About Phidgets Inc.

How it all Started

The original idea for Phidgets was composed by Saul Greenberg, a computer science professor at the University of Calgary, who was researching Human-Computer Interfaces. This research involved the design and creation of customized computer interfaces that interact with the physical world- for example, a sensor that could detect when someone was working at a computer, causing a physical indicator like a light or a motor to activate. Computer science students do not typically have experience with designing and building electronics, so Saul would enlist electrical engineers to complete research projects by building the electronics and interfacing them with the computers. While this was a reasonable short-term solution, the projects were not self-sustaining. Once the project was complete, the engineer would move on with their studies and the project would inevitably fall into disarray.

To solve this problem, Saul invested the engineering efforts into specialized modules with a programming interface that would feel comfortable to any software developer. This solution had already been applied previously, particularly with graphical user interfaces (GUIs). The software behind a GUI is extremely complex, but each component (menus, sliders, buttons) is represented to the programmer as a simple, well-documented software object, sometimes called a "Widget". Saul's solution mirrored this concept with physical electronics- by hiding the complexity of the electronics inside a contained package, a programmer could build a customized system without having to worry about the minutiae of circuit design and computer interfacing. Because of this similarity, these devices were called "Physical Widgets", or "Phidgets" for short.

Chester Fitchett started working on Phidgets as an undergrad in the Human-Computer Interface program. The first Phidgets were built by hand, with software written exclusively in Visual Basic 6 for Windows. Students from several universities used these early Phidgets in their academic projects. You can watch videos demonstrating some of these projects here. After university, Chester founded Phidgets Inc. in hopes of finding a market for Phidgets beyond academic research. The main challenge was adapting the Phidgets concept from something that was "good enough" for a research setting to a finished product that was reliable and user-friendly. Since then, Phidgets have been adapted for compatibility with a wide range of operating systems and programming languages.

Who uses Phidgets?

Today, Phidgets are bought by a wide variety of customers, each with a unique set of goals.

Schools use Phidgets to introduce their students to programming, electronics, and robotics as early as grade eight. Hobbyists use Phidgets to build fun projects in their spare time- for example, a sound system that loads different songs based on which RFID tag is placed on the surface of the coffee table. Businesses use Phidgets to automate company processes, or monitor company machinery. Researchers use Phidgets to aid in highly customized experiments- for example, a network of Spatial Sensors to monitor earthquake activity across a city. Entrepreneurs use Phidgets to prototype their product ideas before spending time and resources on a system made from scratch.