Soldering on: Circuit board design moves online

Ghent – New start-up circuits.io has unveiled a web-based tool for designing circuit boards, and plans are under way to enable hobbyists to easily print small runs of their creations.

Artists and designers are eagerly embracing the internet of things, extending digital signals into the physical world using low-cost, programmable tools such as the Arduino micro-controller. Circuits.io hopes to become an open-source hub where this budding hobbyist community can share hardware designs. By creating an easy way to export designs to manufacturers, the service will reduce the time and cost associated with the DIY approach to building circuit boards.

Paul Graham, founder of the prestigious technology incubator Y Combinator, has identified a rising emphasis on hardware as ‘one of the most conspicuous trends’ in the latest wave of start-ups. At Y Combinator, ‘out of 84 companies, seven were making hardware. On the whole they have done better than the companies that were not,’ he wrote last month.

For more on the internet of things, read our Inform with Andy Stanford-Clark.