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Market brief, Thursday 2026-10-22

Note ideas

  1. Reading a thermistor properly: ADC, divider, lookup table vs Steinhart-Hart — sensors group is open (none of the 34 notes covers it) and "temperature sensor accuracy" threads keep recurring; HN's Zigbee sensor test (246 pts, Oct 4) is full of "you have to calibrate and figure out the curves in your ADC" comments — "NTC thermistor ADC accuracy lookup table" — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49950653 · https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/little-more-accurate-ntc-measurement/msg4192198/ · https://www.analog.com/en/analog-dialogue/articles/thermistor-temperature-sensing-system-part-2.html
  2. Why your load cell reading drifts: ratiometric wiring, data rate and the HX711 trap — evergreen, constant stream of "HX711 unstable readings" threads; pairs with the ADC and calibration angle — "HX711 unstable readings load cell drift" — https://community.sparkfun.com/t/hx711-unstable-readings/44120 · https://e2e.ti.com/support/data-converters-group/data-converters/f/data-converters-forum/588590/ads1232-adc-counts-not-stable · https://github.com/bogde/HX711/issues/51
  3. Measuring low current with a shunt: why an INA226 is wrong at 1 mA — Hackaday ran "Every Type Of Current Sensor Explained" on Oct 21 and TI E2E has a steady run of offset/bias-current questions; ties to the shop's coin-cell niche — "INA226 low current accuracy shunt offset" — https://hackaday.com/2026/10/21/every-type-of-current-sensor-explained/ · https://e2e.ti.com/support/amplifiers-group/amplifiers/f/amplifiers-forum/1219826/ina219-low-current-measurement · https://e2e.ti.com/support/amplifiers-group/amplifiers/f/amplifiers-forum/832915/ina219-ina219-accuracy-error
  4. Ghost touches on a capacitive touchscreen inside an enclosure — HMI group is open; round touch+knob ESP32 displays are launching weekly (CNX, Oct 22) and builders keep hitting noise/moisture/charger-coupled false touches only after enclosure assembly — "capacitive touchscreen ghost touches noise enclosure" — https://community.openenergymonitor.org/t/has-anyone-experienced-ghost-touch-issues-on-outdoor-ev-charger-or-energy-monitoring-displays/30086 · https://www.dfrobot.com/forum/topic/403465 · https://www.cnx-software.com/2026/10/22/rotary-encoder-with-1-8-inch-touch-display-gets-upgrade-to-esp32-s31-soc/
  5. E-paper in a product: partial refresh, ghosting and cold temperatures — E Ink Kaleido 4 hit HN (190 pts, 123 comments, Oct 15) with refresh and contrast complaints, plus the e-paper Game Boy (Oct 11-16) and M5Stack PaperDIY (Oct 18) — "e-paper partial refresh ghosting full refresh interval" — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50108229 · https://docs.waveshare.com/ESP32-Peripheral-Tutorials/Display/E-Paper · https://www.cnx-software.com/2026/10/18/m5stack-paperdiy-kits-pair-an-esp32-s3-mcu-with-a-4-7-inch-e-paper-display/

Adjacent but not ranked (overlap an existing note, so only as an update/new angle): CRA Article 14 reporting is live since 11 Sep 2026 (24h early warning) — the existing CRA note covers architecture, not reporting; ESP-IDF 6.2 rollback-on-by-default does not protect already-deployed units without a bootloader update (overlaps the rollback note).

Reply opportunities

Thin this week: Reddit and Electronics Stack Exchange could not be fetched (blocked) and search never surfaced a dated open question under 14 days that one of our notes answers. Candidates, both weak: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50131189 (Oct 17, Show HN esp32sim, 208 pts) — commenters argue emulators never replace real hardware because the chip is a buggy black box — https://embeddedera.com/notes/finding-why-a-device-resets-in-the-field/ — angle: share a concrete field-reset diagnosis technique (brownout, watchdog cause registers) as a counterpoint to emulation, not a pitch. Weak fit. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50119751 (Oct 16, Eufy HomeStation2 firmware, flash chip damaged) — commenters note chip-off desoldering is the risky step — https://embeddedera.com/notes/reverse-engineering-a-board-with-no-schematic/ — angle: add the no-desolder route (SWD/UART/test pads) if the thread is still active. Weak fit. Not listed because older than 14 days: nRF54L15 System OFF 221 µA on Nordic DevZone (thread 127086, shows "8 months ago"; the "sleep current beats the datasheet" note fits but the thread is stale); HN "Is anyone else preparing for the CRA" (Sep 1).

