Frequently Asked Questions

This varies per project and depends on complexity, scope, and specific requirements. For a small project, think around €5,000, while a more complex design can cost €10,000 to €20,000. Want to know for sure? After a no-obligation intake meeting, we provide a quote with the exact costs.

A typical PCB design process, from concept to production-ready files, takes 4 to 8 weeks. Then it takes about 3 to 6 weeks before we have the first prototypes in hand. We then test and improve the design if needed. Simpler designs can be faster, complex projects with multiple iterations take longer. This excludes firmware and software development that may run in parallel. We provide a realistic timeline at the start of the project.

There is no difference. PCB is the English abbreviation for Printed Circuit Board. 'Printplaat' is the Dutch term for the same thing. The name refers to the manufacturing process, where the circuit is 'printed' as a pattern of copper traces on the board.

PCBA stands for Printed Circuit Board Assembly. This is a printed circuit board where all electronic components, chips, and connectors are mounted. Strictly speaking, a PCB is just the bare printed circuit board without components. These terms are often used interchangeably.

A PCB design agency like Jitter B.V. designs the schematic and layout of your circuit board: the engineering. A manufacturer (PCB fabrication, PCBA factory) produces the physical board based on the files we deliver. We do the thinking, the manufacturer does the production. We also guide you through the handover to manufacturing.

A clear picture of what your product needs to do is the most important thing. That can be a specification document, but also a sketch or a good conversation. Do you already have an existing design, schematic, or hardware reference? That helps. But it's not a requirement, we're happy to think along from the start.

We work with fixed pricing per project phase. That gives you budget certainty and avoids surprises. After an intake meeting, we provide a clear quote per phase. Sometimes we suggest starting with a preliminary study to explore feasibility or to better define the specifications.

If you already have a schematic, we can work with that. However, we will first do a thorough review to ensure we can deliver on our guarantee of always delivering a working product. Sometimes it's actually faster if we redraw the schematic based on our own building blocks.

Yes. We also do redesigns, improvements, and extensions of existing designs. Check out our service Modernizing existing systems.

We design with CE certification in mind from the start: grounding, filtering, shielding, and layout choices that prevent problems later. Do we design the entire product? Then we guarantee successful certification.

All project-specific designs, development files, and manufacturing files are yours. You can continue independently with them. For our generic building blocks (proven circuits and modules that we also use in other projects) you receive a license for use within your product. The building blocks themselves remain our property, so we can continue to develop them. This way you benefit from proven technology without bearing the full development costs.

Yes. When the design is ready for series production, we help with the handover to the manufacturer: bills of materials, fabrication files, test procedures, and contact with the factory. We can also guide the scaling from prototype to larger volumes.

The Jitter Platform is a complete technology stack for connected sensing and monitoring. It consists of three independent layers: hardware & electronics (battery-powered LTE devices with swappable sensor frontends), backend & cloud (data storage, processing, alarms, and OTA updates), and dashboards & visualization (web-based monitoring and reporting). You can use all three layers, or just the ones you need.

No. Each layer works independently. You can use our hardware with your own backend, or combine our backend and dashboard with your own devices. The layers are designed to work together but can be used separately.

We own every layer. No third-party dependencies, no SaaS lock-in. Hardware, firmware, and server code are all developed and maintained by Jitter. This means we can customize everything to your specific requirements, and you have full control over your system.

We have proven frontends for vibration (accelerometer), tilt (inclinometer), and crack width measurement. We also support MODBUS and analog sensor inputs. Need something different? We design custom sensor frontends for your specific measurement needs.

All project-specific customizations are yours. For the platform building blocks, you receive a license for use within your product. You get a complete, working system that you can manage and operate yourself, with no dependency on a SaaS subscription.

That depends on the complexity and scope of your project. A simple firmware project starts around €5,000, while more complex projects with multiple interfaces, protocols, or certification requirements can cost €15,000 to €40,000 or more. After a no-obligation intake meeting, we provide a quote per project phase, so you know upfront what to expect.

A small firmware project can sometimes be done within 1 to 2 weeks. Larger projects with multiple iterations, hardware integration, and field testing can take 3 to 6 months. Firmware development often runs in parallel with PCB design. We provide a realistic timeline at the start.

Rust prevents entire categories of bugs at the compiler level that are common in C: null pointers, buffer overflows, race conditions, and use-after-free. That means less debugging, more stable firmware, and faster turnaround. Rust also offers modern tooling for dependency management, testing, and CI. We've been working with Rust on embedded for over five years and are more productive in it than in C.

Yes, that's an explicit goal. We document the architecture, the build environment, and the development workflows. The code is readable and structured so your own team can continue with it. If desired, we also offer guidance and knowledge transfer.

Yes. We have extensive experience with C on embedded. Do you have an existing C codebase that you want to extend or maintain? Then C is often the logical choice. For new projects, we recommend Rust for its higher quality and productivity, but the choice is yours.

OTA (Over-The-Air) updates make it possible to update firmware remotely, without needing physical access to the device. We implement this with a secure bootloader that verifies the integrity of the update before applying it.

Firmware is software that runs directly on a microcontroller or processor, close to the hardware. It controls sensors, communication interfaces, actuators, and other peripherals. Unlike 'regular' software on a computer or phone, firmware has direct control over the hardware and often runs without an operating system.

Firmware runs directly on the hardware (microcontroller) and has direct control over physical components like sensors and motors. Software runs on an operating system like Windows, Linux, or Android. The distinction isn't always clear-cut: embedded Linux systems sit somewhere in between. At Jitter, we use 'firmware' for anything that runs bare-metal or on an RTOS.

RTOS stands for Real-Time Operating System. It's a lightweight operating system for microcontrollers that can execute tasks with strict timing guarantees. Think of reading a sensor exactly every millisecond, or responding to an interrupt within a fixed deadline. Well-known examples are FreeRTOS and Zephyr. In our Rust projects, we often use RTIC or Embassy, async frameworks that offer similar functionality without the overhead of a traditional RTOS.

Bare-metal means the firmware runs directly on the microcontroller, without an operating system in between. Your code has full control over the hardware. This delivers the lowest latency and smallest memory footprint. For simpler systems, bare-metal is ideal. For more complex systems with many parallel tasks, we prefer an RTOS or async framework.

An embedded system is a computer built into a larger device that performs a specific task. Think of the electronics in a washing machine, a medical device, or an industrial sensor. Unlike a general-purpose computer, an embedded system is designed for a single purpose, with constraints on memory, processing power, and energy consumption.

Especially for industrial devices and prototypes, we design enclosures. See for example our Frogwatch Sensors. For the consumer market, it is often better to involve an industrial designer.