About Maxlab
Five engineers who take a device from sketch to production line
Maxlab is a hardware development team in Edmonton, Alberta, founded in 2020 by two engineers who still run it. We design the electronics, write the firmware and take devices through certification and manufacturing for companies across the US and Canada.
- One team. Electronics, firmware, certification and manufacturing, with nothing lost in a handoff between contractors.
- Our own products too. We sell the Tokay cameras on Mouser, so we know what shipping a device takes.
- You talk to the people doing the work. The engineers who scope your project also design and build it.
- 5 engineerson the team, all working on client projects
- 122,000 unitsbuilt across more than 20 devices we designed
- 9 monthsfrom first sketch to first production batch on the solar roof camera
The team
Two engineers started Maxlab and still do the work. A hardware manager runs your project, and two more engineers make up the rest of the team.
Max Olender
Co-founder · Electronics
Owns the board: schematics, part selection, layout and the power design that decides how long a device runs on a battery.
Rostyslav Kurylo
Co-founder · Firmware and hardware
Owns the firmware and shares the board work: drivers, sleep logic, Linux bring-up and the update path that lets you fix a bug after units ship.
Constantine Malynin
Hardware manager
Your first call and your point of contact through the project. Send him a rough description of the device and he will tell you on the call whether it is a fit.
Our story
Maxlab started in 2020 with a simple idea: a small device gets built faster and works better when the same people design the board, write the firmware and connect it to the system it reports to. Most hardware projects stall in the gaps between a board designer, a firmware contractor and a cloud developer. We closed those gaps by keeping all three under one roof.
The first years went into our own products. Tokay Lite is a compact, open-source edge AI camera built on an ESP32-S3; its schematic, layout and SDK are public on GitHub and the board is sold on Mouser. Tokay Pro runs on an NXP processor and handles heavier jobs such as thermal and spectral sensing and tracking a hundred or more objects at once. Both can run on solar. Rainforest IoT, our platform, gets camera data into whatever system you already use, and our ESP32 gateway ties devices together on one link.
Building and selling our own hardware taught us what shipping a device really takes: parts that can be bought when you need them, a board that passes certification the first time, and a release package a factory can build from. That experience is what we bring to custom work. We have designed more than 20 devices, and about 122,000 units of them have been built in all. Three of them, a solar roof camera, a home energy monitor and an ESP32 gateway, are written up on our work page.
Our customers work in manufacturing, agriculture, robotics, logistics, recycling and wildlife monitoring. Most come to us with a problem rather than a spec, and that suits us. Devices with a camera, a radio or an unusual power budget are the ones we know best.
How we work
The things clients ask about before they sign, answered up front.
NDA before the first call
If you want one, we sign it before we talk. If you don't have your own, we have a template ready.
Your tools, your files
We lay out in KiCad or Altium, whichever your team already uses. Schematics, layout and firmware source are yours at the end of every stage.
Stage by stage
Eight stages from requirements to manufacturing, each ending with files or hardware you keep. Stop after any stage and walk away with what has been made.
Remote, on Mountain Time
We work with companies across the US and Canada from Edmonton. Prototypes and production units travel by courier.
Reply within 24 hours
Send a description of the device, however rough. You hear back within a day and get a scoped quote for the first stage after the call.
Parts that can be bought
We pick parts for availability as well as spec. During the chip shortage that choice is what got the solar camera to its production batch.
The full description of each stage, and what you receive at the end of it, is on the services page.
What we make ourselves
Our own products are the quickest way to judge our work. The Tokay Lite design files are public, so you can inspect the schematic before you call.
Tokay Lite
Open-source ESP32-S3 edge AI camera, sold on Mouser.
Tokay Lite →
Tokay Pro
NXP i.MX camera for thermal, spectral and multi-object tracking.
Tokay Pro →
ESP32 Tuya gateway
Local gateway for Tuya devices with an MQTT and HTTP API.
Tuya gateway →
Rainforest IoT
Our platform for getting device data into your system.
Rainforest IoT →
Maxlab at a glance
We write about how we build things on the blog and are glad to talk about sensors, signal processing or electronics in general. Follow us on LinkedIn for updates, or look at the code and design files on GitHub.
- Founded
- 2020, Edmonton, Alberta
- Team
- Five engineers, two co-founders
- Clients
- US and Canada, remote
- Design tools
- KiCad, Altium
- Languages
- C, C++, Rust, assembler
- Platforms
- ESP32 family, NXP i.MX
- Where to find us
- Mouser, CrowdSupply, GitHub, LinkedIn
- Industries
- Manufacturing, agriculture, robotics, logistics, recycling, wildlife
Talk to us
Send a description of the device, however rough. We reply within 24 hours and will tell you on the first call whether it is a fit.
You can also email [email protected] or call +1 587 557 5865.
Common questions
Where is Maxlab based, and do you work with US companies?
We are in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, on Mountain Time. Most of our clients are in the US and the rest in Canada, and projects run remotely. Prototypes and production units travel by courier.
How big is the team?
Five engineers. The two co-founders, Max Olender and Rostyslav Kurylo, started the company in 2020 and still do the design and firmware work themselves. Constantine Malynin, our hardware manager, runs client projects.
Who will I actually be working with?
The first call is with Constantine. The design and firmware are done by Max, Rostyslav and the rest of the team. There is no account manager layer between you and the engineers.
Do you build your own products as well as client devices?
Yes. Tokay Lite and Tokay Pro are our own camera boards, the ESP32 Tuya gateway is ours, and Rainforest IoT is our data platform. Tokay Lite is sold on Mouser and its design files are public on GitHub, so you can inspect our work before you call.
Do you sign an NDA?
Yes, before the first call if you want it. If you don't have your own, we have a template ready to sign.
What kind of projects are a good fit?
Devices with a camera, a radio or an unusual power budget: battery and solar sensors, edge AI cameras, gateways, monitors with several channels. If a project is not a fit, we say so on the first call. The services page describes what we build and how a project runs.