Developing the solution

Not all electric hydrofoils are equal. The Fliteboard has several distinct features that make it arguably the easiest and most enjoyable board to ride available. Featuring the smallest motor in the market—contained neatly inside the foil’s fuselage, it has been designed to minimise drag and maximise lift while in the water.  The majority of electronics are not contained in the board itself, but rather inside the ‘Flitebox’, which sits at the top of the mast (the e-foil). This way the mast, motor and wings can be swapped with different board types and sizes.

We were engaged to engineer and manufacture the board’s electronic systems. This included electronics pertaining to the board itself, the ‘Flitebox’ component of the e-foil, and the handset controller. We also designed and engineered the Flite App.

The handset, board and e-foil

The rider controls the board wirelessly, using virtual gears that they can select via the handset controller. The handset then sends this control data to the board via a low latency, low energy Bluetooth system. Bluetooth LE was chosen as a wireless protocol for this communication based upon its power profiles, communications structure, and flexible application as a pathway for communication to both the board and a user's phone. As the handset is a key part of the system it required the best in class battery life to ensure it was always available to get the rider back to shore safely.

Bidirectional Bluetooth LE connectivity also allows the handset to receive data from the board itself—such as battery status—which it then displays on the handset’s screen.

Electronics within the board itself include advanced GPS and motion tracking technology which records the board’s location (geographically) as well as its position in space, for example, its tilt. This information along with the board’s varying speed and power consumption, among other data, gets shared with the Flite App via cloud technology.

The App

We designed the Flite App so that riders can quickly and easily upgrade to the latest software for both their board and e-foil. They can also replay their rides, gain insight into their power consumption, max speed, battery efficiency, distance covered and more. The detail captured by the App has set the stage for performance assessment—and one day, hydro-foil riding could be a competitive sport!

Manufacturing

Producing sophisticated, connected products like the Fliteboard involves all of our staff coming together and cooperating closely with another and our partners. Since Fliteboard’s inception, we have been manufacturing and testing their electronic systems on our premises, right here in Melbourne, Australia. This has been possible due to the breadth and depth of skills we have located under one roof.

When it comes to making the electronics, we utilise the equipment we have onsite for PCB (Printed Circuit Board) assembly, for both surface mount and through-hole assembly. Rapid prototyping is possible because our engineers are on hand to assist our production staff to resolve issues quickly.

Our Industrial designers play a role too as over time they’ve created custom ‘jigs’ to help our production staff work more effectively. Such jigs help to ensure our production processes are repeatable, quick and accurate. We’ve used these jigs in various aspects of the production process from through hole soldering through to waterproofing.

Our hardware and software engineers work alongside our production staff to test and provision the technology, including loading the appropriate software. We then test the electronics using our custom made scripts.

The Results

In Fliteboard’s infancy, there was another company working to design and engineer a similar e-foil, but it hadn’t yet hit the market. Working with Fliteboard and their partners we were able to accelerate Fliteboard’s progress. And in 2017, Fliteboard was the first company to release a premium, mass manufactured e-foil product to the market.

The original Fliteboard won major design awards from Red Dot, The Industrial Design Society of America and Good Design. It was named Australian innovation of the year and named the world’s best e-foil by Jet Surfing Nation.  

Through this project, we have honed our engineering and manufacturing capabilities for connected products that require a high level of water resistance and robustness. We’re proud of the experience we have helped create for so many Fliteboard riders around the world. Thousands of boards have been shipped to customers in over 80 countries.

If you’re wanting a best-in-class efoil experience, check out the Series 2 Fliteboard.  Evolution never stops.

We are thrilled to still be supporting Flite’s talented Byron Bay team with connected firmware, PCB design, App development, and manufacturing expertise.