We’re swinging the BUG HQ doors wide open once again next Wednesday night! Come by and chat with the team, check out the latest in our Test Kitchen, and enjoy tasty refreshments (read: M&Ms) and delightful drinks (read: beer).

Bug Labs Open House (add to calendar)
Wednesday April 29
6:00pm – 9:00pm

598 Broadway (@ Houston) (map)
4th Floor
New York, NY 10012

Hope to see you there!

When we released our v1.0 BUG platform we believed, from our initial research, that it would appeal to three market categories – early adopters/hackers, entrepreneurs/product developers and educators/students.  We guessed that the majority of orders would come from the first group – individual technologists.  This was true initially.  But quickly, our order mix tipped in favor of the enterprise, the second category.

Today over 50% of our orders come from companies, many of them big Fortune 500 corporations.   We were a little surprised by this.  We had assumed that big companies had the budgets necessary to custom build whatever hardware they needed/wanted.  We were wrong.  In talking to many of these customers it became clear that getting internal funding for new hardware projects was at least as difficult (sometimes more) as prying dollars out of a VC.   They were drawn to the BUG platform because it gave them a complete, vertically integrated hardware/software system that they could use to innovate and explore options without having to go beg for funding.  And when they did decide to make the trek upstairs to meet with the suits, they had a well tested, functional prototype to show with results to prove their case.  This story was also making sense to entrepreneurs who, like us when we started, were discovering that innovating in hardware was a looking a little more complicated than it first appeared.

What have I learned in the past 36 months?  I’m used to saying that hardware is “hard”.  And it most certainly is.  I’m reminded of it almost everyday.  But I’ve started to include a more optimistic position as well.  Having seen our customers at work, I realize now that it doesn’t have to be.  It can be made much easier, cheaper and more enjoyable.  Is our system exactly right?  No.  We still have much to learn from everyone using it to do new things.  We have to continue working hard on our platform so our users don’t have to.   We need to continue to refine our design (see picture above from our work with IDEO).  The other thing I’ve learned is that companies, organizations and even individuals are beginning to realize that devices don’t have to just come from the Big Guys.  Amazon’s Kindle is a good case in point.  This is a seismic shift.  But in order for it to really happen, the pain and suffering must be taken out of hardware prototyping, piloting and production.

As I look at the breadth of BUG-based projects going on now – in such diverse areas as health care, asset tracking, home automation, security, point-of-sale, to name a few – and in many areas around the world, I can’t help but feel that we’re on the right track.  We are still a ways from making it as easy as just snapping LEGOs together, but that vision is still the golden ring.  We’ll get there.  I look forward to telling you how we did twelve more months from now.

PS – I will devote a separate post to our experiences in the world of education.  The activity and lessons-learned there are fascinating and bode well for the future of electronics!

Three years ago we received our first round of funding from Union Square Ventures, and a small group of private investors.  While it was not the “official” start of Bug Labs, it’s as good a date as any other since I don’t really recall anything more official.  So we use the date as our birthday.  Seeing the first investment hit our bank account was a big thrill.  It meant I could now make the move from wooden block model to real, working prototype – hardware + software + web services/API.    The picture here is our first working prototype, which included an ARM9 base + Mobitex wireless modem and three modules – motion, GPS and camera.

The path from wooden blocks to shipping product is a story in itself, and I won’t spend time on it here.   It would make a great series of future posts.  But suffice to say, it was a series of tall challenges, frustrating realizations, hard work and luck (good and bad ).  Having had a twenty year career in software, I was not prepared for electronic component vendors telling me they would NOT sell me the parts I needed.  Nor the contract manufacturers turning me away because what we were doing was too strange.  Needless to say there are big differences between innovating in the world of bits vs atoms.  And, as I look back on the path we took, I see great value in it.  Mainly because we lived/live through a series of processes that are the norm for anyone looking to build an electronic device and bring it to production.  Why is that important?  First, we’ve been there and now “know that of which we speak”.  This “norm” is archaic and unnecessary.  It’s needlessly expensive, arbitrary and risky.  Second, because I started Bug Labs to help others avoid these very issues.

Later this week, I will talk about how we see the future…

On Monday, I returned from the NEXT No. 6 conference in Aarhus, Denmark.  For those of you who’ve never heard of or attended this event, I would highly recommend it (though it’s not exactly around the corner for most).

Held in an old power plant on the Aarhus harbor (see photo above), the weekend brought together a fascinating cross section of artists, writers, geeks, business folks and government-types – all of them focused on promoting really exciting future-based technology. The BUG presentation was well-received and I had some great discussions afterward – I was still gabbing with attendees at 2AM over beers and at local concerts! In the end, that’s why I attend these events – the people and the endless, engaging flow of ideas.

The conference organizers did a superb job – everything ran like a Swiss Danish watch – and I’m sure they could make good money just consulting others on how to run a great event. I expect the presentations to be made available on their site and I would recommend checking them all out. Already looking forward to next year!

Last week, Mike Riley at Dr. Dobb’s posted an update on BUG, in which he reviews BUG 1.4 and the BUGvonHippel and BUGsound modules. Overall, a very good piece offering a thorough and objective look at our latest releases, with a few nice photos to boot! This follows Dr. Dobb’s original review of BUG from last August.

Head on over to Dr. Dobbs and take a look, and check out some of our other press while you’re at it!

In a few hours, I’ll be heading to Aarhus, Denmark to speak at the Nordic Exceptional Trendshop, aka NEXT. Hosted by Innovation Lab, this year’s NEXT is the 6th annual showcase of emerging technologies from technology incubators and research houses around the world.

Ken and I had a great time at FOSDEM in February, and I’m excited to return to Europe and present BUG in the company of a distinguished roster of visionaries and thought-leaders. If you’re attending NEXT this year, I’ll be presenting the potential of customizable hardware in my MAKE YOUR OWN! talk on Friday at 1:40pm local time.

Expect a blog post or two from me at the show, in addition to a few tweets and photos throughout. And if there are any Danish fans of BUG that want to sync up, let me know by e-mailing peter [a] buglabs [d] net!

One of my favorite movies of ‘07 was “Ratatouille” from Disney.  In it, there is a character named Chef Gusteau who’s sole message in life was “Anyone can cook!”.  And in the movie, the theme plays out with a rat becoming a star chef in France.

I loved the theme because it’s very close to how I feel about what we’re trying to do here at Bug Labs.  I would modify the theme slightly to say something like “Anyone Can Build a Gadget”, but the intent is exactly the same.

One of the most gratifying things about working with groups like Human Rights Watch on this UCB Mobility Challenge project is that they have taken this to heart.  They can build a device of their own.  They don’t have to become a big hardware developer, or raise tens of millions of dollars.  They don’t have to learn how to solder or become solid state electronics experts.  They can just build a gadget.  And use it for what they want.  I think that’s enormously liberating.

I firmly believe we will see much more of this in the coming quarters.  Companies, organizations and individuals that you would have never thought would be in the “gadget business” will suddenly start building and selling very custom/personalized devices.  Amazon’s Kindle is a great case in point.  It is a great trend that will benefit everyone.