Big Country Works is somewhere between a serious hardware company and a monetized hobby.

Exactly where on that spectrum remains under investigation.

1. No Corporate “We”

Big Country Works will never use the word “we” to describe a solder monkey working in a garage whose brain refuses to stop thinking of things he wants to make.

There is no engineering department.

There is no product development division.

There is a workbench.

This may change someday. Until then, BCW will not pretend otherwise.

2. Make Interesting Things

Not every product needs to solve a serious problem.

Sometimes the problem is that human-presence sensors are boring and would clearly be better if they had animated eyes and were installed inside a skull.

That is sufficient justification.

3. Build It Here

BCW products should involve actual building.

Circuit boards get designed. Firmware gets written. Plastic gets printed. Parts get soldered. Prototypes fail spectacularly. Occasionally everything works at the same time.

Components will obviously come from all over the world. The interesting part is what gets done with them after they arrive.

4. Don't Bullshit People

Features should work as advertised.

Compatibility should be tested before it's claimed.

Known limitations should be documented.

A small hardware company doesn't need corporate polish nearly as much as it needs customers who trust what it says.

5. Repairable Beats Disposable

Whenever practical, products should use replaceable components, accessible connectors, documented interfaces and hardware that doesn't become useless because somebody decided a cloud service wasn't profitable anymore.

Glue has its place.

That place is generally not on top of a screw.

6. Local First

If something can work without an internet connection, it probably should.

The Wi-Fi going down should not cause a decorative skull to suffer an existential crisis.

Cloud services can add capabilities. They shouldn't unnecessarily own the product.

7. Make the Weird Version

There are plenty of companies making beige boxes.

Big Country Works does not need to become another one.

A radar presence sensor works.

A radar presence sensor that notices someone entering the room, turns its eyes toward them and reports the whole thing to Home Assistant also works.

Only one of those is interesting.

8. Show the Mess

Prototypes fail. Boards get revised. Prints turn into spaghetti. Firmware breaks something that worked perfectly yesterday.

That's engineering, not something to hide.

When it's interesting, BCW will show it.

9. Customers Are Not Beta Testers

Small-batch hardware will occasionally have problems.

That's different from knowingly shipping unfinished garbage and hoping firmware updates eventually turn it into the product that was advertised.

Experimental features can be experimental.

Products for sale need to work.

10. Keep This Fun

Big Country Works exists because making things is fun.

If it becomes a giant corporation with quarterly synergy meetings, mandatory leadership retreats and a Vice President of Strategic Soldering Operations, something has gone terribly wrong.

Until then:

Make weird stuff.

Make it work.

And if it turns out particularly cool, put it in a box and sell a few.