1esto

1esto is an open hardware platform designed to simplify electronic prototyping through a modular, plug-and-play ecosystem. Conceived by a global community of makers in the early 2020s, it presents a central baseboard and a family of interchangeable modules called Estos. The ecosystem emphasizes openness, low cost, and ease of assembly.

The baseboard provides power, a shared data bus, and standard interfaces, while Estos modules supply sensing, processing, or communication capabilities. Modules are designed to be hot-swappable and firmware-detected at boot, with a simple, vendor-agnostic protocol that allows modules from different contributors to interoperate.

Development and licensing: The project is released under an open-source hardware license and uses a community-driven governance model, relying on public repositories, design files, and documentation. The ecosystem depends on community-contributed libraries and example projects to support education and rapid prototyping.

Impact and reception: 1esto has found use in classrooms and hobbyist labs as an accessible platform for learning electronics and for early-stage product concepts. Critics note a relatively small ecosystem and gaps in professional tooling compared with more established platforms.