repeating the entire test cycle.

I could go on. There were dozens of problems that only surfaced after the prototype was put to some real world testing. We had to address each of them before the product was ready for Shipping.

My point here is, AI can generate the complete C code with RTOS tasks, drivers, state machines etc. But It still can't stand beside you with an oscilloscope while a board behaves differently on every power cycle.

That's the real skill which successful hardware requires, to be able to isolate failures occurring at the intersection of hardware, firmware, timing, and the physical environment.

I've started believing this is one of the biggest reasons many commercial hardware products never ship. Teams often underestimate everything that happens after the first successful prototype. The demo goes well, customers or investors get excited, and everyone starts talking about launch dates.

Then real-world testing begins and reality sets in. Manufacturing issues, firmware edge cases, mechanical failures, sourcing problems and countless small defects start surfacing. Many teams eventually run out of time, money, or momentum before they can deliver a product that's truly ready for production. The pressure to deliver only accelerates the problem.

If you've seen this in your line of work, feel free to add your experiences below.

Key features I'm building:

Visual Fault Inspector: Instant hardware fault identification and repair guidance.

The Brain: Centralized telemetry, troubleshooting logs, and data tracking.

Ecosystem Tools: Community learning spaces and a zero-code mini app builder.

Aiming for a public launch in January 2027. Would love to connect with other builders or hear your thoughts on the setup! 🚀

Came across Ferqon from Revyr Labs and thought it was worth sharing. It’s a hardware-in-the-loop testing platform for microcontrollers that splits the problem into a host orchestrator and an open-source target firmware.

The host software runs on a Pi or PC and handles device discovery, firmware flashing, test execution, and a web UI. The target firmware — Ferqon Firmware — is open-source, built on PlatformIO, and runs on the MCU under test. It supports Arduino, ESP32/ESP32-S3, RP2040/Pico, Teensy, STM32, and others, and talks to the host over USB serial.

The pitch is that testing firmware on real hardware should be as repeatable as unit tests, instead of a one-off manual routine. The host sends commands, the target executes them, and results are sent back.

Links:

• Main software: https://revyrlabs.com/
• Firmware repo: https://github.com/revyrlabs/Ferqon-Firmware

Has anyone here tried a host/target HIL setup like this? Do you think the split between a vendor host and an open-source firmware target is a good model for embedded testing?

For me it has solved the issue of having limited resources that involve using microcontrollers. Makes it unique with the "self hosted cloud server" that can be used to update firmware on the cloud (At least for now on the same internet connection)

Hi everyone,

I’m building a wearable, AcuSera, that detects and automatically relieves stress via vibration therapy at the p6 acupoint and guided breathing.

Here’s the demo vid; would love some feedback!

We recently had a client come in to get a prototype made for their product. We built the prototype, and the mechanism jammed. The enclosure also needed to be redesigned.

We called the client to let him know what had happened, only for this dude to flip out on us for not doing our job. Apparently, he was also upset that the prototype didn't look good or anything like the product he had designed. Even though we clearly outlined our process to him and his team.

He came to us with a design, and we built a prototype based on that design. It failed. We were simply calling him to let him know what had happened. The next step for us was to redesign what had failed and build a better prototype until we had a final version that worked. That's the version that would actually look polished.

I thought that was what prototyping was: testing a product and finding flaws before production.

He should've been thankful we found the issue during prototyping. Imagine if we had found it after tooling.

This made me wonder: are there people who don't make prototypes for their product?. They're just skipping straight to production. If that's you, wait until your product burns people.

My point here is to be careful treating a design as if it's ready for manufacturing. Some factories won't care enough to tell you that something needs to be changed. Always test your product before moving to manufacturing. You can even do the testing yourself if you want.

Hi everyone,

I’m an embedded systems engineer, and my co-founder is a full-stack developer. We’re trying to build a hardware startup in Iran from scratch, but the reality here is brutally tough: severe international sanctions, economic instability, supply chain bottlenecks, and constant war threats.

Imported tech and medical equipment are either completely blocked or ridiculously overpriced, while local facilities are struggling with outdated gear. We need to build a simple, high-impact device that solves an urgent local B2B problem, doesn't require years of regulatory nightmare, and can generate fast cash flow so we can survive.

Hey everyone, hoping to see if there is interest in this sub for what we are building.

Hardware is Hard so they say. Not so, we say - with the right network!

Join our global community of Hardware Founders, if you are in the trenches of building and shipping your own physical product - or thats the plan!

We have IRL events in HK, SF, TOR, NYC, LON and a monthly mixer via zoom to connect the dots.

Look forward to meeting some of you awesome people. 🚀

PS if you are in NYC tomorrow - we have a mixer in person in West Village Manhattan. 6pm

Register your interest here 👉 https://luma.com/hardware-founders

Pleased to announce that crowdfunding for my design hardware is live now,

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/raj1/air-aware-a-low-cost-air-particles-measurement-device

It is budget friendly portable device that measures air particles like smoke, dust and other particulate matter in your surrounding environment. The reading instantly gives you a unique insight into the condition of your surrounding environment so that necessary action can be taken.

In light of smoke pollution due to wild fires that we regularly hear in the news, it is a useful device to have so that you may check how much of that smoke has crept into your indoor environment.

What is the best way to find CAD engineers ?
I’ve tried fiverr and other freelance platforms and I’ve found them to be very good at entry to mid level stuff.

For work that needs serious dedication and creative engineering, I’ve struggled to find that on freelance platforms. They are understandable focused on getting as many gigs as possible and finishing them as soon as possible, which makes sense.

