The Relling Manifesto
A manifesto is a beacon of hope - something we want our employees, our customers, our investors and our industry to hold us accountable to.
What We Believe
The pace of hardware innovation is throttled by testing infrastructure. Complex compliance and regulations shouldn't slow down innovation. Testing should be a catalyst, not a constraint.
Engineers should focus on building, not wrestling with test setups. Hardware testing is stuck in the past while the rest of technology races forward. The tools, methodologies, and infrastructure that validate our most critical systems remain fragmented, inefficient, and siloed.
We're building a future where continuous testing accelerates innovation instead of impeding it.
The Testing Crisis
The story of American innovation has always been a story of validation. From Edison's 1,000 attempts at the light bulb to the relentless verification behind the Apollo missions, breakthrough technologies emerge through rigorous testing. Yet today, we face a fundamental bottleneck that silently constrains our capacity to innovate at scale.
In the decades since WWII, software development has reinvented itself with continuous integration, automated testing, and DevOps philosophies. Meanwhile, hardware validation methodologies remain largely anchored to paradigms established in the 1950s.
The spectral analyzer validating a modern communications system shares more DNA with its Vietnam-era predecessor than with contemporary software testing frameworks. Test procedures that should be parametric and version-controlled instead live in binders and spreadsheets.
Testing Is VERY Broken
This verification inertia throttles innovation in ways both visible and hidden:
- Design cycles stretch 2-3x beyond their theoretical minimum path
- Our most talented engineers spend the majority of their time debugging test setups rather than pushing technological boundaries
- Companies independently reinvent near-identical test infrastructure, fragmenting institutional knowledge that should be standardized
- Critical national security and infrastructure modernization stalls in verification purgatory
- Compliance frameworks become innovation killers rather than quality enhancers
The technical debt extends beyond schedule and capital. When validation is slow and unreliable, engineers unconsciously constrain their design space. They optimize for what can be efficiently verified rather than what could be truly transformative.
Core Principles
Standardization Creates the Foundation for Rapid, Sustained Innovation
The future of testing requires breaking free from proprietary islands of equipment. When test infrastructure becomes truly modular and interoperable, setup times collapse from days to minutes. Engineers can redirect their energy from wrestling with incompatible systems to actual innovation.
Test Infrastructure Should Be as Deployable and Reproducible as Modern Software
Hardware testing must escape its physical constraints by adopting the principles that revolutionized software development. When test configurations live in code repositories rather than engineers' heads, they become reproducible, shareable assets rather than fragile, one-off setups.
Automation Should Be the Default State of Operation, Not a Special Case
Modern test systems must assume automation at every step, creating environments where human intervention becomes a deliberate choice rather than a requirement. This shift doesn't just eliminate tedious work—it fundamentally changes what's possible in hardware development.
Complex Systems Are Best Tested Through Networks of Simple, Focused Components
The most resilient test architectures decompose complex validation into networks of single-purpose components. When each testing module follows the Unix philosophy of doing one thing exceptionally well, the entire system becomes easier to understand, maintain, and evolve.
Physical Location Should Never Limit the Speed or Quality of Hardware Development
Testing infrastructure must transcend physical locations, enabling truly distributed hardware development. When configurations, data, and insights flow seamlessly through cloud interfaces, teams can collaborate across continents as effectively as across rooms.
Actionable Insights Matter More Than Raw Data Collection and Storage
Engineers don't need more data—they need clarity. Modern testing platforms must transform gigabytes of signals into sharp, actionable insights that illuminate root causes rather than symptoms. This evolution from raw measurement to automated analysis doesn't just save time—it fundamentally changes how engineers interact with their designs.
Path Forward
Without a Testing Revolution, America's Manufacturing Renaissance Will Fail
The push to restore American manufacturing capacity faces a critical bottleneck in testing infrastructure. Reshoring production without modernizing testing simply recreates outdated systems on domestic soil. Building new manufacturing capacity gives us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink testing from first principles.
The Consumer-Industrial Convergence Will Redefine Test Economics Forever
The distinction between "industrial-grade" and "consumer" hardware is collapsing before our eyes. When a $50 sensor with open-source firmware can match the reliability of its $5,000 "industrial" counterpart, the economics of testing fundamentally change. This hybrid approach delivers 90% of the performance at 10% of the cost, unlocking testing capabilities for teams that could never afford legacy solutions.
Building Custom Test Infrastructure Is the Million-Dollar Mistake That Kills Hardware Companies
Building custom test infrastructure burns millions of dollars and months of engineering time recreating capabilities that should be standardized. The most innovative hardware companies are shifting from "build everything" to "build only what creates competitive advantage."
Test Data Must Speak a Universal Language or Testing Will Remain Fragmented
The industry desperately needs a standard format for hardware test results — something like JSON Schema but purpose-built for physical measurements. Right now, every testing platform creates its own proprietary data formats, turning simple data comparison into a nightmare of conversion scripts and compatibility issues.
The Future Belongs to Products That Test Themselves Continuously in the Field
The artificial separation between testing and monitoring no longer makes sense. Modern hardware should constantly evaluate its own performance against expected parameters, effectively testing itself throughout its lifecycle. This approach transforms testing from a discrete phase in development to a continuous process that extends into deployment.
Call to Action
The testing revolution has begun, and we're building the tools to accelerate it. Today, we're launching two products that embody our principles:
Node is built for mechanical engineers who want to focus on mechanical engineering—not wiring, not programming, not data infrastructure. It eliminates the complexity of sensor integration, providing instant connectivity for the full spectrum of industrial sensors, actuators, and controls.
Terminal is our high-performance data acquisition system with integrated FPGA and real-time processing capabilities. Unlike traditional vendor-locked solutions, Terminal is deliberately vendor-agnostic, allowing engineers to select the best measurement tools for each specific challenge.
Join us in rebuilding America's testing foundation. Let's create the infrastructure that unleashes the full potential of our engineering talent and reclaims our position as the global leader in hardware innovation.