As an electrical engineer who has tried to use it multiple times, I think Flux is an absolutely awful product. No surprise at all that they want to sweep details about their “intellectual property, commercial traction and user base” under the rug.
Adafruit probably did a review of AI PCB tools. I've used Flux.ai before; it was a pretty bad experience. After about 50-100$ in tokens a couple of times, I couldn't get more than a couple of simple components on the schematic. And not in sensible positions.
The product just grinds tokens for little return, in my opinion. I had far better luck wiring together KiCad MCP, SKIDL. There are some AI-driven autorouters out there now. Placement is probably the big issue that needs to be solved now. I could only get about 80% of what I wanted together with my hacky workflow.
> There are some AI-driven autorouters out there now. Placement is probably the big issue that needs to be solved now.
Interesting that within an IC this is basically "solved", or at least properly automated with classical numeric techniques such as simulated annealing.
I would have thought there's a big opportunity in a mixed-technique approach, where you use AI to extract unstructured data from datasheets and then feed it into more deterministic tools.
I also note that it's very easy to waste more than $100 in electronics once you start actually manufacturing bad PCBs.
> I could only get about 80% of what I wanted together with my hacky workflow.
I literally did this yesterday with solid results using Codex CLI. I used xhigh thinking and gpt 5.5.
I had it use KiCad directly via cli rather than via MCP, and I did make Claude Opus review it's work after every round. I got what I think will be a working revision A in about 10 hours of tinkering spread over a few days.
> Placement is probably the big issue that needs to be solved now.
Would some sort of constraint-solving algorithm help with that? Something like (but not necessarily) Cassowary[0]? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what is meant by placement though; I don't have much domain knowledge in PCBs / electronics.
> After about 50-100$ in tokens a couple of times, I couldn't get more than a couple of simple components on the schematic.
Is this common? When I try out new AI tools, even as person who is financially independent, I load up maybe 10-20 USD worth of tokens, and if I don't get anything working from that, I literally give up and don't continue trying. If it can't do anything useful like "place a simple component on the schematic" after ~10 USD of expenditure, is it really worth continue adding more money into the platform? Seems DOA in those cases.
I used company money on it. I was hoping I could massage it along enough to get a workable test fixture out of it. I wanted to put together a simple hardware-in-the-loop tester for a component of our product.
I tried this last week and had the same experience. It was terrible and they got $140 out of me before I realized what it was (not) capable of. Their support was nonexistent as well.
Note that this is not related to Black Forest Labs Flux, the image synthesis models builders, and is instead related to a PCB AI authoring product called Flux.ai.
Flux just got funding from Bain and others, and it feels like Adafruit was preparing a post about it. Maybe they contacted Flux to confirm some info and they freaked out?
I can't find in archive.org if they had a previous post about it.
Also, seems like there a good bunch of complains in Reddit about Flux and its billing...
It might be being suggested in that statement, but to me that reads that there's a potential opportunity there for a delayed AMA on this?
That if people were to email press@adafruit.com with a subject line (for example) of 'FLUX - AMA for later', these questions could be rounded up and the responses could then go onto a Adafruit blog page later, when and if applicable?
Based on recent events with SparkFun[1] and Phil Torrone deleting all his social media posts[2][3], not publishing the C&D it is likely that Flux' beef is with Phil and not Adafruit.
I have, and the article does not in any way address my question. You also seem to be a brand new user, so in case you're not aware, HN guidelines say to refrain from mentioning whether or not someone has read the link.
Not only did it burn a 100$ failing but it did so in a very untransparent way.
I bought a 20 dollar plan but they snuck a 100$ billed usage into the billing agreements next thing I know the agent as used the quote going in circles and my card is billed.
It seems there's suspiciously little context available, yet here I also am commenting on a 'vaguepost'. I wonder if one day AI will be able to filter out vagueposts from my browser along with ragebait and curiosity gap headlines.
Best I can tell they've taken down whatever it was, but most likely flux left some ways to get data out of their system that shouldn't have been and Adafruit leveraged that. Could have been in a good way like exposing false claims of architecture or security, or a bad way like revealing proprietary information on how the platform worked or looking at other peoples' projects (more than just seeing they could do that). If the blog doesn't come back up, I'll kinda assume they did something bad. I don't have sources but I've heard adafruit isn't the sweetest fruit in the tree...
When you discover an exploit, only communicate with source (and pray they respond) or get sued. Seems like the position is customers and stakeholders shouldn't be allowed access to this information.
That's actually very common even with respected bug bounty programs. Communicating exploits to anyone else (let alone the general public) will at the very least make you ineligible for rewards.
