Wow you’re ready for production! Glass can be cold worked without a kiln and I think you can cool it slowly in hot sand or glass beads, but annealing it is best. I was messing around trying to make stuff out of glass and it was disappointing when it would randomly come apart after being very securely together for weeks, that’s the only reason this stuff is on my mind.
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Small update on the wireless setup.
I actually really like this little buck converter. Nice interface, plenty of control, and the tiny astronaut/fireplace stuff makes me smile. 
The original fan was another story though — absolute turbine. I swapped it for a Noctua, mounted on little silicone tube pieces, so it’s now much quieter and almost vibration-free.
I’m keeping Bluetooth/Wi-Fi off for now. It’s a buck converter… I really don’t need it phoning home. 
So far, pretty happy with the setup.
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Noctua, nice!
There is actually a fanless version of that buck converter, or a similar one. It’s called the SK60S, and has been what I have been using. Power rating is lower, but I believe it would be plenty for Noema. I put it in a vented case and it runs cool. Not quite as nice of an interface, but no fan is nice. And it’s pretty cheap.
Still got to flesh out my battery-operated version.
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Alright, quick workshop update…
Things have been moving a little slower lately, but for good reasons. My kitchen is finally finished — turns out living without one is possible, but pretty pointless. 
My long-awaited vacation is done too. Ibiza is great… medicine is insanely expensive though.
More importantly: the workshop is finished, glass is ordered, the kiln is ready, and my oxygen concentrator is running.
I also had one last little hurdle with Noema. The innermost glass heater core was just too fragile for my liking, so unfortunately I had to step in and make that part myself. I went from roughly 0.5 mm wall thickness to 1.8 mm.
What can I say? Definitely more robust, and performance didn’t suffer at all — quite the opposite. I’m finally at the point where I’m so happy with it that I genuinely don’t want to change anything anymore.
I also had some interesting conversations on Instagram lately, mostly about the wood. Yakisugi clearly isn’t everybody’s thing.
But for Noema, right now it’s simply the easiest, quickest and best way I’ve found to create a surface that can actually live with this setup. If I leave the wood raw, fingerprints make it look terrible pretty quickly. And every oil, wax or finish I’ve tested eventually gives me something I don’t want around a warm device: smell.
So unfortunately, the Noemas need the Yakisugi treatment for functional reasons.
Just to show it more clearly: my air intake is at the top - there where it´s hot 
Noema.Walnut.
For the first batch, I’m currently leaning toward cedar and walnut. I have quite a bit of cedar here and a smaller amount of walnut, and both behave very differently under the same treatment.
Cedar develops a lot of surface structure and character when it’s burned. Walnut stays much finer and smoother. So even though both end up black, they definitely don’t look or feel the same.
But those aren’t the only woods I’ve been playing with. I also have pear, apple, cherry, oak, Zebrano, Purpleheart and a few others here. They all react differently to the Yakisugi treatment, which is actually part of the fun.Wisp and Cube could technically be finished traditionally with oil or wax. But I’m a bit stuck between two chairs there — for me it starts becoming a style break, and honestly it’s also quite a bit more work.
The first pieces of the first 10-unit batch are already underway.
I’m pretty convinced the complete black set will work once you see everything together. I haven’t really seen this exact approach much elsewhere — although Ritual Custom Woodworks (@ritual_custom_woodworks ) does play with charred wood from time to time, I think.
So here’s the actual question:
Would you keep Noema, Wisp and Cube visually consistent with the same Yakisugi finish — or would you prefer Noema black and Wisp/Cube finished traditionally with oil or wax?
And after all this talk about wood and finishes… at the end of the day, Noema is still just a lighter to me. It simply has to work.
So, forum… feedback time.
I’m stubborn and fairly unteachable, but every now and then I actually listen to someone.
Little Wisp update:
Turns out the old shape wasn’t so bad after all. Sometimes when you try to do too much, you lose the balance — literally.
Without the beads in the glass stem, it doesn’t tip over and works just as well. I’ll probably just add a few indents to the glass instead. They give a little extra cooling too.
And yes, it’s a little dusty and not perfectly clean — I use it every day and it’s constantly in my hand.
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It’s cool to see this project finally coming together 
I’m not part of the first batch, but personally, I’d rather keep the visual consistency between the Noema, Wisp, and Cube models, with that beautiful Yakisugi finish that I really love.
Not to mention the material benefits it brings.
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