FIELD NOTES / CULTURE

How We Test Hardware (Spoiler: We Drop It)

A tour of the lab where every device is dropped, spilled on, and pecked 10 million times.

November 11, 20256 min readBy Dolores Peckham
In shortThe drop table / Spill tests / Peck tests / Repair tests.

1. The drop table

Each device is dropped from 1.2 meters on six sides. The Cluckbook Pro survived 42 drops. One was caught on video, and it is now our screensaver.

2. Spill tests

Coffee, tea, and one carefully measured pitcher of syrup. Peckboards are sealed against all three.

3. Peck tests

A robot arm with a beak taps a key 10 million times. It never complains, but it does produce an alarming amount of noise.

4. Repair tests

A new hire tries to open every device. If a first-timer cannot do it in under 10 minutes, we redesign it.

Written by Dolores Peckham, Head of Data and AI. Disagree? Tell us. We read every message, usually before the second coffee.