LittleBits Opens BitLab For Crowdsourced Hardware

Connectivity is important, and LittleBits wants to connect all the things in your life. Big or small, LittleBits wants you to be able to connect them, even going so far as to automate your life. Now they're opening up their platform, and have announced BitLab, a crowdsourced way to make hardware more like software.

The way BitLab works is fairly simple, really. Like an app storefront, LittleBits will take your hardware idea, produce it, sell it, and take a cut of the profits. For working the idea out, you can also share in the profits. It's like hardware apps, which is pretty much what LittleBits is anyway.

Being crowdsourced, BitLab will naturally lend itself to a vast creative avenue of those with brilliant schemes who can't quite bring their concept to reality. This also follows up on cloudBits, LittleBit's cloud-based platform.

If you're not sure how to get started, LittleBits has a hardware Developers kit. Once you submit your concept — which can be as simple as an idea, or a full-fledged product — it's up to the community to vote on it. If your idea wins, LittleBits will produce it.

It's a novel idea that borrows from several other successful platforms. Hardware like the app store, community engagement like Kickstarter, and adding to the "Internet of Things" like — well, everyone. It's early on for BitLab, but where it could lead us is very exciting.

Source: LittleBits