Six WII buoys labelled and ready — a NIWA deployment lined up before going into the ice.
WII5 exists because the alternative — wave-buoy designs locked inside a single lab or vendor — is fragile. Releasing the hardware, firmware, and maths is both the ethical and the practical choice.
The plan
Release the WII5 code, hardware schematics, and maths in an open-source fashion. Hardware enclosures, batteries, main boards, the AVR firmware that runs on them, the Linux maths code, and the satellite-side server — all of it.
Value of private designs
The theory is that to sell something you have to own it. The alternative is that you build and maintain it. Linux being open source doesn’t stop Amazon selling services.
Opening the design technically opens the door to someone else building wave buoys at a competitive price. In practice, the production cost of buoys we make is already lower than anyone else’s — and the internal know-how needed to build and test them is significant.
Value of open design
Opening the design gets more eyes, more attention, and is its own form of advertising.
There’s also a large ethical element. What happens if the people who built it move on — retire, change jobs, or just stop being involved? Public docs mean the project doesn’t depend on any one person being around.
Public release adds due diligence. The positive effect is that documentation gets written better — or removed when wrong — which helps even internal use. It does add overhead: docs need updating, questions need answering. We’re choosing to take that on.
Four pillars
- Continuity — the project doesn’t depend on any one person being involved.
- Auditability — open maths means independent researchers can verify results. The WII work has produced more than a decade of peer-reviewed publications including a 2014 Nature paper.
- Due diligence — public docs raise the bar on what is documented at all.
- Effective marketing — open work is its own advertising channel.
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