October 4, 2023
A Flux Birthday Special: A Look Back at Four Years of Flux
In 2019, we scratched our heads at the current state of hardware tools. Why did they look like they were designed in the 1980s? Ohhhh they were. 😬
We asked ourselves... what if we started from scratch? What if designing hardware was seamless, intuitive, even delightful? What if we could automate all the mundane work? That was our dream.
Fast forward three years, and boom! We opened up to everyone. Since then, the numbers have been wild. Over 100,000 of you have joined, creating a whopping 177,000 projects! And shout out to the 3,200 businesses riding this wave with us. We've even got PCBs designed in Flux going to space soon! 🚀
Let’s take a look back at some of the company’s major highlights that you helped us fulfill!
From the very beginning, we always knew that Flux was only going to be as successful as the community that we built around it. That’s why we started with a private beta: so that we could build a tight-knit community of people who shared the same vision as us as we grew the product. If it weren’t for that group of beta users in the very beginning, we would not be here with you today.
In February 2023, we took our next big step when we emerged from private beta. For the first time ever, anyone in the world was able to test out Flux, and the response was overwhelming. This was our first major step towards our ultimate goal of truly democratizing hardware design for everyone.
We’ve always sought to take the “hard” out of hardware, and it was obvious that existing tools came up short of that vision. We knew we had to think bigger, which is why we came up with Flux Copilot: the industry’s first and only AI PCB design assistant.
When we introduced Copilot, its capabilities were unprecedented, and the response from YOU was fantastic. Over 15,000 users have now worked with Copilot, and it’s tackled a whopping 130,000 questions.
But we didn't stop there. Copilot evolved to not just provide feedback but to take action for you. With Copilot’s ability to wire up schematics for you, users were finally able to avoid the tedium of wiring schematics and spend more time on what really matters. We want to put the magic back in hardware design, and generative AI with Copilot has been one huge step toward that goal.
Meet Gerald, a software engineer behind Vendo King Manila, a vending machine business in the Philippines. Before Flux, he struggled with jumbled boards and too many jumper wires. With no prior PCB design experience, Gerald dived into Flux and crafted his own board. He says, “With Flux, I made our PCB easily. No more wire mess or production problems!” That's a big win! 🚀
Then there's Robert, a software engineer who loves computers, old-school games, web development, and 3D printing. He's the guy behind ControllerAdapter.com, making cool stuff for game controller fans. Thanks to Flux, Robert easily designs and shares his creations.
Looking back at the last four years, it’s amazing to see how far this community has come together.
While what we’ve done has been transformative, what’s really exciting are the infinite possibilities that lie ahead of us. We’re currently exploring the very edge of AI's capabilities in hardware design, and who better to do it with than our incredible community?
We have some exciting things planned for the future, and one thing is for sure: the best has yet to come.
If you want to help Flux continue to grow and change hardware design, tell your friends about us! Let them know about Flux and encourage them to sign up and get involved.
Flux Files centralizes your project docs, assets, and AI outputs in one tab so your team and AI always have the context they need.
Whether you're migrating from popular EDA applications or starting fresh, mastering high speed PCB design has never been more intuitive. Flux enables teams to design, simulate, and route with real-time AI assistance, so you can spin your next high-speed board with total confidence.
We’re launching our Stackup Editor: a new and improved way to select your PCB stackup that requires less time, less effort, and is less prone to errors. This is another massive step towards creating a single place where designers can collaborate with each other and the industry as a whole.
This Spring 2026 updates make hardware design faster end-to-end with a more capable, self-correcting AI agent, improved AI auto-layout that needs less cleanup, sourcing-aware design with real-time pricing and availability, and templates to start from.
This update brings more than just polish—it’s the foundation for a faster, more fluid design experience, built around the way Copilot is used today and the way we see it evolving tomorrow.
Now, Flux Copilot can learn how you work—your design principles, part selection preferences, schematic style guidelines, and testing workflows—and remember them automatically.
We're excited to unveil our Smart Polygon system in Flux! This powerful capability builds on top of our automatic copper fills to transform how you create and manage custom copper areas in your PCB designs.
Whether you’re routing high-speed buses, fine-tuning antennas, or laying out clean RF filters, sharp 90º or even 45º angles can be a serious bottleneck. Now, you can create precisely curved elbows across entire nets—or dial them in trace by trace—with full control over radius, inheritance, and overrides.
