The BRCK is designed and developed here in Nairobi, Kenya. As you might expect, this is a very different experience than doing it in China, US or EU. While creating physical products is always hard. Doing it in Africa is harder. This is due to the difficulties around rapid prototyping, shipping costs and accessibility of components. However, it’s also the best way to understand the real problems and challenges that the BRCK is here to solve.

Reg Orton, BRCK CTO, is on this short video explaining some of what this means:

BRCK: Designed in Kenya from BRCK on Vimeo.

Some key thoughts on this from our end:

• We are not an off the shelf solution and rebranding
• We are pushing the limits of what is possible to do without
• Retail price point dictates smart design and challenging design
• We want our engineers close to the problem to really understand the requirements. This makes things harder than if we were designing in China
• We are developing a far better product by doing custom design
• Our volumes are lower in this market segment than if we were designing an ordinary router device.
• We are developing a company here, not a fly by night product. We want our v2 and v3 products to be heads above everyone else.
• Doing this allows us to rethink a lot of the assumptions that existing products use.

(Yesterday’s post: Part 1)

I came home this weekend to find that the water pump that goes from our outside tank to the house was no longer functioning. One of the daily challenges that we deal with in Nairobi is that water is both unreliable and – when available – delivered at very low pressure. At our house we have one pump that goes from the city line to our outside tank and then a separate pump that goes from the outside tank into the tanks that are located in our attic. When we moved into the house both pumps were controlled manually and it was not uncommon to run out of water in one part of the house – usually the showers – when we would forget to turn the pump on. I eventually bought a very nice industrial pressure control valve that would automatically turn on the pump whenever the water level dropped below the cutoff for the float valves. It wasn’t a cheap control valve – in fact it was quite expensive. I chose to invest in an industrial quality unit so that it would withstand the environmental realities of Kenya.

Needless to say, it failed. Not just a little failure, but a complete and total meltdown – literally.

It all started with a very bad storm on Saturday. Our power was out several times and we woke up on Sunday to our fans running very slowly and the lights glowing very dim. I didn’t measure the voltage but I would guess we were running about 100V on a 220V circuit. We spent the morning at church and didn’t get back to the house until later in the afternoon. Everything was back on and we assumed that all was well. It was only on Monday morning when the showers didn’t work that we realized there was an issue. Our pump wasn’t running.

After confirming that power was being supplied, I pulled the control valve off and opened it up. You can see the results in the photos. Complete and unrepairable electrical devastation. The unit was fried. I am guessing that we had a serious power spike at some point in the day and this unit wasn’t sufficiently engineered to handle the results. I don’t know the specs on the components or how well engineered the device was but in reading the ashes I can only surmise that the sizable relay failed and sent 300V+ into the circuit board. Even in the ashes I can tell this is a well built device and I am sure that the EE who designed it was confident that all of the components could withstand normal operating conditions for a 220V industrial appliance – including some standard margin of error. However, that EE likely has never witnessed the realities of power spikes that blow lightbulbs, fry computer power supplies, and generally wreak havoc on any electronics in Africa. I trust that if he had, he would have probably thought differently about his design and the specification of the components for his device.

This experience only reenforces one of our core premises at BRCK: you can’t effectively engineer for the realities of Africa if you don’t experience the realities of Africa. Early in the process of designing the BRCK we identified smart power management as being one of the key features that needed to be incorporated throughout the device. Not just smart in the sense of keeping the onboard LiPo charged but smart in the sense of not turning to ashes when the power company goes off the rails. We know that power in Africa will always be unreliable and of poor quality, why shouldn’t our devices be engineered to handle it?

(Note: I’ll do another post later on the challenges, constraints and opportunities of designing in Africa, but here’s a real case study for why it’s important.)

Reg and Philip spent a day last week at Amboseli working with a group of conservationist called Lion Guardians, who have a permanent camp about 10km from the edge of the Amboseli National Park. They went at their request to see if BRCK could solve their current connectivity challenges before they invested in satellite equipment.

A Problem of Too Many GSM Towers

The situation is that Lion Guardians can get decent signal from one operator (Airtel) but very slow data connections. They can also receive signal from another mobile operator (Safaricom) in certain physical locations within the camp but it requires standing in one spot and holding their phone in a certain way. One of the workers is able to send/receive data by holding his laptop in one of these spots to get a decent data connection.

Reg and Philip spent a couple of hours surveying the signals with a combination of the OpenSignal Android phone app and the Wilson boost equipment. They found a very strong Airtel signal but it only provided edge data. They found more than one Safaricom signals, one of them provided no data – even with strong signal – and another provided reasonable edge performance. However, when locating in the exact spot identified, they were able to get 3G signal and faster data.

