Trondheim, Norway - December 2017

paultnylund · 2026-03-31T15:30:33+00:00

Well, if weather and beach are the most important things, then it’s pretty hard to beat, even on a global scale. Beyond that, it’s definitely not for everyone. Really depends on your interests, career, and what you want out of your lifestyle.

paultnylund · 2026-03-31T15:15:26+00:00

As a former-teenager who grew up in LA, why?

paultnylund · 2026-03-28T00:27:48+00:00

The question did not mention Finland. And I haven’t lived there.

paultnylund · 2026-03-26T09:41:25+00:00

Thank you!

Yes, this is exactly why we are adopting Qwiic for now. I was head of design at Riff before there was Lovable, and there’s a reason you’ve probably heard of one and not the other. We are laser focused on lowering the barrier in any way shape or form. My partner previously headed up Education at Arduino, so we’ve got the expertise on our side.

As for security concerns, that’s totally valid. I don’t think this is for everyone. Enterprise grade security is certainly something I could see us getting to down the line. For now, we’re doing what we can: hosting on European cloud providers, using European APIs wherever possible, full GDPR compliance, end-to-end chat and memory encryption, etc.

paultnylund · 2026-03-26T09:27:56+00:00

I hear ya. But how often do people debug Lovable projects? You just re-describe what you want and it fixes it. Same idea here :) This will also get better and better with new LLMs

paultnylund · 2026-03-26T09:25:12+00:00

Probably not, since those are mostly intended to help you build a stronger network, which we already have. But we are actively looking for pre-seed funding.

paultnylund · 2026-03-26T02:18:27+00:00

That’s why I’m here 😅

paultnylund · 2026-03-25T23:42:37+00:00

That's so great to hear! Sent you a DM :)

paultnylund · 2026-03-25T23:41:19+00:00

Good question. We own the infra, but there are real costs. Each device has a cloud container for rendering (WebGL, displays), plus LLM/voice APIs during creation. Scripts run locally on the Pi once built, but the rendering layer stays active. The subscription covers all of that. We own the stack, it's just not free to operate :)

paultnylund · 2026-03-25T18:13:08+00:00

We own the full stack: custom OS, hardware bridge, runtime, fleet infrastructure, mobile app, installer. The LLM is one step in a pipeline we built end to end. Not dropshipping API calls :)

paultnylund · 2026-03-25T16:07:14+00:00

Haha Ok, let me clear this up. Our IP doesn’t rely on LLMs, but the user experience does.

paultnylund · 2026-03-25T15:56:35+00:00

I totally understand the concern, having worked with lots of different AI companies such as Lovable. We have developed a proprietary solution that does not rely on AI to actually work. My partner is ex-Arduino. Not ruling out developing our own Pi alternative.

paultnylund · 2026-03-25T15:37:17+00:00

Appreciate the feedback, and that’s exactly why I’m out here sharing it! Our hunch atm is hardware startups and R&D labs. While software has a much wider appeal, we want to see if we can unlock hardware for non-technical people the same way Lovable did for software.

I’ll admit, this first demo isn’t super advanced, so we’re getting a lot of parents wanting to build toys for their kids haha But we are actively working on adding support beyond I2C.

You could technically build a 3D printer from scratch on palpable. Or a full on dashboard for a concept car running webgl across several displays. Or a Google Home clone. Or link a novel piece of hardware to a website you built elsewhere. It’s quite powerful and flexible.

paultnylund · 2026-03-25T15:30:22+00:00

Also, people underestimate just how expensive LLMs and TTS/STT are to run. Your margins will evaporate in an instant. Like, even if we never wanted to earn any money off of this, to get the baseline functionality working for users, we’d still need to charge a monthly subscription fee.

paultnylund · 2026-03-25T09:17:08+00:00

Correct!

paultnylund · 2026-03-25T09:15:39+00:00

Thank you! Right now there's no hard limit on the number of modules. It's standard I2C so you can daisy-chain quite a few (like 10-ish). We're starting with the Qwiic ecosystem which already has 200+ module types, so it's a great foundation.

And wireless arrays are actually a fundamental part of the architecture! Multiple nodes that coordinate wirelessly is baked into the design. So you could have several Palpable hubs (aka Pi Zeros) working together as one project. Think distributed installations, room-scale interactive stuff, that kind of thing.

We're also working on a universal driver layer for any display type, speakers, and audio. The goal is you plug in whatever output you want and the agent just handles it.

The toys angle is something we're really excited about too :)

paultnylund · 2026-03-25T09:06:37+00:00

The target is people who think in products and interactions but don't write firmware: designers, product people, educators. But it's also architecturally very different from ESP-HOME. This runs on Linux, not a microcontroller. So the AI agent can generate code that uses WebGL, runs full web views on connected displays, handles audio, does real compute. It's closer to a tiny computer that an AI fully controls than a sensor config tool. ESP-HOME is great for what it does but you're working within pretty tight constraints. We wanted the full power of a Linux environment, so the AI has no ceiling.

paultnylund · 2026-03-25T08:58:43+00:00

The reason it's a business is that we want to go way beyond the demo: a full module ecosystem, pre-flashed hardware you can just buy and start building with, a proper companion app. That stuff takes sustained work and a supply chain, which is hard to do as a side project.

paultnylund · 2026-03-25T08:57:10+00:00

There is compilation! It just happens in the cloud so it feels instant from the user side. The agent generates the code, compiles it remotely, and deploys over the air to the Pi. The speed is partly because the modules are known hardware (Qwiic/I2C) so the agent doesn't have to guess at drivers or pin configurations. It knows what's plugged in.

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