Frequently asked questions

Our headquarters is in Shenzhen, China, across the border from Hong Kong.

NOA Labs is a foreign-owned company, and is registered in both Hong Kong and China. Both entities are fully owned by our German founder and CEO Alex Murawski.

We would love to welcome you! Just let us know when you intend on paying us a visit, your purpose and don’t forget to click here for the exact location!

We do not have any other physical presence abroad at the moment, but we are going to open new offices very soon.

To protect your Intellectual Property Rights, we request that you sign an MNDA between yourself (as a company or individual) and NOA Labs. Please request or download our MNDA here. Or just send us yours and we will review it.

NOA Labs never takes ownership of any design file or IP. We only hold the files we have generated during the project until the last payment has been processed, after which all files will be released to you.

We have implemented some strategic and solid workflows and prevention methods to make sure that no leak will come from our side or the partners we work with.

We are not a patent attorney, but we can definitely help you get ready for a patent application and perform a patent search if required.

We cover the entire product life cycle, from idea generation to shipping. Below is a brief list of the major services we offer:
- Idea generation
- Patent Search and application
- Concept and Industrial Design
- Electronics Engineering
- Mechanical Engineering
- Firmware Development
- App and Cloud Development
- Sourcing/Audit
- Tooling
- Manufacturing
- Quality Control
- Logistics

We deal with products that vary in complexity. from our experience general rule of thumb, we can assume the following:
- Idea Generation: 4–8 weeks
- Design: 4–12 weeks
- Hardware Development: 8–24 weeks
- Prototyping: 4–8 weeks
- Tooling: 4–8 weeks
- EVT/DVT/PVT: 12–16 weeks
- Manufacturing: 8–12 weeks
- Shipping: 2–8 weeks

Yes, we can also take care of the manufacturing of your prototype, too. But if you do wish to use another manufacturer, then we will send you the source files once the last payment for [...] has been processed. There is no binding agreement between you and us to commit to us for manufacturing.

The best way to get started is with a Product Requirement Document. This will help us outline the details of all the different parts of the product. This includes the features, use cases, requirements, components, designs, mechanisms, colours, materials, tolerances, accessories, necessary certifications, etc. If you do not have one, then contact us to help you build one.

Many! While specialising in IoT and hardware products, we have a broad range of experience, and we are always willing to work on different projects that can challenge our expertise! To see some of the projects we’ve worked on in the past, please check our Projects page.

It is a document that lists every part or component that your product needs to be functional and assembled. The list will be optimised step by step by choosing better and cheaper components, with more features, and different requirements. The final BOM will be needed for every production run of your product, no matter if it is a prototyping run or a manufacturing run. This will avoid mistakes along the way. Please get in touch with us if you need our help creating one.

We divide the development cost for a hardware product into a few different categories: electronics, mechanical, other components and packaging. Please contact us to get an estimation.

Predicting the exact hours needed to develop any one product is difficult. So we estimate the range of hours, charging you no more if the project exceeds maximum hours specified. From our experience, this range is estimated how complex your product is. Please contact us for more details.

NOA Labs does not grant free development services for equity shares. You should look for an incubator in your area if this is what you are looking for.

No matter if you are a young startup or an established enterprise, our costs and services can be tailored to be affordable for any budget.

Definitely! We have experienced industrial designers on board who can suggest the best materials and designs according to your product’s industry and market.

Our in-house marketing team’s experience with many different products can produce the perfect graphic design for your product, by also incorporating your marketing strategy into the designs.

Because the design of an app has a huge impact on its user experience, our design teams makes sure that the functions you want to implement in your app will fit in a design that will be functional and enjoyable for your users, while also being easy to implement during development.

Yes, we can prototype any type of product. Contact us to know more about which design files we would need to begin.

Our projects page has some examples of the projects we have worked on in the past. For more examples and information about our experience and capabilities, please contact us to discuss the specific needs of your project.

All our engineering services are in-house. We have different engineering sub-teams that specialise in different areas – such as electronics engineering, mechanical engineering, firmware development, app and cloud development. They all work under the same roof for a maximal project efficiency.

Once we start working on your project, a dedicated project manager will be assigned personally to you and will be your main contact point for every engineering service that we provide. This way you don’t have to talk with many different specialists at the same time.

We are happy to work with other teams and add our experience and skills to teams that need support in areas where they need help. But we always remind clients of the advantages of seeing a project through with us. Having all services under one roof, our development process is efficient and avoids the usual coordination issues between different firms and parties.

We use the most common software solution for developing a product – such as Eagle for PCB design and Solidworks for industrial design and mechanical engineering. But for collaboration, we are flexible. So we are more than willing to use or to convert files to the ones you need if your team is working with some specifically different software.

Too many to list here! Please visit our Technologies page to see some of the technologies we work with. Our list is not exhaustive and is always growing, so please contact us if you cannot see a specific technology you are looking for.

No engineering firm can give certifications, but NOA Labs can certainly help you to produce a product that meets regulations and is fit to pass its respective certification test.

You might have created a prototype or Proof of Concept (POC) with a Bill of Materials (BOM) including components that are easy to find on some platforms such as Digi-Key Electronics. However, these components are probably pretty expensive. BOM optimization helps to reduce the cost per unit for manufacturing by selecting similar components with great quality but a cheaper price.

If you already are working with some suppliers and would like us to work with them, then we can work with them. But we will have to perform a supplier audit beforehand so that we can assess the supplier’s own capacity. Please contact us for more details.

Instead of owning our own factory, we have built up an extensive network of trustworthy manufacturing partners to work with. This allows us to produce in any quantity. It also provides us with an array of materials to work with for your product.

There are numerous reasons why you might want to transfer a manufacturing project to us – such as being dissatisfied with your current manufacturer’s quality control or their supply chain too expensive. No matter the reason, we can support you.

Packaging is an important part of a product, and its value is often underestimated by many startups or enterprises. We have the resources to help you design the physical structure and the graphical aspects of your packaging. After this stage, we can then prototype and manufacture it.

Every year at CES, NOA Labs has its own booth space to provide startups with affordable spacing for exhibiting their products and services. Contact us to find out more details about how we can help you.

NOA Labs has been exhibiting at trade shows like CES for years now, helping its own clients to exhibit alongside or in the same space. We can help you get the right design for Eureka Park, connect you with the right organisers, and make sure your booth stands out and attracts the crowd.

Designing and furnishing a booth can be costly. Using our network here in China, we can produce and furnish your booth space at a fraction of the usual cost. These savings can be then spent on more advertising and promotion of your product.