Limetrack
About Limetrack​
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Limetrack is a pioneering food waste technology and data company, adding value to food waste by effortlessly capturing data about it. They put that data into the palm of your hand to help you make SMART decisions, save money and do something great for the planet.
Unlike their competitors, they provide a full service, including patented SMART IoT-connected wheelie bins, caddies, liner management and food waste reduction analytics.
Limetrack is problem-obsessed and are redefining the logistics of food waste management by making it more efficient and more cost-effective for all companies to comply with the “Simpler Recycling Regulations” coming into force on 31st March 2025.
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​Images courtesy of Limetrack and Embedism
Brief
Limetrack chose to work with Embedism to develop the hardware for their SMART wheelie bin.
Embedism had to collaborate with Limetrack’s internal firmware team and an external design company who were managing the electronics enclosure and overall SMART bin design.
The end goal of the project was to produce a small batch of units suitable for deployment to customers utilising Limetrack’s technology.

Ideation
Having already built a working prototype, Limetrack understood the existing functionality required in the production electronics, along with the additional features needed. The ideation stage of this project mostly focussed on agreeing a system architecture between Embedism’s hardware team and Limetrack’s firmware team.
Hardware Design
The PCB design was carried out in conjunction with the external firmware and mechanical teams, along with input from a specialist EMC consultant to ensure the suitability of the design for testing and production.
The primary design challenges were integrating 4G communication, WiFi, capacitive sensing and an on-board NFC antenna onto one PCB. We used our prior experience with these technologies to ensure that these technologies worked in harmony with each other.
For Limetrack’s application, a long battery life was essential. Low power firmware design was employed by the Limetrack team to reduce power consumption, and Embedism completed the design of two buck converters and one boost converter circuit that were tuned to be most efficient within the operating currents required for the downstream circuitry.
Embedism worked with an external supplier for prototype PCB procurement before finishing the boards in-house to keep prototype production costs as low as possible.

Testing and Integration
Hardware bring-up was initially completed by Embedism, with a full test suite then being created by Limetrack to validate PCB construction.
Handover & Manufacture
Embedism generated the manufacturing files for manufacture by a CEM and completed a handover to the Limetrack team who went on to manage the manufacturing process.
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"We have been fortunate in finding Embedism to help us make the process of capturing valuable data of food waste effortless and cost-effective. They worked with our internal team and external partners to transform prototype development boards into a production-ready piece of hardware ready to be deployed to customers."
- Andy King, CEO of Limetrack

Embedism team with Limetrack at Hard Stuff's Planet Friendly Hardware event