The hottest Embedded Substack posts right now

A physical Game of Life was built as a 17×17 grid of illuminated mechanical switches driven by an AVR microcontroller, using row/column multiplexing and transistor drivers to handle the LEDs.
Row scanning gives each LED a low duty cycle, so the design uses high peak currents, series resistors, MOSFETs/P-channel transistors, and firmware safeguards like a blackout window and watchdog to avoid thermal or software-induced damage.
Mechanical switches provide a tactile, editable playfield with an analog speed knob, but they are the main cost driver; cheaper or fancier options (touchscreens, flip-dots) trade off price, feel, and complexity.

On the ESP32-S3, compiling with -Os (optimize for size) gave better results than using -O2 (optimize for speed).
Binary size can matter more than you might expect on constrained microcontrollers, so smaller builds can be preferable.
This challenges the common assumption that higher optimization levels focused on speed are always the best choice for embedded targets.

AMD’s CES updates are a mid-cycle refresh that makes AI a standard across its client lineup, pushing Ryzen AI into volume laptops rather than keeping it as a premium add‑on. This keeps the existing Zen 5 platform relevant without new silicon.
AMD is relying on software to drive the next wave of improvements — ROCm for local AI and FSR Redstone for gaming — delivering bigger performance and features through optimization and ML-assisted techniques instead of new chips.
The hardware moves are about segmentation and integration: Ryzen AI 400 targets mass-market laptops, Ryzen AI Max+ and the Halo developer platform aim at local AI mini‑workstations with large unified memory, and the P100 embedded APUs focus on industrial and automotive edge AI with integrated CPU/GPU/NPU designs.

One person can design, crowdfund, and ship a real hardware product worldwide, but production costs, certification, tariffs, and shipping logistics make margins very tight.
Building an audience before launch, using AI tooling, and embracing open source helped make the product possible and created a supportive community.
Hands-on experiments with high-voltage gear, tiny RISC‑V chips, and better debugging drove learning, and sharing both successes and failures proved more valuable than chasing big profits.

Investing in the right bench tools and setups makes everyday electronics work faster, safer, and more reliable.
Creative hardware hacking and reverse engineering often reveal far more capability than expected, from PID‑controlled glue guns to running DOOM on a smart pressure cooker.
Open source projects and detailed writeups turn experiments into shared learning, helping others reproduce fixes, learn tapeout and PCB tricks, and build fun projects like 1D Pong or a lock‑picking robot.

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Cheap microcontrollers are being repurposed as standard USB peripherals—ESP32s and similar boards can act as webcams (including thermal), USB-to-GPIO adapters, and tiny host-to-host bridges so hobby sensors plug straight into PCs.
Old and low-tech hardware is getting clever modern hacks: SNES controllers can share SPI-like buses, bargain analog clocks get Wi‑Fi NTP upgrades, and neon-lamp ring counters can drive Nixies without silicon.
The community favors calm, practical projects alongside playful demos—house e-paper dashboards, QR-paper audio players, and fake webcams streaming Pong all show a mix of usefulness, compatibility, and creative delight.