The Hardware Academy is a global platform with members from around the world. You will benefit from joining regardless of where you are located.

In addition to the U.S. we also have members from Europe, Canada, Asia, Australia, Africa, and South America. To my knowledge we don’t have any members yet from Antarctica, but otherwise we have members from every region of the world active in the Academy.

Most discussions, courses, and resources are completely independent of your location. Some topics like regulatory certifications are location dependent, but even then the requirements are very similar regardless of the country.

Yes! On the Developer Pro plan you get private engineering support where all discussion is kept strictly confidential and is protected by an NDA. This plan is ideal if you're working on a commercial product design, or doing work for a client or employer.

The Hardware Academy was created primarily for electronic hardware products. However, outside of the electronics design, the other steps and challenges are pretty much the same for any physical product, so the Academy can be a good fit for non-electronic products too.

Obviously the content and discussions on electronics design won’t apply, but everything else applies almost equally well for any physical product.

On the Pro plan anything you share privately is kept strictly confidential and is protected by an NDA. All intellectual property remains 100% yours. 

When posting in the open community area you can get support and feedback from lots of other engineers, experts, and members. But what you share here is not private and all other active members can see it. 

Anyone can post in a free forum so how do you know you can ever trust any of the advice? A lot of the information in a free forum is garbage. Everyone thinks they are an expert, but very few really are. Public forums can also be very unfriendly places where you may get verbally attacked for asking the wrong questions.

That is not the case at all with the Academy community! First of all, it's a private forum so only Academy members can access it. This alone filters out a lot of the bad stuff because only more serious people are allowed access. It also means that the general public can never see your questions or anything you share.

But instead of just getting advice from random people - you get advice from me and other experts I've hand selected, but also from all the other members who are so helpful.

The courses mostly consist of recorded video content. Each course is broken down into multiple lessons which you can watch at your own pace. A new course is released each month, but members have access to all of the previous courses. Total course length is usually between 1-4 hours.

We also sometimes host live workshops. You are welcome to attend any workshop live or the recording will be available to you afterwards in the course library.

Yes, and there are two options for getting a design review.

Level #1: Share your design in the community area where you'll get a high-level review by at least one engineer, likely by multiple engineers. Keep in mind this will require you to share your design so other members can see it. A level #1 design review will only typically highlight any major design issues. But as the discussion continues this can turn into a thorough review. (Available on all plans)

Level #2: Share your design in the Private Engineering Support area where you'll get a private, high-level review by an engineer. (Pro plan only)

Level #3: For a more thorough design review (including checking all of the potential minor issues) we offer paid design reviews. However, members of the Academy get a discount on all design reviews.

The simple answer is maybe, but only if you are open to learning new technical skills. If you have absolutely no technical background, and you have no interest in learning new technical skills, then it will be extremely challenging for you to manage the development of a complex new product.

Obviously I'd love it if all our members stuck around forever - but I know that is not realistic and things change! So, if you do decide to cancel obviously I'll be very sad, but if you're intent on leaving then you'll be able to do so with just 2 clicks of a mouse.

I don't hide the cancel button, nor do I require that you get my permission to cancel your subscription. You can cancel at any time. In fact, here’s a video showing you how to cancel your subscription.

Yes, you can rejoin at any time. However, if the membership fee has increased you will have to pay the new higher price.

You get access to everything already inside the Academy straight away. We don't artificially delay anything just to hook you into staying longer. Instead, we hook you into staying longer by giving you tremendous value!

Each month a new course or workshop is added to the database, so over time the amount of content you can access increases.

Yes. You are allowed to upgrade and downgrade between the different plans as needed.

Absolutely not! All of your intellectual property remains 100% your property. We claim absolutely no rights to your intellectual property.

For more details see the section titled “INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS TO YOUR MATERIALS” in the terms and conditions for the Academy.

Absolutely not! As long as you stay an active member your price is guaranteed to never increase. Any price increases will only impact new members, not existing ones. 

However, your current pricing is only guaranteed if you stay on your current plan or downgrade. If you wish to upgrade you are subject to the same price increases as new members. 

Also, if you cancel your subscription you are subject to all of the price increases and you will need to join at the current rate.

The price for the Hardware Academy is constantly increasing so the sooner you join the more you save.