Medical devices
Electronics and firmware for therapy and wellness devices, developed in staged board revisions so every risk is tested and documented before the design moves forward.
Your idea, routed all the way to production.
Karma Electronics is a San Diego product development studio specializing in low-power wireless electronics. We design the hardware, firmware and the AWS cloud behind it for medical, aerospace and defense clients, including ITAR-controlled programs.
Hardware, firmware and cloud, designed together.
Over 15 years of product development and more than 45 completed projects for 45 happy customers across medical, aerospace, defense, industrial and consumer electronics.
PCB design
Schematics and layout in Altium, from small sensor boards to multi-layer, RF, high-speed digital and flex designs, with clean BOMs and Gerbers.
Embedded firmware
STM32, Nordic, TI, SiLabs, PIC and ESP32. Drivers, RTOS integration including Zephyr, and low-power optimization for long battery life.
Wireless & RF
BLE, Wi-Fi, LoRa and LoRaWAN, Amazon Sidewalk and cellular IoT, from antenna path to protocol stack.
Hardware bring-up & testing
An in-house lab with oscilloscopes, logic analyzers and a spectrum analyzer to verify every board and chase down every bug.
Certification & production
Designs built to EMC best practice and taken through FCC and CE, then handed off to domestic or overseas board houses.
Cloud backends on AWS
Device data sent to AWS, then processed, stored and kept secure, so every unit in the field reports in.
Dashboards and apps
Web dashboards that turn device data into something your team can act on, plus iOS and Android apps in Flutter.
From sensor to dashboard
Most of our products don't stop at the board. We build the whole path the data travels.
Device
Custom PCB, sensors and low-power firmware.
Connectivity
BLE, Wi-Fi, LoRaWAN, Amazon Sidewalk or cellular.
AWS cloud
Data received, processed and stored securely.
Dashboards and apps
Live views, history and alerts for your team.
Built for regulated work
Much of our work goes into products where failure isn't an option and paperwork matters as much as the board.
Defense and ITAR
Hardware and firmware delivered on ITAR-controlled programs, with controlled technical data kept to the program team. US-based engineering in San Diego.
Aerospace
Electronics for aerospace applications, designed for reliability under vibration, temperature extremes and long service life.
Tell us the standards and documentation your program requires and we'll plan the work around them.
Selected projects
A sample of recent client work. Open any project for the full story and a sample dashboard of its data. Client names are withheld where projects are under NDA.
Medical
Wound-care therapy device
Hardware and firmware for a device that treats patient wounds, controlling a pump and reading sensors to manage fluid flow around the wound.
PCB design, embedded control, AWS dashboards
Industrial IoT
Predictive-maintenance sensor gateway
A cellular gateway for commercial fan systems that streams vibration, acoustic and temperature data to the cloud to detect failed fans and predict failures before they happen.
LTE Cat-M1, sensor arrays, AWS analytics
Asset tracking
Cellular Wi-Fi tag reader
A low-cost reader, targeted at $50, that scans for Wi-Fi tags, stamps each with time, GPS and signal strength, and reports over cellular so customers can locate tagged assets.
Wi-Fi scanning, GPS, cellular, AWS
Industrial automation
Motion controller modernization
Replaced a legacy PLC, stepper controller and touchscreen with a modern embedded system driving up to six motors, using stall detection to eliminate the home switch and adding hooks for wireless control.
Stepper control, touchscreen UI, AWS monitoring
Long-range wireless
LoRa and Amazon Sidewalk radios
A peer-to-peer LoRa radio designed from hardware through firmware, plus several LoRaWAN designs and a recent Amazon Sidewalk product.
STM32WL, STM32WBA, SX1276, AWS
Commercial equipment
Connected timer board and companion app
A BLE timer board for vending equipment that keeps real-time clock and generates daily access codes, configured from a phone app, with ongoing firmware releases.
STM32WB, BLE, mobile app, AWS
Scientific instruments
Precision thermal controller
A new controller board and firmware for the temperature system in a scientific instrument, with modern power-supply control and automatic fault recovery.
Microchip PIC, watchdog recovery, USB CLI, AWS
Health and wellness
Posture-coaching wearable
A wearable that tracks neck and back angle, vibrates to cue better posture, and syncs to a phone app that charts posture over the week.
BLE, haptics, mobile app, cloud sync
Defense and aerospace
ITAR-controlled embedded controller
Custom battery-powered hardware and firmware with a full command-line interface, delivered on an ITAR-controlled program. Technical details are not published.
Hardware, firmware, CLI, ITAR program
How a project runs
Four stages, with a clear deliverable and a decision point at the end of each.
Discover
We pin down what the product must do, who it's for, the target cost and the timeline.
Design
Architecture, schematics, layout, firmware and enclosure, reviewed with you as they develop.
Prototype
We build and test real units, fix what we learn, and iterate until it works the way it should.
Produce
We prepare manufacturing files and work with your supplier through the first production run.
Less bureaucracy. More building.
I started Karma Electronics in 2021 to take the bureaucracy out of engineering and get back to what matters: designing products and shipping them.
After more than 15 years in product development, I'd seen good ideas stall in layers of approvals, handoffs and meetings. Here, you work directly with the engineer designing your product. Questions get answered the same day, decisions get made quickly, and the design keeps moving.
Karma Electronics is a family-friendly small business. You get straight answers, honest estimates and an engineer who treats your product like it matters, because it does.
Anthony Ruiz, founder and principal engineer
- Projects delivered
- 45+
- Happy customers
- 45
- Years in product development
- 15+
- In business since
- 2021
Who we work with
Startups
Turn a concept into a working product you can show investors and early customers.
Inventors
Get expert engineering behind your idea without hiring a full team.
Established companies
Add design capacity for a new product line or redesign an existing one.
Tell us what you want to build.
Send a few lines about your idea and where you are with it. We'll reply with next steps and a rough plan.