Never heard of Flux.ai before. It seems to be a 3D circuit designer with 'AI'.
Not sure what the issue between them and Adafruit is.
However, people over on Reddit¹ claim that Flux.ai is a little bit scummy. They push users into a beginner trial ($5/month) and then silently charge for usage per token - up to $100 per month.
Oh, they also claim that they have "the world's largest community-driven public library of Adafruit products, including footprints, symbols, datasheets, and simulation models"². I wonder whether they designed these themselves or whether they use existing ones. Could not easily find licenses info.
>The letter further asserts claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Adafruit accessed only information that Flux’s own systems made publicly available through a server misconfiguration
They vibe coded their system and it showed Adafruit something? Or showed some information with trivial prodding? Sounds like your average cross-tenant leak. Maybe showing more than intended or some caching issue. Many options some not really not fault of Adafruit.
The product just grinds tokens for little return, in my opinion. I had far better luck wiring together KiCad MCP, SKIDL. There are some AI-driven autorouters out there now. Placement is probably the big issue that needs to be solved now. I could only get about 80% of what I wanted together with my hacky workflow.
Interesting that within an IC this is basically "solved", or at least properly automated with classical numeric techniques such as simulated annealing.
I would have thought there's a big opportunity in a mixed-technique approach, where you use AI to extract unstructured data from datasheets and then feed it into more deterministic tools.
I also note that it's very easy to waste more than $100 in electronics once you start actually manufacturing bad PCBs.
I literally did this yesterday with solid results using Codex CLI. I used xhigh thinking and gpt 5.5.
I had it use KiCad directly via cli rather than via MCP, and I did make Claude Opus review it's work after every round. I got what I think will be a working revision A in about 10 hours of tinkering spread over a few days.
Would some sort of constraint-solving algorithm help with that? Something like (but not necessarily) Cassowary[0]? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what is meant by placement though; I don't have much domain knowledge in PCBs / electronics.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43362528
Is this common? When I try out new AI tools, even as person who is financially independent, I load up maybe 10-20 USD worth of tokens, and if I don't get anything working from that, I literally give up and don't continue trying. If it can't do anything useful like "place a simple component on the schematic" after ~10 USD of expenditure, is it really worth continue adding more money into the platform? Seems DOA in those cases.
Nor is this Flux the display warmth app
I can't find in archive.org if they had a previous post about it.
Also, seems like there a good bunch of complains in Reddit about Flux and its billing...
https://old.reddit.com/r/PCB/comments/1t476x4/warning_fluxai...
limor and i are very much looking forward to telling our story.
That if people were to email press@adafruit.com with a subject line (for example) of 'FLUX - AMA for later', these questions could be rounded up and the responses could then go onto a Adafruit blog page later, when and if applicable?
Is Philip still at Adafruit? Does he represent Adafruit?
Why did you take the Adafruit blog down when there appeared to be no Flux.ai-related posts?
Open companies like SparkFun publish the legal letters they receive, will you do the same? If not, why not?
Why did @ptorrone recently delete all his x.com post history?
please email press@adafruit.com , limor and i are looking forward to telling our story very soon - pt & limor
Based on recent events with SparkFun[1] and Phil Torrone deleting all his social media posts[2][3], not publishing the C&D it is likely that Flux' beef is with Phil and not Adafruit.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46616488
2. https://bsky.app/profile/ptorrone.bsky.social
3. https://x.com/ptorrone
Thank you, lawyers. If you ever find yourself out of work use this as your reference to pivot to advertisement
Seems especially useful when paired with an agentic coding tool!
Not only did it burn a 100$ failing but it did so in a very untransparent way.
I bought a 20 dollar plan but they snuck a 100$ billed usage into the billing agreements next thing I know the agent as used the quote going in circles and my card is billed.
When you discover an exploit, only communicate with source (and pray they respond) or get sued. Seems like the position is customers and stakeholders shouldn't be allowed access to this information.
Not sure what the issue between them and Adafruit is. However, people over on Reddit¹ claim that Flux.ai is a little bit scummy. They push users into a beginner trial ($5/month) and then silently charge for usage per token - up to $100 per month.
Oh, they also claim that they have "the world's largest community-driven public library of Adafruit products, including footprints, symbols, datasheets, and simulation models"². I wonder whether they designed these themselves or whether they use existing ones. Could not easily find licenses info.
¹) https://www.reddit.com/r/PCB/comments/18o5zfo/thoughts_on_fl...
²) https://www.flux.ai/sitemap/manufacturers/adafruit
A confession