Revolutionizing Coffee Making with IoT: Luminaire Coffee, La Marzocco and Altium

Luminaire Coffee is a Seattle-based startup that is passionate about crafting the perfect cup of coffee. They are driven by the principles of efficiency and ease in coffee preparation. They have developed innovations such as shot timers, flow measuring scales, and a special heating device to ensure optimal flavor notes in coffee. Luminaire Coffee has partnered with La Marzocco, a respected manufacturer of espresso machines, to integrate their designs into the core of La Marzocco’s most technologically advanced espresso machine, the Linea LB. Luminaire Coffee is committed to creating intuitive, foolproof machines that enhance the coffee-making experience for baristas and coffee aficionados alike.

Luminaire Coffee, a Seattle-based startup, was driven by the mission to help baristas and coffee aficionados craft the perfect cup of coffee with efficiency and ease. They identified a gap in the coffee preparation sphere and sought to fill it with innovations such as shot timers, flow measuring scales, and a special heating device. Their efforts led to a partnership with La Marzocco, a renowned manufacturer of espresso machines. The challenge was to create the most intuitive, foolproof machines on the market, integrating Luminaire Coffee’s designs into the core of the Linea LB, La Marzocco’s most technologically advanced espresso machine. Luminaire Coffee needed to create next-generation electronics for the Linea PB, including its shot timer, temperature control functionality, flow pulse counter, and integrated scale. The challenge was to divide up work across the team so that multiple engineers could work on a single project at once, designing to different EMC and manufacturing standards.

Luminaire Coffee relied on Altium Designer to create the next-generation electronics that run the Linea PB. Altium Designer’s sheet symbols, hierarchical design support, and design rules helped Luminaire Coffee across multiple points of the design process. The team could divide up work and fill out the schematics for them in parallel, ensuring good design with functional components broken out and connections clearly described. After seeing how much easier Altium Designer made the PCB design process, Luminaire Coffee upgraded to Concord Pro on the Altium 365 cloud-based platform. This expanded their library and version control capabilities, making finding the right parts at the right time, as well as part and supply chain intelligence, easier. Concord Pro's real-time component management became a single source of truth for their shared libraries. Altium Designer's native 3D PCB design gave Luminaire Coffee a secure, easy way to bring all of their clients into the design process.

• The use of Altium Designer and Concord Pro on the Altium 365 cloud-based platform has significantly streamlined Luminaire Coffee's workflow. The hierarchical design support of Altium Designer has made it easier to divide work across the team, allowing multiple engineers to work on a single project simultaneously. Concord Pro's real-time component management has become a reliable source for their shared libraries, simplifying the part management process. The native 3D PCB design inside Altium Designer has enabled Luminaire Coffee to integrate high-quality 3D models with footprints, making it easier to showcase complete designs to clients and get their feedback on aspects like connector placement and silkscreen labels. With Altium 365, Luminaire Coffee's entire team can use Altium Designer and Concord Pro without any problems, improving their internal processes.