Indoor air quality monitor
- Intent
- Measure indoor CO₂ every five seconds
- Component
- SCD41 · I²C · 3.3 V
- Schematic
- SDA → GPIO 21 · SCL → GPIO 22
- Firmware
- Wire.begin(21, 22) · address 0x62
- Review
- Interface and voltage choices aligned
Design the circuit.Develop the firmware.Build one connected device.
Start with an idea, schematic, or existing code. Tinkered keeps components, pin assignments, and board-specific firmware in sync as your device evolves.
Hardware and firmware should not live in separate worlds.
Electronics projects often scatter requirements, component research, schematics, pin notes, and source code across disconnected tools. Every handoff is another place for the circuit and firmware to drift apart.
One device, scattered across
- 01RequirementsBehavior, power, and interfaces
- 02Component researchDatasheets, voltage, and availability
- 03Schematic + pin notesConnections spread across diagrams and docs
- 04Firmware + librariesCode that depends on the chosen hardware
- 05Review + assemblyWarnings, decisions, and build instructions
Tinkered keeps every component, connection, pin assignment, software interface, and engineering decision attached to the same editable device model.
One device model. Every engineering view.
Architecture, schematic, firmware, components, and review stay connected as different views of the same editable electronic device.
Plan the complete system.
Turn requirements into a device architecture that defines the board, components, interfaces, power needs, and expected behavior.
Test WiFi, MQTT, and web servers without the hardware.
A connected project is mostly the parts you cannot see: what the board published, what came back, what the page it serves actually returned. Tinkered simulates the network around ESP32 and ESP8266 boards and shows you that traffic while the firmware runs, so networking code stops being the part you debug by reflashing.
WiFi
The board joins and gets an address
WiFi.begin() associates and the board takes a real address on the simulated network. From there it does ordinary network work: resolves names, opens sockets, reconnects when it drops.
MQTT
Every message, as it happens
Each project runs its own MQTT broker. Topics and payloads arrive as the board publishes them, alongside the connect, subscribe, and disconnect events most clients never surface. Publish into it yourself and the subscribe side of your firmware finally runs.
HTTP
The page your board serves
If the firmware serves a page, it opens beside the running board. Interact with the page and the board responds, with the request landing in the same serial output you were already reading.
Everything needed to move from idea to a test-ready device.
Begin with a new idea or bring an existing schematic, board, component list, or firmware project. Tinkered keeps every part of the design connected as it evolves.
01 · Starting material
Start with an idea, or any part of the project.
- 01Describe an idea
- 02Choose a template
- 03Import a schematic
- 04Select a board + components
- 05Bring existing firmware
See exactly how the device is connected.
Develop an editable circuit with the electrical detail needed to understand and change it.
- Editable schematic symbols and nets
- Electrical values and power connections
- Interfaces and pin assignments
- Compatibility checks and warnings
Develop firmware with the hardware in context.
Generate, import, or directly edit firmware while its board, components, and pin map remain visible.
- Board-specific C/C++ source files
- Libraries and peripheral setup
- Initialization and control logic
- Compilation output and actionable errors
Change the hardware. Keep the firmware aligned.
Swap a sensor or target board and see the affected voltage requirements, connections, pins, dependencies, initialization code, and warnings together.
Board changedConnectionsPinsDependenciesCodeWarnings
You keep the control and the context.
Edit requirements, components, schematic connections, pins, and source code directly. Then inspect why a decision was made, what conflicts with it, and which alternatives are available.
- Direct control
- Every design and code artifact remains editable.
- Decision trace
- Reasoning, trade-offs, and unsupported cases stay visible.
Questions before you start designing?
Still tinkering? Bring your circuit or firmware question to the community.
Join the communityWhat does Tinkered create for an electronics project?
Tinkered creates an editable device project containing the circuit architecture, component research, schematic connections, board-specific firmware, pin assignments, and engineering review context. The same project can then move into 3D hardware simulation and physical deployment.
Can Tinkered generate and edit circuit schematics?
Yes. Tinkered can develop a schematic with component symbols, electrical values, power connections, interfaces, nets, and pin assignments. The schematic remains editable, so you can replace components, reroute connections, or adjust values as the design changes.
Does Tinkered generate firmware for Arduino and ESP32?
Yes. Tinkered develops board-specific C/C++ firmware for Arduino, ESP32, Raspberry Pi Pico, and other supported microcontroller families. It uses the selected board, components, interfaces, and pin map to establish the relevant libraries, definitions, initialization, and control logic.
Can Tinkered build connected projects that use WiFi and MQTT?
Yes. Firmware for ESP32 and ESP8266 targets can bring up WiFi, publish and subscribe over MQTT, and serve a web page from the board. Those projects then run in the simulator with the network around them, so the connection, the message traffic, and the served page can be checked before any hardware is involved.
Can I write or modify the firmware myself?
Yes. Source files remain directly editable. You can write firmware yourself, ask Tinkered to generate or revise part of it, or use generated code as a starting point while retaining control over the final implementation.
Can I import an existing firmware project?
Yes. You can bring existing firmware into a new or existing device project. Tinkered can use the code's pins, peripherals, libraries, and behavior as context while you connect it to the corresponding circuit and components.
How do schematic connections and firmware pins stay synchronized?
Both views reference the same device model. A component interface, schematic net, physical board pin, and firmware definition remain related, so hardware or software changes can surface the affected mappings, dependencies, and conflicts for review.
Does Tinkered compile the firmware?
Tinkered can compile supported firmware targets and display the compiler output. Errors and warnings remain attached to the project so you can inspect them, revise the code or hardware configuration, and compile again.
Which microcontroller boards and frameworks are supported?
Tinkered supports more than 1,300 development boards, including popular Arduino, ESP32, ESP8266, Raspberry Pi Pico, RP2040, STM32, Teensy, BBC micro:bit, nRF52, and Feather boards. Exact firmware frameworks and capabilities depend on the selected target.
What circuit and firmware checks does Tinkered perform?
Tinkered can surface component compatibility, voltage, interface, peripheral, pin-mapping, dependency, and compilation issues. Checks are presented as inspectable results and warnings rather than a guarantee that every physical implementation will behave perfectly.
Can experienced makers override generated decisions?
Yes. You can edit requirements, component choices, electrical values, schematic connections, pin assignments, libraries, and source code directly. Tinkered keeps the surrounding context visible so you can evaluate the consequences of each change.
Develop your first connected hardware project.
Design the circuit and board-specific firmware together, inspect every decision, and carry one connected device into simulation.