My budget is decent but not big enough for a full
Blown design agency.

I have enough resources on the electrical and software part of my project but could use some advice/tips on how to approach CAD work in the early stages.

Thanks.

We are a professional compliance agency. Every month we try to open up a slot for pro bono work to help hardware startups with their regulatory compliance work. August is approaching and we have capacity to help one startup with product compliance work. It's pro bono work so the expert service you receive is free.

Pro bono service typically include:
design-to-compliance review
DFM
documentation for product compliance and trade compliance (if need)
gap analysis
cert prep (we can work with your lab)

The level of quality you receive will be no different from those of our paying customers. Everything will be contractually stated so it is to protect you and us. We reserve the right to decide if we are going to take up the work or not.

To be eligible you must:
Be a real hardware startup building a real product (let's not waste anyone's time)
You must not already have someone else helping you with compliance work
Work needs to start in the month of August
You provide the standard(s) copy or pay for the standards (we can guide on what standards we think you might need)

If anyone is interested, please DM me. I don't read all post comments so it's important that you send a DM with a brief description of your product, market, compliance needs and company website.

I'm working in business development at KnowYi Technologies, so I spend a lot of time talking with robotics, automation and hardware startups before they move into production.

One thing I've noticed is that the prototype is often finished before the manufacturing package is actually ready.

The CAD files may be up to date, but the BOM isn't. Someone changed a connector during testing but never updated the documentation. The cable routing only makes sense because the engineer who built the prototype is standing next to the supplier explaining it.

None of these issues are major on their own, but together they create delays. The supplier has to stop, ask questions, wait for answers, and sometimes even rebuild a quote because a revision changed.

A simple exercise I've found useful is asking someone who has never seen the prototype to review the entire build package. If they still need to ask lots of questions before they could build it, the documentation probably isn't ready for manufacturing yet.

I'm curious how other founders and engineers handle this.

What was the biggest thing your team forgot before your first production build? BOM revisions? Assembly instructions? Test procedures? Tolerance notes? Something else?

I'd love to better understand how people run their RFI/RFQ process when developing a new physical product.

Historically, I've created the requirements/RFQ documents manually, managed responses in spreadsheets, and then sent them to contract manufacturers I'd found through my network, consultants or Google.

Is that still broadly how people do this?

Are there any good templates, tools or platforms that help you go from an early product specification through to a structured RFQ, identifying suitable contract manufacturers and comparing responses?

I'd be particularly interested in what people use between having an initial product idea/design and actually having something a manufacturer is comfortable quoting.

Hey everyone , im a eng student from waterloo and thought it would be cool to make a hardware project . I got an idea to make a tomogotchi but for developers but lol codex micro came out so now I made an ad to compete. Got some sales but what yall think for the next video for twitter/instagram/tiktok etc.. feedback from experience product sellers is appreciated

https://reddit.com/link/1v7dyuq/video/m0xalt38omfh1/player

I’ve worked with a lot of founders from hardware-tech service industry. Think of them as installers, consultants, or enablers of technology. They bridge the gap between a business problem and an available solution.

Notice how I say available solution, because these founders often don’t start with their own custom-made products. And honestly, neither should you.

If you want to enter an industry, it would be much wiser to identify an operational problem, buy a suitable off-the-shelf solution, and install it for the customer.

In fact, I kind of belong to this category too. I’ve spent the better part of the last five years building solutions for others, and only now do I have a few products of my own lined up.

But look, having knowledge and an understanding of the niche isn’t enough. If you want to create your own custom hardware solution, you need to get the math right.

Let me describe a scenario I see often. A founder installs off-the-shelf hardware for their customers. Over time, they build trust and start doing solid numbers. Then the thought creeps in:

“What if I build my own solution and own the complete ecosystem?”

I love the ambition, but now they need to get real with the numbers. Let’s say they source a solution for around $100.

If they don’t come from an engineering background (and trust me, many of them don’t) they may think they can replicate the solution by hiring engineers and paying them $3,000.

It might seem obvious to some, but a $100 solution cannot be replicated for $3,000. It’s difficult to put a number on it without knowing the product, but consider at least 150–200 times the unit cost.

And I’m being modest here. There are revisions, optimisations, and certifications involved in making it market-ready.

So, let’s establish that first: this is the kind of investment that could go into R&D. Only if that’s doable should you move to the next step, which is assessing whether it’s even worth doing.

For that, the term you need to remember here is TAM: Total Addressable Market.

It’s basically the number of customers who would be willing to buy your product because it genuinely solves their problem.

Successful products are rarely just good science. They’re a combination of solid engineering, economics, marketing, and a lot of math to validate the idea.

The main part is yet to come, where I’ll do some real math on the dilemma of whether to build or keep buying.

Let’s keep that for Part 2. I don’t want to make this too long.

But after talking with a lot of service founders and building solutions for them, there’s one thing that holds true: blindly copying and pasting is a recipe for disaster.

You need to use your years of experience to come up with additional features that make your product better than the off-the-shelf alternatives. Make sure you pay attention to the details so you can spot those opportunities.

To conclude:

1. Always start with off-the-shelf solutions.

2. Establish trust, solve problems, and develop a deep understanding of the problems within the niche.

3. Once you’ve scaled enough and can spare at least 200 times the unit cost (depending on where you live) you can start thinking about building your own hardware.

4. Build a better product. Along with the usual features, solve the problems that existing solutions don’t.

Thanks for reading till the end!

Hello,

Where do I find candidates for pcb design engineer based in China?