Smart Atoms Blog
Engineering insights from building, shipping and running connected products.
Everything fails all the time: designing a device fleet for broker restarts
99.9% uptime still allows almost 9 hours of downtime a year. What matters is what the fleet does in those hours and in the minute after: broker restarts, reconnect storms, backoff with jitter, offline behaviour and fleet-level alerts.
Enlit Europe 2026: one show floor, six different CRA paths
We sorted 153 hardware makers at Enlit Europe 2026 by what they build. How the CRA treats meters, gateways, grid automation and sensors, why meters and gateways have opposite update problems, and where each group should start.
Enlit Europe 2026: one show floor, six different CRA paths
We sorted 153 hardware makers at Enlit Europe 2026 by what they build. How the CRA treats meters, gateways, grid automation and sensors, why meters and gateways have opposite update problems, and where each group should start.
Enlit Europe 2026: one show floor, six different CRA paths
We sorted 153 hardware makers at Enlit Europe 2026 by what they build. How the CRA treats meters, gateways, grid automation and sensors, why meters and gateways have opposite update problems, and where each group should start.
Everything fails all the time: designing a device fleet for broker restarts
99.9% uptime still allows almost 9 hours of downtime a year. What matters is what the fleet does in those hours and in the minute after: broker restarts, reconnect storms, backoff with jitter, offline behaviour and fleet-level alerts.
The ESD protection worked. The device still failed the test.
In a dual-brain design, ESD pushed three GPIO mode lines high at once, the MCU read 111 and switched modes on its own. Why that fails criterion B, and the firmware fix.
Silicone molds for small-batch prototypes: when casting beats printing
Between the first prototype and production tooling, silicone casting can give you a small, presentable batch. When it pays off, where it stops, and what cast parts cannot prove.
Can I still buy this part in 2031? Five questions for every memory and SoM booth
After a year of memory shortages, one question tells you more about a part than its datasheet: if I design it in today, can I still buy it in 2031? Five follow-ups to ask at electronica.
Moving a live IoT backend between clouds without taking the fleet offline
We moved the LaMetric IoT platform from DigitalOcean to Hetzner without taking the fleet offline. What a live backend move needs, and how it went.
Supermarket freezers at 50 °C: what the attacks say about connected devices
Attackers set supermarket freezers to 50 °C through refrigeration controllers reachable from the internet. Three weak points most connected devices share, four design rules that close them, and what the CRA now requires.
Certification fails on the first PCB layout, not in the lab
Most connected devices fail certification on the first PCB layout, not in the lab. Five decisions to make early, a pre-scan rule, and the RED cybersecurity rules since August 2025.
FEA or the next prototype? When a mechanical simulation pays off
Most mechanical questions are answered faster by printing the next prototype. A few are not. When FEA earns its time, when a print is cheaper, and how FEA saved 5 to 10 prototype rounds on LaMetric SKY.
Used RAM in new devices: how it gets in and how to catch it
Reports say some cheap phones now ship with RAM taken from scrapped ones. The DRAM shortage behind it is real. Here is how used memory gets into a product, and four checks that stop it.
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