The holiday season is the perfect time to dive into new hobbies or finally tackle that project you’ve been putting off. For hardware enthusiasts, it’s an even better opportunity to explore open-source projects that combine creativity, learning, and hands-on building.

From IoT and smart home devices to motor controllers and drones, there’s something for everyone. Plus, working on open-source projects lets you collaborate with a global community of creators, share ideas, and even customize designs to make them your own.

Whether you’re a seasoned maker or just starting out, these 40+ open-source hardware projects are sure to inspire and challenge you.

Simply open any project and fork it to get an instant head start on your custom design.

Internet of Things (IoT)

Create smart devices that automate tasks, monitor your environment, or connect to your smart home setup.
Distance sensor TOF
Distance sensor modules time-of-flight (ToF) ranging sensor
Particle P2 template
An IoT templates for an Particle-P2 RF module
Raspberry pi pico template
An IoT templates for an RP2040 MCU from Raspberry Pi Pico Development board
BLE door/window sensor
This project is a BLE door and window sensor design that uses a U-blox BMD-330-A-R for BLE communication, a reed switch as a sensor, a multi-color LED for status display, and is powered by VBAT.
BLE encoder
Bluetooth Low Energy(BLE) remote control board.
Ambient light and UV sensor
Provides both ambient light and UV sensing with UV spectral response from 280nm to 430nm and raw data output.
GPAD by Public Invention
A general purpose alarm device (with software) as a module for medical devices (and others)
Motion detector
Motion detector circuit using an ESP32 microcontroller and PIR sensor
RFID lock
Features an RC522 RFID reader for identification, controlled by an STM32F103C8T6 MCU
Portable LoRaWAN
A board with a lora module (which can be programmed) and the ability to work autonomously from a battery and a solar panel
Smart Vending System Control Board
A control board for a smart vending machine
Gas leakage detector
It features a BME680 gas sensor by Bosch Sensortec. It includes a Seeed LoRa module for RF communication and uses an MCU.
Light-sensitive sensor
It interfaces with a TEMT6000X01 light sensor and controls a multi-colored LED.
Plant monitoring system template
A plant monitoring system that uses an ESP32-S3-MINI-1U-N8 microcontroller to automate plant care tasks.
Green dot board
An IoT node that interfaces RS485 Sensor probes and can log information to the cloud using LoRa Connectivity.
Bee hotel
Bring smart IoT capabilities to homes for native bees
Pressure sensor signal conditioner
Signal conditioner and transmitter for pressure sensors
Raspberry pi pico 2 template
An IoT templates for an RP2350A MCU from Raspberry Pi Pico 2 Development board
Doorbell with camera
A doorbell system reference design with an integrated camera.
LoRA temperature sensor
It uses the RP2040 microcontroller and a SHT31 temperature sensor and also RFM95 for LoRa communication
Avocaudio
AvocAudio is a compact tinyML community board designed for extensive audio data collection for various tinyML applications.
ESP32-WROOM-32E template
This project is a IoT templates for an ESP32-WROOM-32E based device
Ultrasonic distance sensor
This circuit is an ultrasonic distance meter based on an ATTiny2313 microcontroller.
Weather Station
Weather Station Logger project employs the versatile ESP32 microcontroller board

Motor Controllers

Learn about motor control by building systems for robotics, drones, or other machinery.
DRV8833 Motor Controller
This project is a Motor Controller based on DRV8833 Dual H-Bridge Motor Driver
Qwiic PC Fan Controller
Qwiic PC Fan Controller allows you easily control almost any PC fan over the Qwiic bus using the on board ATtiny microcontroller and control firmware.
Unipolar Stepper Motor Controller ULN2004A
This project is a Unipolar Stepper Motor Controller based on ULN2004A template
H-bridge circuit
A H-Bridge Circuit used to control the rotation direction of a DC motor.
A4988 Big Easy Driver
The Big Easy Driver is a stepper motor driver board for bipolar stepper motors up to a max 2A/phase.
L298N dual H-bridge motor driver
This project is a dual channel DC motor controller based on L298N
Arduino Nano RP2040 2-channel Motor Shield
Arduino Nano(PR2040) motor shield, with two channels and A4988 driver.
Smart Vending System Control Board
A control board for a smart vending machine
H-bridge ESC + Radio
An all in one programmable board for FPV RC cars. Uses an H bridge to drive a brushed motor.
2-phase bipolar stepper motor template
This project is a two phase bipolar stepper motor based on L297/L298N
eBike Motor Battery Dongle
Battery Dongle for allowing any suitable Battery to be attached to Yamaha ebike motors.
619 J Stepper
An open source microcontroller board used to drive a stepper motor in closed loop mode.
Steep Yellow Flubber
A small UGV based with 4x brushless motor drivers with Wifi and lora connectivity

