I’m Daniel. Together with Matt, we’re building Inanimate - devices and a platform to transform any home or workplace into an agentic environment. 

This is Lab Notes - a record of our work as we build and ship Inanimate. It’s a broad scan of anything that influences, informs, and inspires us; and maybe you too.

You signed up to follow our story as we build a new British Sony for the AI Era.

Here’s what’s been happening this week.

Sun is out. Vibes are good.

We had a great time at Betaworks, and made loads of new friends and connections in the New York ecosystem. 

Focus now: explore, discover, and build, build, build!

After a couple of weeks of solid work, we have new prototypes working. This unlocks explorations of new interactions.

We’re also playing around with some off-the-shelf devices that feel Inanimate.

We’re experimenting with voice interactions, sketching timelines, and battling jet lag.

We’re still looking for a Principal Embedded Engineer. Email us on [email protected] if you would recommend someone.

Here’s what’s been influencing and inspiring me this week.

Teams building hardware products today are different.

They are revisiting ideas from the past, too complex to build, until generative AI come along. 

They are building into the new AI computing paradigm that needs new end points, new interfaces, and new surfaces.

They are manufacturing out of today’s Shenzhen ecosystem - a wonder of the modern world - that has incredible depth, variety, quality of supply, and capability for scale at low cost.

We call this New Wave Hardware. And we’re continuing to collect interesting products emerging from this category.

Here are some that I came across recently. 

Found a great example of New Wave Hardware? Send it over.

From the 12th Century, The Lord of the Isles was a title given to the Norse-Gaelic ruler of the islands of Western Scotland. 

Today, it is the name of one of electronic music’s most interesting, transportive artists.

“His music is vivid, effervescent and impressively visual, offering immersive soundscapes that transport listeners to imaginary worlds. In turn, these would-be electronic soundtracks are variously inspired by the sci-fi landscapes of Ralph McQuarrie he adored as a boy, and his deep-rooted love of the outdoors… There are moments of surging intensity, becalmed soundscapes, pulsating club tracks and heady, otherworldly grooves across all of his output.” (Resident Advisor)

His remix work on Pye Corner Audio’s Self Synchronise was my most listened to track of 2025.

If you like this, his collaborations with Scottish poet Ellen Renton - like Inheritance - are utterly sublime. 

See you next time.

Daniel

PS. Want an Inanimate sticker? Send your address, and I’ll post one out to you.