Welcome

The official VDBX.io documentation

This is the official wiki/documentation site for VDBX as of 2023. It is built with Gitbook and synced with Github, where you can submit a pull request or issue if you have questions or find a problem.

All documentation and design files for projects are shared as "open source" under Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution Share Alike (CC-BY-SA). Branding and marketing content are reserved as copyrights of Voidbox Industries / VDBX

About

VDBX or "Voidbox Industries" is currently focused on designing hardware for use with Home Assistant in off-grid, battery powered setups. Our hardware lineup for 2023 is focused on the FLIP-C3 node platform for creating smart devices on off-grid and battery powered systems. The project takes a priority with integrating into Home Assistant via the ESPHome firmware, but can run anything an ESP32-C3 can.

Chloe Madison, resident designer and founder currently lives full time in a converted "shorty" school bus that she's constantly still working on.

Support

We make a lot of things that we sell, we also make a lot that is solely to be shared online freely... in either case, we provide all source files so you can hack or make these things yourself. The best way to support our work is to buy our products via our stores on Amazon, Tindie, and our website. You may also buy parts and products via our affiliate links.

If you'd like to show additional or alternate support, you can support any of our makers directly:

• Chloe Madison - @clomads - Patreon

• More soon (hopefully)

Message from Chloe

Voidbox Industries is yet another one of my brands making sure I don't have to do a bland 9-5 and instead can rely on my art. It's not always worth it, but making art is a compulsion for me and I can't imagine doing anything else (aside from a new medium that my ADHD has taken a liking to). Also I'm autistic.... have fun with that.

In 2017 I decided to dive deeper into a maker hobby most people would have already assumed I had years of experience with. Starting with mold making, concrete pouring and mentally mapping basic material science; all while learning to 3D model and design circuits. But I've always been a designer first ... just with a serious interest in doing so with technology. Graphic design and video production with a baseline set of IT skills has been the definition of my life up until the time I decided to dive head first into a self taught electronics engineering degree.

When COVID hit, I was focused on making concrete knicknacks and my sales immediately dried up, but a few months later, my unemployment finally went thru and I decided to make some changes. At the time I was living in a van and had a small private art studio in Berkeley amongst a shared artist warehouse. I realized this wasn't tenable long-term and I wanted to consolidate even more so that I wouldn't run into a situation where not being able to pay rent would turn to dire circumstances.

I found my bus in July 2020 and immediately started building and also moved in while it was still very much a prototype. Over the next couple years, I worked on building it closer and closer to my vision, while I prepped to get back to work as the world decided that COVID doesn't exist anymore. I spent a significant amount of this time dealing with mental health issues , but I have recently gotten medial help and feel a lot better and am ready to go. Unfortunately this means I have to put my concrete work on hold until I can have a space to make that kind of mess again.

I knew this was necessary when I moved everything into the bus, so I'm not upset by it despite missing it. I'm really excited about the work I've been able to do while building my house and the work I plan on doing this year, 2023. Being a part of the Home Assistant community brings me joy and while I may not be great with code, I seem to be pretty ok with hardware and I appreciate the many brilliant people who create the software.

I hope to someday have the opportunity to turn VDBX.io into a worker co-op that manufactures & retails open hardware for other makers and artists, especially under-represented folks. Today voidbox is just another brand to keep me from doing a 9-5... by the end of the year, I hope it's not just me... and next year more. I'm going to keep trying even though my track record isn't that great.

@clomads

Affiliate Marketing

We are currently a part of the affiliate programs for Amazon and AliExpress with the potential for others. Any links to those platforms are likely to contain our affiliate code which tells them that we sent you. Your price doesn't change, but we may get a small kickback from your order for sending you over.