Home Assistant turns twelve — a rare milestone in open-source longevity and a reminder that good architecture ages well. Then: a humanoid robot that quietly calls China every five minutes. MIT and Toyota craft physics-aware virtual worlds for robot training. And UC Santa Cruz turns WiFi into a heartbeat sensor. From homes that think to networks that feel — it’s the edge where automation starts sensing us back.

In this episode we follow the trail from OpenAI’s new robotics hires, through NVIDIA’s Jetson Thor, to Raspberry Pi powering pro synths—and end with the pocket-sized ESP32 Cardputer that just might become the next mini music machine.

The summer break is over and engineers are back at full speed, which means this episode is packed with stories from every corner of IoT. We start with an open-source 3D motion platform that somehow squeezes 50-nanometer precision out of 3D-printed parts and cheap NEMA-17 motors, a perfect showcase of what community engineering can achieve. Then we shift to the microscopic world, where researchers in Slovenia managed to 3D-print a tiny elephant inside a living cell using two-photon polymerization — part science fiction, part science fact. On the more practical side, Bambu Lab has unveiled its biggest single-nozzle printer yet, the H2S, capable of handling engineering plastics with speed and precision, while teasing its colorful future with the wireless H2C system. And to round things out, the latest ESPHome release brings nRF52 support on Zephyr RTOS and ESP-NOW mesh networking, opening new doors for low-power Bluetooth devices and resilient sensor networks. From nanometer motion to home automation, this episode delivers a full spectrum of engineering inspiration.

In this episode we move far beyond the hobby corner of 3D printing. From LAIKA’s Oscar-winning “replacement animation” technique, to surgeons rehearsing operations on 3D-printed heads, to the wild world of five-axis printers and Arduino’s big bet on ZephyrOS — the frontier of making is shifting again. We’ll also peek into the latest Home Assistant release, where AI moves from novelty into full-blown automation.

In Episode 15 of the IoT Forge News Digest, we journey into the wilder side of robotics and IoT. From swarms of insect-brained drones zipping through cluttered spaces, to hissing cockroaches turned into first-responder cyborgs, to robots learning to understand their own bodies—autonomy is evolving in unexpected ways. We revisit the self-modeling robot research we covered in Episode 12 and explore why giving robots a “sense of self” is becoming a hot topic in the field. Plus, we wrap up with a real-world smart home showcase from the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, where Home Assistant proves that local-first automation is king.

In this episode, we explore the Comma 3X and whether 20Hz is fast enough for highway driving, the new ESP-Hosted-MCU mode for real-time connectivity, and AutoML for Embedded from Analog Devices. Plus: tinymcp lets LLMs control your microcontrollers, and we bring you weird and wonderful highlights from Open Sauce 2025—including a goldfish that drives.

In this episode, we explore the Peripheral Reflex System (PRS) — a hidden gem inside Silicon Labs chips that enables ultra-low-power, high-speed hardware reactions without waking the CPU. We look at Raspberry Pi’s new $4 certified radio module that can save you thousands in wireless certification costs, and meet Walter — a powerful ESP32-S3 + 5G module built for cellular-connected IoT in the field. Finally, we dive into Home Assistant 2025.7, with its redesigned tablet-friendly dashboards, fully local conversational voice assistant, and cleaner, modular device integration.

What if your gaming handheld could run your next robot prototype? This episode takes you from Steam Deck-powered edge control to neural nets upgrading legacy manipulators—with stops at smarter ROS search, and fresh updates from the Home Assistant and ESPHome front lines. Future’s getting weird… in the best way.

From AI-powered drones that learn in-flight to open-source PCB designs anyone can build on — this episode explores how intelligence and accessibility are reshaping robotics and embedded development. Whether you’re designing the next manipulator or just wiring up your first board, there’s something here to spark your next idea.