After attempting to secure a reliable signal from the identified 3G tower (they were tracking tower IDs) they stumbled upon a hypothesis for this type of situation, which isn’t an uncommon issue.

The hypothesis is that the 3G tower is the tower that is furthest from camp and therefore has the weakest signal. From most locations in camp, one of the stronger signals from the other towers is given preference and no/poor data connections are the result. However, when standing in a location that blocks the stronger towers (due to a building and a tree), the weaker signal take precedent and a solid 3G connection is possible. As we understand it, the device will usually “hear” several towers and then has to make a decision about which one it’s actually going to talk to. Signal strength, not quality, tends to be the easiest metric to engineer for.

A BRCK GSM Lock-on Solution

The opportunity is to create a means of forcing the selection of a specific tower ID even if other towers have stronger signals. In order to achieve this improved result we are going to need to address two principal issues:

• The first is that we have to develop a means of indicating to the BRCK which tower IDs are acceptable and which should be rejected.
• The second is to develop a means of doing effective site surveys that will allow anyone to identify the best carrier/tower combination for a given location.

If we can do this then we should be able to offer a very competitive performance improvement in locations with mixed/limited coverage. You can imagine being out with your BRCK in a new environment and getting a list of possible connections, and choosing the best one – not the strongest one, in the future.

This observation further reinforces our “engineered in Africa” position since we would likely not encounter this scenario in the West. The fact that Safaricom has multiple towers but only some of them have good data connections is a very unique problem for the emerging markets.

With respect to Lion Guardians, they have been told that a new Safaricom tower is coming that will be close to camp. This will likely provide them with the performance they are looking for. However, they will still need a BRCK since they want to have a single, reliable, self-powered connection that is shared using an outdoor Ubiquity WiFi AP.

At the end of 2013 I sat down with Jiitu Abraham of CCTV to talk about the BRCK. I cover why we built it and who we’re seeing the most interest from as users. Here’s the video.

The BRCK is now an independent commercial entity and we’ve started to raise our seed round of investment. This means we’re ramping up and are looking to hire for some specific positions. If you’re hungry to join a team that uses technology to solve real-world problems, and has a fun time while doing so, Tell us why you’d like to join and upload your resume/CV here.

If you join the BRCK team as an engineer, that guy below will be your boss.

Electrical Engineer (apply here)

Product Development Engineer (Electrical)
BRCK is a rugged wireless router, an internet connectivity device designed in emerging markets for the changing way we access the internet globally. Its job is to extend the edges of the network, and to connect people and sensors where solid infrastructure isn’t found. We think of it as the easiest and most reliable way to get connect, anywhere you are in the world.

Everyone at BRCK comes to work here because we’re building the tools that every day people around the world will use to improve the lives of millions. In other words, in the fight for a better world, we aren’t 007, we’re Q.

BRCK is looking for an electrical designer to join our team in Nairobi, Kenya. The ideal candidate will be a self-starter, with a passion for enabling communication globally. We have very ambitious plans and we are looking for someone that can share our vision, and take the BRCK product to the next level.

The BRCK team, made of world-class mechanical, electrical and software engineers is based in Nairobi, Kenya, fostering a new age of hardware development on the continent. While we would prefer local applicants, international applicants willing to make a transition to Kenya are invited to apply as well.

Skills and Requirements

• BE, BSc or equivalent degree as a minimum requirement, with a masters or higher degree preferred.
• Minimum of 3 years designing commercial electronic products
• Minimum of 2 years’ experience using industry standard ECAD tools (Schematic capture, Simulation and Layout tools)
• Proven understanding of both analog and digital design requirements and concerns.

Optional Skills and Experience

• Prototype testing and tuning.
• Some high speed digital design experience
• Familiarity with automated test and measurement
• Understanding of concerns in high volume manufacturing.

Priority will be given to individuals with a proven track record of pushing the envelope, thinking creatively and a passion for global communication.

Travel
Up to 20% international travel will be required.

Location
This role will be based in the BRCK Design office in Nairobi, Kenya.

Remuneration
Remuneration will be dependent on skills and experience, and we expect to be able to deliver a competitive package.

Background
Ushahidi, BRCK’s parent company, is a non-profit technology company that builds open source software. The word “Ushahidi” means “testimony” in Swahili, and came out of the crowdsourced mapping platform we built during the Kenyan post-election violence in 2008. Our goal is to improve the way information flows in the world, and the BRCK is a natural extension of this. BRCK is a taking the Ushahidi core ethos, and using that to develop best in class communication tool with your help.

Our team tends to think big and rewards creativity and an entrepreneurial attitude. Over the past six years, we have also built the iHub – the tech community hub in Nairobi, the BRCK – a redesign of connectivity for the developing world, and other projects like Savannah Fund, and AfriLabs. Our ethos – we don’t just build products, we solve problems.