Made for makers: Wia reveals its first hardware product, Dot One

3 Apr 2019

The Dot One. Image: Wia

Irish IoT start-up goes full circle from software to hardware.

Dublin internet of things (IoT) player Wia has introduced its first hardware product, the Dot One, which is designed as an entry-level piece of kit for kids and makers. The Dot One will be ideal for people who want to learn electronics but also create their own inventions.

The product is built on top of Wia Cloud, which is being used by developers in more than 100 countries and comes preconfigured for the platform out of the box.

The company, a previous Start-up of the Week on Siliconrepublic.com, is also releasing its new Blocks programming interface, which allows users to create the code needed to control hardware without requiring any previous programming experience, using a simple drag-and-drop user interface. This will be an exclusive feature for the Dot One.

“This is a new chapter in the story of Wia as we work towards becoming an end-to-end electronics company,” said founder and CEO Conall Laverty.

Wia finds its voice

wia staff working on mac laptops

The Wia team with CEO Conall Laverty (second from left). Image: TechWatch

Laverty was listed on this year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 and Wia has raised €1m in funding to date from Suir Valley Ventures, Enterprise Ireland and NDRC.

“We’re super-excited to be moving into the consumer hardware space and are looking forward to seeing the inventions that the budding makers of the future will create around our suite of products. Bringing speech recognition to the Wia Cloud was a natural move as we have seen a rapid rise in voice-enabled interfaces over the past couple of years.”

All users will get access to their new integration with Amazon’s Alexa. This brings voice to not just the Dot One, but every developer and maker board on the market. Any device connected to the Wia Cloud will be accessible from the Echo range of products.

The Dot One will retail for €24.95 with additional sensor modules ranging from €8.95 to €12.95. It is available for pre-order now from the Wia Store and will begin shipping in early May 2019.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com