Made Like Nothing Else
in Tech.
Every NIH-01 begins as raw Karnataka clay and ends as a precision biometric instrument, hand-signed by the ceramic artist and firmware engineer who built it.
Stoneware Ceramic Body
Fired at 1250°C — Karnataka clay, wheel-thrown by hand
Clay sourced from Karnataka laterite deposits — high iron content, exceptional thermal mass
Wheel-thrown by resident ceramic artist at our Bengaluru studio, never slip-cast or moulded
Bisque fired at 900°C, then high-fired at 1250°C for 14 hours to vitrification
Zero plastic in the shell — no ABS, no polycarbonate, no rubber gaskets on exterior
Develops a natural patina over years of use, like cast iron — each unit becomes unique
Cradle-to-gate carbon footprint 60% lower than injection-moulded plastic equivalents
Engineering Note:Stoneware at 1250°C reaches near-zero porosity — liquid cannot penetrate the clay body. This is not decorative; it is functional protection for the electronics inside.
FLIR Lepton 3.5 Thermal Core
160×120 uncooled LWIR — NETD <50mK, 57° FOV
160×120 pixel uncooled VOx microbolometer thermal imaging array
NETD (Noise-Equivalent Temperature Difference) <50mK — detects 0.05°C leaf temperature variance
57° horizontal field of view — covers a standard 30cm plant canopy from 25cm distance
Factory-calibrated with FLIR's Tau 2 coefficient set for ambient 15°C–35°C indoor environments
Long-wave infrared (LWIR) 8–14μm detection window — invisible to the plant, invisible to you
Embedded inside a custom LWIR borosilicate window set into the ceramic body
Engineering Note:FLIR Lepton 3.5 is the same thermal core used in FLIR ONE Pro and DJI Zenmuse thermal drones. NIH-01 is the first consumer plant device to embed it.
Bosch BME688 Quad-Gas Sensor
VOC, CO₂ equiv, H₂, ethanol — 4-in-1 on 3×3mm die
Integrated VOC (volatile organic compound) index, equivalent CO₂, H₂, and ethanol channels
±3% relative humidity accuracy, ±0.5°C temperature accuracy, 0.1Pa pressure resolution
AI-powered AI scan mode — trains a gas mixture classifier directly on sensor's internal processor
Detects plant-emitted ethylene (ripening signal), terpene stress markers, and root rot VOCs
Operating range: –40°C to +85°C, 0–100% RH non-condensing
Current draw in ultra-low power mode: 0.1μA — runs continuously without measurable impact on battery
Engineering Note:Plants emit specific VOC profiles when stressed, diseased, or thriving. BME688 lets NIH-01 detect pathogen onset and air quality simultaneously — before the plant shows visible symptoms.
ARM Cortex-M4 NPU
64MHz, 1MB flash, DSP + FPU, TensorFlow Lite Micro
ARM Cortex-M4F core running at 64MHz — chosen for energy efficiency over raw throughput
1MB internal flash, 256KB SRAM — enough for full TensorFlow Lite Micro model + species database
Hardware FPU (Floating Point Unit) enables fast IEEE 754 single-precision inference
DSP extensions for CMSIS-DSP signal processing — used in VPD and humidity smoothing pipelines
Inference latency <45ms for sensor fusion classification across 847 species profiles
Secure boot + encrypted firmware updates — your plant's model cannot be tampered with remotely
Engineering Note:We chose the Cortex-M4 over faster cores because power and heat matter in a ceramic enclosure. Running TinyML on-device means zero latency, zero cloud dependency, zero subscription fee — ever.
Braided Copper Speaker Grille
40mm full-range driver — 2W, 100Hz–20kHz response
Grille hand-woven from 0.3mm annealed copper wire in 16-strand herringbone braid
40mm full-range neodymium driver — single-element design avoids crossover phase distortion
Frequency response 100Hz–20kHz (±3dB) — warm enough for speech, clear enough for high-pitched alert tones
2W RMS output — enough to be clearly audible across a 20m² room at 60dB SPL
Copper was chosen over steel mesh for acoustics: 20% lower mass allows higher excursion at low frequencies
Patinates to a warm brown over time — intended. The speaker grille ages with the ceramic.
Engineering Note:NTE™ voice output is engineered so plant speech feels warm and organic — not like an alarm or a notification. The copper grille's natural resonance contributes to the timbre we've tuned for.
Recycled Packaging
100% post-consumer recycled — soy ink, zero plastic
100% post-consumer recycled corrugated cardboard box — FSC certified
All printing done with soy-based ink — biodegradable, lower VOC than petroleum inks
Void fill: shredded paper from offcuts of our own documentation printing runs
No foam, no polystyrene, no plastic blister packs — unit nestles in a die-cut paper tray
QR code insert links to full teardown guide, repair instructions, and spare parts store
Outer box doubles as a seed germination kit — instructions printed inside the lid
Engineering Note:We designed the packaging to be opened slowly. The unboxing experience is deliberately tactile and quiet — a counter to the hyper-branded, plastic-heavy norm in consumer electronics.
From Clay to Finished Unit
Six stages of hand assembly and kiln firing — each documented and signed for every unit.
Clay Wedging & Centring
Karnataka stoneware clay is wedged by hand to remove air pockets, centred on the wheel, and opened to the target wall thickness of 6mm.
Wheel Throwing & Rim Forming
The body is thrown to form — a tapered cylinder with a wide acoustic mouth and a recessed base plate for electronics mounting. Each piece is signed wet.
Bisque Firing at 900°C
Dried pieces enter the kiln for bisque firing. This hardens the clay, burns off organics, and prepares the surface for the thermal window inset.
LWIR Window Bonding
The FLIR borosilicate LWIR window is hand-placed into the pre-formed recess and sealed with a military-grade silicone bead. Cured 24 hours.
High Firing at 1250°C
The assembly re-enters the kiln for 14-hour high-firing. The ceramic vitrifies around the window, forming a permanent, zero-porosity bond.
Electronics Seating & Firmware Flash
PCB, Lepton 3.5, BME688, and speaker are hand-seated and soldered in sequence. Firmware is flashed, species database loaded, and final QA signed off by the testing engineer.
“Each unit is signed by the ceramic artist and the firmware engineer who tested it.”
Vriksh Vani — NIH-01 Batch 01, Bengaluru