DevLog #001 — Why I Started Building ByteWave MK.I
A year before IronLabs Tech existed as a name — before the website, before the branding, before any of it — I built a prototype. Rough. Janky. Running on a Raspberry Pi stuffed into a box. It played music in Hi-Res audio and had a basic UI slapped together with whatever I could figure out at the time.
I built it purely for myself. I genuinely didn’t think anyone else would care. I thought it was too niche, too weird — “who wants a DIY cyberpunk music player?” So I kept it to myself for almost a year. Used it daily. Never told anyone.
Then one day I figured, why not share it? I posted it on Reddit — just a casual post showing what I’d built. Nothing polished. No marketing. Just: hey look at this thing I made.
The response floored me. People loved it. Go check out that original Reddit post here — the comments genuinely changed how I saw this project. That’s when I realised: this isn’t just a personal project. This could be something real.
That moment is what pushed me to start IronLabs Tech and build ByteWave MK.I properly. Here’s the full story of why.
I Wanted JARVIS for My Music
I’m 22, based in Winnipeg, and I’ve been obsessed with the idea of technology that feels like it came from the future. Not just “smart” — actually futuristic. The kind of device you’d see in a cyberpunk movie. The kind Tony Stark would carry if he was into music.
Every existing music player frustrated me. Streaming apps are full of ads, algorithms that push whatever the label paid for, and a subscription that never ends. Dedicated DAPs (Digital Audio Players) are either boring slabs of brushed metal or cost more than a gaming PC. None of them feel like something from 2045.
So I started thinking: what if I just built the thing I actually wanted?
I wanted something that played true Hi-Res audio. Something with a UI that felt alive — not another flat design copy. Something that could run hacking tools if I needed it to. Something pocket-sized but powerful. Something that felt like it belonged in my jacket next to a cyberpunk novel.
That obsession became ByteWave MK.I.
Why Raspberry Pi?
The first real technical decision was the hardware platform. I considered a few options:
- ESP32 — cheap, low power, but nowhere near enough processing for a proper UI and audio pipeline simultaneously. Hit that wall fast.
- Custom ARM board — too complex to source, too expensive to prototype, and I’d be reinventing everything from scratch.
- Raspberry Pi 4B — real Linux, proper USB audio support, enough CPU for everything I wanted to run, and a massive community. Clear winner.
The Pi 4B gives me actual Linux. That means I can run MPD for audio, PyQt5 for the UI, Python for everything else, and even Kali Linux tools when I need them. It’s a real computer in a pocket form factor. Nothing else at this price point comes close.
Why MPD Over a Custom Audio Engine?
Music Player Daemon (MPD) is battle-tested, handles Hi-Res audio natively, supports FLAC and all the formats I care about, and can be controlled programmatically. Writing a custom audio engine from scratch would have taken months and produced something worse than MPD on day one.
I build what I’m uniquely positioned to build. For audio playback at this level, MPD is the right tool. My time is better spent on the UI, the AI layer, and the overall experience.
Why PyQt5 for the UI?
I needed something that could run a fully custom, animated, cyberpunk UI on Linux with hardware acceleration support. PyQt5 gives me full control over every pixel via custom paint events. I can build exactly the glass cards, neon glows, and animated transitions I’m going for — none of the “just use a CSS framework” compromises.
Yes, Python has overhead. But the Pi 4B handles it fine, and the productivity of building in Python vs C++ for a UI this custom is not even close.
The Bigger Picture
ByteWave MK.I is the first product. But IronLabs Tech’s roadmap goes much further — IronCell MK1 (AI-powered powerbank), ByteWave MK.II, and eventually the thing I actually want to build most: affordable exosuits for workers and elderly people who need them. Real hardware for real people, not lab demos.
Every product builds toward that. This is how it starts.
Next DevLog: building Wavepunk OS — the UI that makes ByteWave feel like it came from another decade.
— Gurteshwar Sandhu, Founder, IronLabs Tech
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