The Blog

Accelerometer Specs for Vibration Monitoring: What Matters

Accelerometer specs for vibration monitoring explained: bandwidth, noise density, g-range, resonance and mounting, and how to size each for the fault you need.

Acoustic Impedance and Reflection, Worked Through

Acoustic impedance and reflection explained: why boundaries echo, how much energy reflects, why ultrasound needs gel, and how transducer matching layers work.

AI & Automation10 min read

ADC Resolution vs Accuracy: Why 16 Bits Isn't 16 Useful Bits

ADC resolution vs accuracy explained: how offset, gain error, INL, noise and ENOB shrink a converter's useful bits, and which errors calibration can remove.

AI in Technical Content Production: Where It Helps and Fails

AI in technical content production: what productivity studies show, why confabulated specs are the main risk, and where to put human review in the workflow.

Application Note vs Tutorial vs Product Video: Which One?

Application note vs tutorial vs product video: what each format answers, what research says about video and docs, and how to pick and link them in a launch.

Application Note vs White Paper: Choosing the Right Document

Application note vs white paper: how they differ in purpose, reader and evidence, what research on engineers reading white papers found, and how to pick.

Apps & Platforms12 min read

Building an Ultrasound Echo Explainer: A Studio Note

Studio Note: we built an ultrasound echo explainer as a physics simulation. What we kept faithful, what we exaggerated and how it stays accessible to all.

Designing Dashboards Operators Actually Act On

A guide to industrial dashboards operators act on: start from decisions, show deviation from normal, reserve color, build a hierarchy and budget alarms.

Do Animations Teach Better Than Static Diagrams?

Do animations teach better than static diagrams? What meta-analyses find, why the effect is modest, when animation wins and how to choose for technical content.

Apps & Platforms12 min read

Documentation That Reduces Support Questions

Documentation that reduces support questions: mine tickets, title pages by symptom, write task-first, put answers where problems happen and close the loop.

Edge vs Cloud Processing for Industrial Data

Edge vs cloud processing for industrial data: latency, bandwidth, outages, security and cost, with a worked data budget and how to decide where each step runs.

Explaining Measurement Uncertainty Without Losing Trust

Measurement uncertainty explained: error vs uncertainty, the GUM's Type A and B, an uncertainty budget worked through, and how to report it so people trust it.

From Dev-Board Project to Article and Demo Video

Studio Note: how we turn a dev-board project into a technical article and demo video, from the first question to expert review, and what we refuse to fake.

Working Together10 min read

From Development Board to Product: What Changes

Moving from development board to product: power, EMC and ESD, radio certification, manufacturability and test, and why a working prototype isn't a product.

From Expert Interview to Technical Explainer

Studio Note: how we turn an expert interview into a technical explainer, from reader question and claims list to explanation order, visuals and expert review.

Technical Content16 min read

From Sensor Input to Embedded Inference: The Full Pipeline

What happens between sensor input and embedded inference: sampling, buffering, features, int8 models and post-processing, with time, memory and energy budgets.

From Sensor to Useful Data: A Signal Chain Walkthrough

A sensor signal chain walkthrough: what conditioning, anti-aliasing, the ADC and calibration each do to a reading, and how to tell real signal from artifacts.

Working Together10 min read

Grounding and Shielding Sensor Signals: A Practical Guide

A step-by-step guide to grounding and shielding sensor signals: find the coupling path, twist and balance, terminate shields correctly and break ground loops.

How Engineers Research Products Online: What the Studies Show

How engineers research products online: what information-seeking studies and surveys show about sources, colleagues, accessibility and what to publish.

Working Together13 min read

How to Brief a Content Partner for an Embedded Launch

A guide to briefing a content partner for an embedded product launch: audience, source material, expert time, review, confidentiality and deliverables.

AI & Automation10 min read

How to Catch AI-Hallucinated Specifications Before Publishing

A practical way of catching AI-hallucinated specifications: split drafts into claims, trace each to a source, check units and conditions, verify every citation.

Working Together12 min read

How to Choose an Anti-Aliasing Filter: A Six-Step Method

How to choose an anti-aliasing filter: set the attenuation target, pick Butterworth, Bessel or Chebyshev, size the order and topology, and design the ADC RC.

How to Explain an Industrial Automation Product

How to explain an industrial automation product to engineers: who evaluates it, where it fits in the plant, demos, animation, integration and security.

AI & Automation12 min read

How to Measure an Embedded AI Demo: Latency, Memory, Power

A step-by-step guide to measuring an embedded AI demo honestly: on-device accuracy, latency, memory and energy per inference, and how to report the conditions.

How to Measure Microcontroller Power Consumption Properly

How to measure microcontroller power consumption: dynamic range, burden voltage, sampling rate, isolating the rail and turning current into battery life.

