Hardware Podcasts

Burning Man Maker, Music Mogul, and PCB Revolutionary—Flux CEO Matthias Wagner

Moore's Lobby · 2 May 2023 · 1h 00m · Episode 5

AI in practice: 2 real uses of AI described

What this episode covers

Matthias Wagner, CEO of Flux, discusses his unconventional career path from Siemens to music production and back to hardware, explaining how his experience creating the viral 'Crazy Frog' track and designing modular energy systems for Burning Man informed his vision for Flux. He details the frustration hardware engineers face with legacy, waterfall-style PCB design tools, contrasting them with the fluid, real-time collaboration found in modern software and music production workflows. Wagner explains how Flux aims to democratize hardware design by combining GitHub-style version control with Figma-like usability, allowing users to iterate quickly without managing complex file formats or manual footprints. The episode concludes with a look at Flux's new AI assistant, which helps engineers with component selection, schematic validation, and even generating entire designs from natural language prompts.

AI in practice

Where this conversation describes AI being used to build or deliver a product. Part of the AI in practice tracker.

DesignFlux AI

The AI identifies specific components in a schematic, suggests cheaper or more reliable replacements, and provides manufacturer details and costs, streamlining the component selection and sourcing process.

“You can do things like, hey, look, I'm looking for like a cheaper replacement for this component. And I can find you cheaper replacements, you know, or more reliable replacements or, right? I mean, you can go so all the way to say, hey, look, describe what you want to build.”

Matthias Wagner · Hear it at 44:16

DesignFlux AI

The AI generates firmware code for microcontrollers based on the schematic's circuit requirements, allowing users to quickly obtain functional code for their hardware designs.

“You have a schematic here and be like, hey, look, can you write me some firmware here for the for the microcontroller to do this in the circuit and it does that, right? And it's like. … Yeah. It's incredible. And working on reducing hallucinations for sure. You know, that is definitely a challenge.”

Matthias Wagner · Hear it at 50:55

Most relevant to

early-stage companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Flux, Siemens, Facebook
Products
Oculus, Crazy Frog, Ableton, Pro Tools, Steinberg Cubase
Chips
ESP32
Also
GitHub, Figma

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