Engineering Notes.
Practical tutorials, structural comparisons, and client engineering checklists. I cover firmware design on low-power devices, offline-first secure mobile apps, and AI agents.
Wake-Word Detection on an ESP32-S3 with TensorFlow Lite Micro
How the SmartPot's on-device wake word is put together: microphone, features, a small TensorFlow Lite Micro model, FreeRTOS tasks and the spoken reply, with the choices to make before you start.
Gesture-Controlled 6-DOF Arm with MediaPipe and ESP32
How my 6-DOF arm follows a hand: a webcam, MediaPipe's 21 landmarks, a WebSocket link and an ESP32 driving six servos through a PCA9685, plus the jitter and power problems to plan for.
River-Level Monitoring with ESP32 and GSM: A Monsoon Design Sketch
How I'd build a low-cost river-level node for Assam's monsoon: an ultrasonic sensor on a bridge, an ESP32, a GSM link and SMS alerts on rate of rise. A local supplement to official flood warnings, not a replacement.
Hire a Developer in Guwahati or Bengaluru? Cost, Speed, Talk
Where your developer sits matters less than how they work. Here is how cost, speed and communication actually differ between Guwahati and Bengaluru, and what to check before you sign anything.
App or Website First? A Guide for Small Businesses in Assam
Most small businesses in Assam should start with a website. An app earns its place only when customers or staff need the phone's hardware, offline use or daily repeat use. Here is how to tell which one you are.
How I Built an AI Portfolio Assistant with Gemini and Supabase
The architecture behind Fyra, the assistant on this site: cheap keyword retrieval over my own projects, strict on-topic rules, a Gemini model fallback chain, and a lead form that turns a chat into a structured brief.
Searching Text Inside Screenshots on macOS with Vision and FTS5
How Clipivo, my Mac clipboard manager, finds words inside screenshots: on-device Vision OCR in the background, an SQLite FTS5 trigram index for substring search, and bm25 weights that put the right clip first.
ESP32 OTA Updates from GitHub Releases, Without an OTA Server
How I ship ESP32 firmware updates from GitHub Releases with GitReleaseOTA: a version.json, SHA-256 checks, a non-blocking check task, a one-command release script, and the security gaps I still want to close.
A WhatsApp AI Assistant for a Guwahati Shop: What's Realistic in 2026
What an AI assistant on WhatsApp can and can't do for a local shop in 2026: the three ways to set one up, what Meta charges, the rules that changed this year, and how I'd run a first pilot.
What You Can (and Can't) 3D Print for a Final-Year Project in Guwahati
FDM 3D printing is great for enclosures, brackets and mounts, but it won't replace a machined metal part or a watertight seal. Here's what to design around before your demo.
Offline-first apps for low-connectivity districts: what to decide early
An app for users on patchy networks needs a few decisions made before the first screen: what lives on the phone, which writes may wait, how photos travel and what happens when two copies disagree.
Get a Guwahati Business Found on Google: Website, Maps and WhatsApp
How a Guwahati shop, clinic or coaching centre gets found on Google: a verified Maps profile, a fast website that backs it up, and a WhatsApp link that turns a search into a conversation.
10 Final-Year IoT Project Ideas for Engineering Students in Assam
Ten ESP32 project ideas for a final-year engineering project in Assam, each with a real problem behind it, the core parts, and the one detail that lifts it above a copied tutorial.
IoT for Assam Tea Gardens: Soil, Weather and Pest Alerts on a Budget
What a small sensor network can realistically do for an Assam tea garden: soil moisture and pH checks, weather logging over GSM, and alerts that tell you when to scout for pests, not magic pest detection.
How Much Does a Website Cost in Guwahati? A 2026 Breakdown
A plain-language breakdown of what a website costs in Guwahati in 2026: builder, freelancer, agency and online store ranges, plus the hosting, GST and payment fees that quotes often leave out.
Jetpack Compose State Hoisting vs ViewModel: When to Use Each
A practical guide to managing state in Jetpack Compose — when to hoist state locally within the composable tree versus lifting it into a ViewModel.
Type-Safe Server Actions in Next.js App Router with Zod Validation
How to write robust, fully type-safe Next.js Server Actions using Zod schemas to validate incoming form data and protect against malformed input.
ESP32 Deep Sleep Modes and Wake Sources: A Power Optimization Guide
Reduce ESP32 current consumption from 240mA active to under 15μA using deep sleep, RTC memory, and timer or GPIO wake sources.
Offline-First Architecture in Android Apps with Room and WorkManager
How to build Android applications that work without a network connection using Room database, LiveData, and WorkManager sync queues.
ISR vs SSR vs SSG: Choosing the Right Rendering Mode in Next.js
A practical breakdown of Next.js rendering strategies — when to use Static Generation, Server-Side Rendering, or Incremental Static Regeneration for real-world pages.
Semantic Search with pgvector Inside Supabase PostgreSQL
How to store text embeddings directly in PostgreSQL using pgvector, and build a semantic search engine without a dedicated vector database like Pinecone.
Designing Your First Custom PCB: From KiCad Schematic to Gerber Files
A beginner-friendly walkthrough of the complete PCB design workflow in KiCad — schematic capture, footprint assignment, PCB layout, routing, and generating Gerber files for manufacturing.
I2C vs SPI vs UART: Choosing the Right Serial Protocol for Embedded Hardware
A practical comparison of the three most common embedded serial communication protocols. Learn which to choose for sensors, displays, and microcontroller peripherals.
ESP32 FreeRTOS Task Scheduling & Prioritization
Learn how to write deterministic firmware on ESP32 using FreeRTOS tasks, task notifications, and semaphore queues.
PlatformIO vs Arduino IDE: Boosting Embedded Development Workflow
Compare embedded firmware development environments. How PlatformIO improves library dependencies, debug tools, and build configuration.
Cursor vs Claude Code: Real-World AI Programming Compared
An comparison of developer AI tools. When to use Cursor's visual pane editor vs Claude Code's terminal agent execution.
How to Hire a Specialized ESP32 Firmware Developer
A technical hiring guide for companies looking to recruit freelance or contract ESP32 developers. Key interview questions and skill verification.
Choosing a Freelance AI Automation Engineer: Technical Checklist
How to find and screen freelance AI engineers for LLM integrations, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and agentic workflows.
Best Practices for MQTT Telemetry on Low-Power Microcontrollers
Optimize your MQTT payload sizes, Quality of Service (QoS) levels, keep-alive frames, and deep sleep cycles for efficient IoT devices.
ESP32 vs Raspberry Pi Pico: Choosing the Right Microcontroller
An in-depth hardware comparison between ESP32 and RP2040 (Pico) covering processing power, wireless connectivity, power draw, and workflows.
How Much Does IoT Hardware Prototyping and Development Cost?
A budget breakdown of IoT product development stages: components sourcing, custom PCB design, firmware engineering, and cloud infrastructure.
Running TensorFlow Lite Micro on ESP32-S3
How to run machine learning models directly on the edge. Deploying wake-word and audio classification models on ESP32-S3 chips.
Supabase vs Firebase: Database & Security for Next.js Developers
A direct comparison between Firebase and Supabase focusing on SQL vs NoSQL structures, security rules, and Next.js SSR integrations.