CloudBox, From An Idea To Reality.
An interview about the past, present, and future of CloudBox engineering with Ethan Connelly
by Ethan Johnson, CloudBox sales
Ethan Connelly has been with CloudBox since October 2023. He has seen CloudBox grow from a concept to a fully fledged product, one ready to revolutionize inventory management worldwide. “I’ve had a lot of past coding and mechanical experience, those things have kind of shown me how to break things down into little pieces” said Ethan, alluding to his engineering process. “I felt like [the CloudBox concept] mixed with my past projects have allowed me to work well on the project and make this thing a reality.”
Connelly wasn’t on the CloudBox team initially, he joined during the Mk. II production, joining forces with Chief Information Officer Maxime LaFaix, Chief Manufacturing Officer Chris Malson and Chief Executive Officer Quentin Sauvage in developing the product further. “There were some accuracy problems initially, the screen was small and hard to read, but that was definitely a conceptual prototype, that was when I first joined the process,” said the University of Oklahoma graduate. “I’ve always done a lot of development stuff, working on problems that don’t necessarily have a blueprint behind them … that’s what I like to do, and that’s what I like about this product, because nobody has really ever done smart scales the way we’re doing it.”
When speaking on the later iterations of the CloudBox, once the initial accuracy and screen resolution problems were fixed, the development turned more towards the details. “On the Mk. IV I had it to where you had to slide [the container] all the way back into the base to get it to actually attach and… it just wasn’t really the most convenient.” said Connelly, “I could have just stopped there and said it was fine but I knew from my past experiences that everything can be better. If you keep iterating you’re gonna keep getting better.”
Persistence is a defining feature of Ethan’s engineering, he says that his best moments often come “...right when I’m about to give up, I know if I just keep going I’ll have a breakthrough and the problem will be solved. Our current Mk. V is an example of that.” As for the future of CloudBox, Ethan believes it’s bright. “With a majority of us under the age of 25, I really don’t see a limit to how good this product can be or how strong this company can be.”
I can’t make any promises about the CloudBox Mk. VI, but you can expect it to be a smoother, and a more advanced version of the product we have right now. We’re working hard on bringing overall quality of life improvements, spurred by our passion to make your life as easy as possible!