Drones

From quadcopters to autonomous gliders, drone projects are perfect for those who love to build and pilot flying machines.
Raspberry Pi Pico Quadcopter Drone
This PCB is for a quad copter drone. The drone will use a 4S lipo battery as a power supply and each of the motors will use 30Amp ESC's
ESP32-S3 AI FPV Camera
An AI camera board for FPV drones based on the ESP32-S3, processes the data and sends commands to the controller via UART.
H-bridge ESC + Radio
An all in one programmable board for FPV RC cars. Uses an H bridge to drive a brushed motor.
HadesFCS
Complete flight control system designed from scratch. Hardware designed with Flux.
ESP32 Drone
ESP32 Tiny Drone by Jon VB

Smart Home

Design plant monitoring system, gas leakage detector, sensors, or security systems to enhance your living space.
Doorbell with camera
A doorbell system reference design with an integrated camera.
Gas leakage detector
It features a BME680 gas sensor by Bosch Sensortec. It includes a Seeed LoRa module for RF communication and uses an MCU.
Weather Station
Weather Station Logger project employs the versatile ESP32 microcontroller board
Pet Tracking Device
Pet tracker connects with network by SIM800L module connected to the STM
RFID lock
Features an RC522 RFID reader for identification, controlled by an STM32F103C8T6 MCU
GPAD by Public Invention
A general purpose alarm device (with software) as a module for medical devices (and others)
BLE door/window sensor
This project is a BLE door and window sensor design that uses a U-blox BMD-330-A-R for BLE communication, a reed switch as a sensor, a multi-color LED for status display, and is powered by VBAT.
Plant monitoring system template
A plant monitoring system that uses an ESP32-S3-MINI-1U-N8 microcontroller to automate plant care tasks.
Pressure sensor signal conditioner
Signal conditioner and transmitter for pressure sensors
Ambient light and UV sensor
Provides both ambient light and UV sensing with UV spectral response from 280nm to 430nm and raw data output.
Ultrasonic distance sensor
This circuit is an ultrasonic distance meter based on an ATTiny2313 microcontroller.
Distance sensor TOF
Distance sensor modules time-of-flight (ToF) ranging sensor
Particle P2 template
An IoT templates for an Particle-P2 RF module
Motion detector
Motion detector circuit using an ESP32 microcontroller and PIR sensor
Smart Vending System Control Board
A control board for a smart vending machine

Robotics

Build robots that can be controlled by voice, follow lines, avoid obstacles, or even mimic human gestures.
Servo Controller with MPU Robot Platform template
This is a Servo Controller Robotic Platform template with 9-axis MEMS sensor(Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Magnetometer). Can control up to 16 servo motors.
ESP32 robot controller
Control board for autonomous or radio-controlled robots.
Bluetooth Controlled RC Car template
Bluetooth Controlled RC Car template with a dual channel DC motor controller based on L298N and E73-2G4M04S1A module with SoC nRF52810 on board
ESP32-S3 AI FPV Camera
An AI camera board for FPV drones based on the ESP32-S3, processes the data and sends commands to the controller via UART.
HadesFCS
Complete flight control system designed from scratch. Hardware designed with Flux.
H-bridge ESC + Radio
An all in one programmable board for FPV RC cars. Uses an H bridge to drive a brushed motor.
Voice Controlled Toy Car
Voice Controlled Toy Car powered by the PocketBeagle single board computer

Audio Devices

Tinker with sound card, bluetooth speakers, or even build your own headphones.
Stereo Microphone ESP32 Template
This project is a dual channel SPH0645LM4H-B microphone controlled by ESP32
CS4344 Sound Card Template
This project is a Sound Card CS4344 Audio Stereo DAC Template
PCM5102 Audio Stereo DAC Template
This project comprises a design for PCM5102 Audio Stereo DAC
TPA3001D1 Audio Amplifier Template
20-W monaural bridge-tied load (BTL) class-D audio power amplifier

Get Creative This Holiday Season

This holiday season is a great time to try something new and unleash your creativity with open-source hardware projects. Try Flux now for free!

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Jharwin Barrozo

Jharwin is an electronics engineer mainly focused on satellites. He built his own ground station using Flux to monitor RF activities on the International Space Station. Find him on Flux @jharwinbarrozo

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Illustration of sub-layout. Several groups of parts and traces hover above a layout.
Design PCBs with AI
Introducing a new way to work: Give Flux a job and it plans, explains, and executes workflows inside a full browser-based eCAD you can edit anytime.
Screenshot of the Flux app showing a PCB in 3D mode with collaborative cursors, a comment thread pinned on the canvas, and live pricing and availability for a part on the board.
Design PCBs with AI
Introducing a new way to work: Give Flux a job and it plans, explains, and executes workflows inside a full browser-based eCAD you can edit anytime.
Screenshot of the Flux app showing a PCB in 3D mode with collaborative cursors, a comment thread pinned on the canvas, and live pricing and availability for a part on the board.
Design PCBs with AI
Introducing a new way to work: Give Flux a job and it plans, explains, and executes workflows inside a full browser-based eCAD you can edit anytime.
Screenshot of the Flux app showing a PCB in 3D mode with collaborative cursors, a comment thread pinned on the canvas, and live pricing and availability for a part on the board.

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