Welcome back!
I’m Daniel. Together with my co-founder 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 and what inspires us as we build and ship Inanimate. You signed up to follow our story.
Previously…
Here’s what’s been happening this week.
On Community
Every six weeks, we bring together a small group of hardware and deep tech founders in London. We call this Over Coffee.
Last week, we talked about hardware go-to-market with leaders from Camera Intelligence (whose AI camera I used to capture the header image), Beeline (bike GPS), Mayku (miniaturised vacuum former), and Swytch (ebike maker).
If you are in London, and want to join the next one in May, reach out!
On Manufacturing
We caught up with one of the team at Mous, who is an expert in manufacturing and supply chain. He shared hard-won lessons from shipping products in 2026.
Three public takeaways:
Lots of contract manufacturers are offering 72-hour delivery from factory floor to end-customer’s door. This collapses timelines and cuts out intermediaries.
As tariffs and supply chain disruption becomes more common, contract manufacturers are setting up operations in multiple locations outside-China. Resilience and flexibility is becoming part of the offer.
There is no place like Shenzhen, and for speed, adaptability, and ecosystem integration, there is no alternative to having a team permanently on the ground in China.
On People
The hunt for our Principal Embedded Engineer intensifies. Lots of interviews happening. If you know someone, point them our way.
We have a new Prototyping Engineer, Charlie, who is accelerating our work to get ideas into physical form. He’s into number stations.
What else?
We’re doing more with voice and conversational interactions, rationalising everything to improve developer experience, and adding observability for agent runs.
Yes, and…
Here’s what’s been influencing and inspiring me this week.
Intriguing Devices
My life is an endless stream of new hardware. Here are some interesting devices and teams that have floated to the top this week.
iYo Wand (Early-mover in frontier AI devices for conversational, agentic computing)
Hark (Ambitious team building personal intelligence devices)
Petru (Father-Son graphic equalizer audiophile product that is affordable, expressive and much loved)
Loftie (Thoughtful, distraction-free connected bedside alarm clock and lamp)
Ambient Works (Desktop air quality monitor for pollution, CO2, and factors that impact concentration)
The Best in the World
What makes a product universally great? The “best” across all criteria.
Ultimately, this is subjective. But we do arrive at a judgment over time. How does that work? Who decides?
I look at this in two ways.
The best is what we are told it is.
The tastemaker approach. Top-down. A brilliant designer creates the best product. A seasoned expert reviewer makes the decision for us based on their superlative judgement. We accept that decision. We don’t know any better. We are but sheep, following the shepherd.
The best is what everyone agrees it is.
The democratic approach. Bottom-up. A messy aggregate drawn from word of mouth, brand affinity, decades of usage, hundreds of breathless reviews for, thousands of furious reviews against, and a multitude of unknown sources of influence. Eventually, an agreed best emerges from pitched battles in the court of public opinion. It’s a compromise. We muddle through.
Can we get to a fast answer? A blend of both ways. An aggregate from the LLM woodchipper.
Let’s give it a go.
“What is the best desk lamp in the world?”
The best for overall performance would be the BenQ e-Reading Desk Lamp.
Ranked top by reviewers, adjustable colour, satisfying controls, a very wide light spread, and all presented in an attractive, minimalist design. Yours for $199.
The best for luxury and technical capabilities could be the Dyson Solarcycle Morph.
It tracks daylight at your location and adjusts colour brightness and temperature accordingly. It can “morph” into different forms - from task light, to ambient light, to indirect light. It has magnets that click, LEDs that last 60 years, and a price to justify it. Yours for $499.
The best for those who want a tried and tested design classic, may be the Anglepoise Type 75.
It has perfect mechanical balance and adjustability. It takes a standard E27 bulb, has a lifetime warranty, and is made by a company with the best brand slogan around - Abandon Darkness! It’s classic British design mate.
Since I have an Anglepoise 1227 sitting on my desk, I conclude that maybe the best lamp is the one I already have.
What do you think is the best desk lamp in the world? I’d love to know!
The Whole Spectrum of Life Comes Here
In a 19th Century park, just south of Brixton in London, there is an unheated, Olympic-size, outdoor swimming pool.
It is a public good, owned by the local council, and has been open to all, even through the cold winters, for nearly a hundred years.
In the summer of 1995, documentary maker Lucy Blakstad captured the community of people that use Brockwell Lido.
It’s a beautiful, complex human study of people at leisure, reflecting on their lives.
Heads-up: this contains racist and offensive terms, as well as some nudity. It is reflective of the politics of the time.