Portable Microscope

ioLight

Portable Microscope

ioLight

Portable Microscope

ioLight

Summary

  • End-to-end mobile microscope
  • Live video streaming
  • Integrated hardware / software design

ioLight approached Airsource to develop the iPad application for their magnificent mobile microscope, a laboratory grade imaging device small enough to carry in your bag.

The microscope hardware would need to be controlled via the iPad app, giving users options for focus and positioning, and with the ability to stream live HD video over Wifi back to the device.

Challenge

  • Live streaming and capture of HD video from an embedded device to the iPad
  • Embedded software running on custom hardware to control the microscope
  • Hardware and software integration

User Experience

The world's most amazing portable microscope needs a compelling - yet straightforward - user interface, and that's what Airsource were tasked to deliver. Working closely with the ioLight team, we produced an experience that would keep support calls to a minimum and get microbes in focus.


ioLight Sketch 3 ioLight Sketch 1

Illustrations

ioLight Palette

The Airsource design team used ioLight's colour palette to come up with a set of simple and unobtrusive icons. They stay out of the way so you can get on with seeing cells or sand from the seashore.


ioLight Icons

Design

Easy on-boarding was a critical consideration - users want to get up and running quickly - and the Airsource team designed and integrated a set of instructions which made that possible.


ioLight Onboarding Screenshot ioLight Main Screenshot

Result

With the design still in it's early stages, we had to start by building and testing prototype microscope hardware to ioLight's specification. We then developed the embedded software, followed by the alpha iPad application, creating a custom streaming solution to handle the HD video.

When the final microscope was completed we were able to seamlessly incorporate our firmware and instantly test all aspects of the hardware, significantly accelerating the development of iolight's production version.

ioLight launched their digital microscope in 2016, and you can buy one for your classroom, lab or business from their website.