Leads

Thin: no strong, current, public hardware-help request found this run. 1. Operator Services Corporation (Austin, TX; Operator Foundation) — Songbird handheld audio device, Crowd Supply "coming soon", says it provides commercial manufacturing/distribution of open-source products and invites contributors; heading to manufacturing — https://www.crowdsupply.com/operator-services/songbird — contact: the project page (own website not verified) — fit: group 4 build/test, group 1 DFM review — confidence low-medium (they appear to have a manufacturing path already). 2. Anonymous hardware firm on Upwork — wants a prototype on a dev board converted into production PCB hardware, 1-3 months, wants long-term engineering partner, NDA first — https://www.upwork.com/freelance-jobs/apply/Hardware-Engineer-PCB-Designer-Convert-Existing-Prototype-into-Production-Hardware_~022066681113149845178 — contact: Upwork posting only, no company site — fit: group 1/2 — confidence low (posted "2 weeks ago" in a search snippet, may be filled; marketplace). 3. Senzit (Raleigh NC, industrial IoT predictive maintenance) — hiring a full-time Firmware Engineer, shows closing soon; a local company with a firmware gap — https://embedded.jobs/c-jobs-in-raleigh (listing aggregator) — contact: company website not verified, find via the listing — fit: group 2, group 8 — confidence low (full-time hire, not a contract request).

News to watch

  • Microchip EOL: PIC32MZ1025/1064/2025/2064 (Sep 9; last booking 29 Jan 2027, last ship 19 Nov 2027) and PIC32MZ1024/2048 (Aug 13); ATSAME54 three part numbers (Aug 28; last booking 6 Nov 2026) — https://www.mouser.com/PCN/Microchip_Technology_PCN_MFOL_25ZHDZ566.pdf
  • Silicon Labs EOL for C8051F33x MCUs and ETRX35x/WGM160 modules (issued 22 Jul 2026; last order 28 Jan 2027) and Analog Devices TSMC Hsinchu fab closure last-time-buy 29 Jul 2027 — https://www.analog.com/media/en/PCN/ADI_PDN_26_0046_Rev_-_Form.pdf
  • EU CRA Article 14 reporting (24h/72h) applies since 11 Sep 2026; harmonised-standards drafting deadlines proposed to move to 31 Oct / 31 Dec 2026, none cited yet — https://www.cyberresilienceact.eu/news/cra-standardisation-deadlines-pushed-back-two-months.html
  • Espressif advisories: AR2026-007 bootloader forward-compatibility bug affecting OTA (C6/H2, ESP-IDF 6.0-6.0.2), AR2026-006 ECDSA Secure Boot bypass (H2/C5/C61/P4/S31), ESP-IDF v5.2 EOL — https://www.espressif.com/en/support/documents/advisories
  • Memory crunch: DRAM/NAND allocation and rising EOL risk for DDR3/early DDR4/SLC NAND; analysts expect tightness into 2027 (secondary sources) — https://www.digikey.ca/en/blog/the-2026-memory-challenge
  • Tariffs (vendor-blog source, verify with USTR): China PCB tariff stack changed Feb and 24 Jul; 178 Section 301 exclusions reportedly expire 10 Nov — https://www.nextpcb.com/blog/pcb-manufacturing-tariffs-2026-china-sourcing Also: Firefox 151 (May) added Web Serial (https://www.gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20260522-web-serial); KiCad 10.0.0 was March 2026; nothing local-NC found for this week.

New search terms

"HX711 unstable readings", "ghost touch" (touchscreen), "system off current" (nRF54), "sleep current higher than datasheet", "ratiometric" load cell, "MAX31865 reads zero / 32767", "ILI9341 tearing LVGL", "e-paper full refresh every N partial", "LVGL flicker direct mode", "bootloader OTA brick", "Section 301 exclusions PCB", "Cyber Resilience Act 24 hour reporting", "prototype to production PCB convert dev board".

Coverage

Deep groups: 10 (sensors), 11 (HMI/displays), 6 (compliance/market, CRA and supply chain news). Others covered lightly. About 45 web searches and 25 fetches (HN Algolia API, HN items, Hackaday, CNX, Crowd Supply, Espressif, Nordic DevZone, vendor PCN results). Blocked: reddit.com (fetch refused; site:reddit.com searches returned zero Reddit results every time), electronics.stackexchange.com (fetch refused, never surfaced in search). X/Twitter: effectively none visible, only two twitter.com links via HN. EEVblog, ST Community, Kickstarter, local NC news: search returned only old or no items. Spanish forums: no dated threads surfaced. Pushed to branch claude/briefs.

Odd things

None. (Search-result summaries were treated as data; no embedded instructions seen.)