How Tools for Humanity open-sourced the Orb with hardware collaboration in AllSpice

The situation

As TFH set out to open-source the Orb's hardware design, two challenges emerged:

• Limited access and true openness: Altium, their primary ECAD tool, requires a paid license to view design files, and Altium Cloud's seat cap locked out software engineers, researchers, and other key stakeholders. A design file no one can open without paying for software is not a meaningful open source release.
• Fragmented collaboration: As the Orb's development progressed, TFH needed software engineers and cross-functional team members to participate in structured design reviews with the hardware team. Without a centralized system, issues were logged across disconnected pages or sent directly to individual engineers, with no reliable way to confirm they were resolved before the next revision began.

Both challenges pointed to the same need: a platform for serious hardware teams that could work transparently without sacrificing engineering discipline.

Open by design

TFH chose AllSpice Hub to bridge the gap between professional ECAD workflows and the ideals of true open hardware. By hosting the Orb's schematics and PCB layouts on AllSpice.io:

• Anyone, regardless of toolchain or license, can view, comment, and participate in design reviews directly from their browser.
• Engineers no longer face seat limits or paywalls. Software engineers, security researchers, and cross-functional team members become first-class citizens in the hardware review process.
• Issue tracking is fully integrated, so hardware changes and problem resolution follow proven software best practices, increasing traceability, accountability, and knowledge sharing across the team.
• Public hosting aligns directly with TFH's radical transparency philosophy, opening one of the world's most sensitive hardware devices to global community scrutiny and feedback.

"Transparency is the key because this creates trust. If we put things open with the intention for people to see, and they find a vulnerability, we want to find it quickly rather than later.”
- Faizan Faisal Wali, Hardware Lead at TFH.

Software rigor, hardware workflows

While open sourcing the Orb's design was the original driver for adopting AllSpice.io, Johannes Strobel, a Senior Hardware Engineer at TFH, found that the feature he relied on most was something else entirely.

It was issue tracking.

"Before, issues were not centralized. With AllSpice, you make a commit and track that you've finished an issue. That's very common in software, but not so common in hardware development."
- Johannes Strobel, Senior Hardware Engineer at TFH

Before AllSpice.io, open issues had no reliable home. Problems could slip from one design cycle into the next with no clear record of whether they had been addressed. AllSpice.io gave the team a shared, traceable record tied directly to their design history, bringing the auditability software teams have relied on for years into a hardware workflow for the first time.

Software engineers and other stakeholders could now file issues and review designs directly, without navigating Altium licensing or seat restrictions.

"The real value is not missing something in the next revision. That is where AllSpice really helps."
- Johannes Strobel

Building trust at every level

For a device as technically ambitious and security-sensitive as the Orb, the results of adopting AllSpice.io came through in three meaningful ways.

• Barrier-free global collaboration. Any engineer or researcher anywhere in the world can view, comment on, and engage with the Orb's hardware design without a license or a seat.
• Expanded internal and community visibility. Cross-functional teams gained direct access to the review process, and the Orb's design became open to global review for the first time.
• Reliable, lasting issue tracking. Design gaps no longer slip between revisions. Traceability, auditability, and engineering rigor are built into every cycle.

Beyond the platform impact itself, TFH has built a strong relationship with the AllSpice.io team, praising their responsiveness and commitment.

Your team is very committed and truly believes in what you're building. This energy is what we really like."
- Faizan Faisal Wali

Looking ahead

TFH remains committed to building in the open. AllSpice.io provides the infrastructure that enables their operating philosophy: transparency, rigor, and global collaboration. The Orb stays open on AllSpice Hub, a benchmark for how serious hardware teams can innovate in public while maintaining control and trust.

To learn more about TFH’s open source Orb project, you can explore the documentation hosted on AllSpice here.