How to Read a Sensor Datasheet: Which Specs Matter for You

How to read a sensor datasheet for your application: typical vs max values, noise density, total error band, temperature effects and the footnotes that matter.

How Ultrasound Measures Depth: The Pulse-Echo Principle

How ultrasound measures depth: pulse-echo timing, the 1540 m/s assumption, limits set by pulse rate, resolution and attenuation, with numbers you can check.

AI & Automation12 min read

How We Review Technical Animations for Accuracy

Studio Note: how we review technical animations for accuracy, from agreed sources and a claims list to storyboard, animatic and final checks with experts.

Int8 Quantization for Microcontrollers: How It Works

Int8 quantization for microcontrollers explained: scales and zero points, per-channel weights, calibration, requantization, and when PTQ isn't enough.

Apps & Platforms11 min read

Interactive Calculators and Configurators Engineers Will Use

How to build interactive calculators and configurators engineers trust: pick a real question, show the model, state limits, validate and make it shareable.

Working Together12 min read

Interviewing Subject Matter Experts for Technical Content

Interviewing subject matter experts for technical content: prepare, ask about a real case, sweep the story, probe cues, watch them work and send claims back.

Apps & Platforms14 min read

Modbus vs OPC UA vs MQTT: Which Industrial Protocol Fits

Modbus vs OPC UA vs MQTT compared: data models, polling vs publish-subscribe, security, overhead and measured performance, with a worked Modbus polling budget.

Multimedia Learning Principles for Technical Training

Multimedia learning principles for technical training: cognitive load, narration vs on-screen text, contiguity, segmenting and when experts need less help.

Oscilloscope Bandwidth and Rise Time: How Much Is Enough

Oscilloscope bandwidth and rise time explained: the 0.35 rule, knee frequency, why measured edges look slower, probe effects, and how to size a scope.

OTA Firmware Updates: The Basics That Keep Devices Alive

OTA firmware updates explained: image slots, signed manifests, rollback protection and recovery, with what IETF, NIST and ETSI guidance asks for and why.

Oversampling and Decimation: When Extra Samples Add Bits

Oversampling and decimation explained: why 4× the samples buys one bit, why it needs noise to work, how CIC filters decimate, and what averaging can't fix.

Polling vs Interrupts vs DMA: Choosing How Data Moves

Polling vs interrupts vs DMA explained: latency, CPU load, power and determinism, with worked numbers for UART and ADC data and each approach's failure mode.

Retrofitting Sensors on Legacy Equipment: A Practical Guide

A guide to retrofitting sensors on legacy equipment: choosing what to measure, non-intrusive installs, mounting, power, network isolation and baselines.

RTOS vs Bare-Metal Firmware: When a Scheduler Pays Off

RTOS vs bare-metal firmware: how superloops and preemptive schedulers handle timing, what scheduling theory guarantees, and the priority-inversion trap.

Running Inference on a Cortex-M: What Limits the Speed

Running inference on a Cortex-M explained: SIMD and Helium, memory and im2col, kernels and runtimes, and how to estimate if a model will fit and run in time.

Technical Content15 min read

Sampling, Aliasing and Filtering: What Changes in the Signal

How sampling and aliasing create false frequencies, how to predict where an alias lands, and how much anti-aliasing filter a SAR or delta-sigma ADC needs.

Sensor Calibration: Offset, Gain and Linearity Explained

Sensor calibration explained: what offset, gain and linearity corrections fix, when two points are enough, and why calibration differs from adjustment.

Working Together13 min read

Sensor Noise Sources Explained: Thermal, Shot, 1/f and More

Sensor noise sources explained: thermal, shot, 1/f, mechanical-thermal and quantization noise, how to add them up, and which one sets your measurement floor.

Sensor Product Launch: What You Need Beyond the Datasheet

A step-by-step guide to a sensor product launch beyond the datasheet: the questions engineers ask, the content that answers them, and the order to build it in.

The 4–20 mA Current Loop Explained, With a Power Budget

The 4–20 mA current loop explained: why current beats voltage, live zero, loop power budgets, NAMUR NE 43 fault levels and HART, with numbers you can check.

Thermocouple vs RTD vs Thermistor: How to Choose

Thermocouple vs RTD vs thermistor compared: range, accuracy, sensitivity, wiring and the hidden errors of each, with worked numbers to help you choose.

Vibration Anomaly Detection at the Edge: How It Works

Vibration anomaly detection at the edge explained: learning normal behavior, autoencoders and features, thresholds and false alarms, and what changes on-device.

Vibration Data for Predictive Maintenance: What to Collect

Vibration data for predictive maintenance: what to capture, how often, with what context, and how it flows from raw waveform to health trend and remaining life.