Get a BenchPod
Hardware-in-the-loop testing runs on real silicon, so the one thing you can't download is the hardware. To run the tests in these docs you need a physical BenchPod wired to your board. It's the device that powers the target, flashes it over SWD, captures UART, and emulates or measures signals.
What you get
One BenchPod covers the whole HIL loop for a board:
- Programmable power control (protected eFuses, per-rail current monitoring).
- Flashing and debug over SWD for any OpenOCD target (STM32, nRF, …).
- UART capture and an interactive console.
- A 14-channel logic analyzer with I2C sensor emulation and bus decode.
- A 16-bit analog front-end (400 kSPS ±30 V ADC, 16-bit DAC) for capture, replay, and fault injection; deep multi-second captures stream into the pod's PSRAM.
Analog or digital-only?
Many targets only need the digital features: flashing, power, UART, logic analysis. The analog front-end matters when you want to record and replay real analog signals or inject analog faults (think a solar-array input or motor feedback). The request form has a checkbox for whether you need analog input/output, so we can match you to the right board.
Once it arrives
Wire it to your board and run your first test in about fifteen minutes. Getting started with the BenchPod walks the whole path: connect over USB, install the CLI, check the firmware answers, put the pod on your network, register it (or just use its IP address), and run a first pytest against it.
If we set the pod up for you, you get an activation email for an account that already has the pod on it. Use that account (and that email address) rather than signing up again.