Nov 12, 2025
Posted by: Cameron Davidson-Pilon
With the new Pioreactor v1.5 hardware, we have a major software release to accompany it. Most software releases don't get a blog post, so why is this one special?
The team behind the Raspberry Pi maintain the core operating system we use for the Pioreactor. We take these operating systems, and add our own software on top of them, and distribute them as "images" to our users. However, every two years, Raspberry Pi releases a major operating system update (based on the Debian updates, if your curious), which is loaded with improvements. The unfortunate thing for us is that it requires a full rewrite of your SD card.
Nov 04, 2025
Posted by: Cameron Davidson-Pilon
At Pioreactor, we believe that you should be getting the best bioreactor we can provide. While working on a larger revision of the Pioreactor, we recognized a hardware upgrade that can be back-ported to the current Pioreactor. We're calling this hardware upgrade the Pioreactor v1.5 (as a nod that it's between a 1.0 version and the next 2.0 version), available for both the Pioreactor 20ml and Pioreactor 40ml. Both the Pioreactor 20ml v1.5 and Pioreactor 40ml v1.5 are available today! And like always: upgrade kits to v1.5 are available, too!
Jun 02, 2025
Posted by: Cameron Davidson-Pilon
We've spent the last month designing some small quality-of-life upgrades for your Pioreactors. The first is an approach to sterile sampling into the Pioreactor:
May 02, 2025
Posted by: Cameron Davidson-Pilon
We're excited to announce that Pioreactor will be attending the 74th Annual Conference of the Canadian Society of Microbiologists (CSM 2025), taking place from June 17–20 at Université de Montréal.
During the conference, we'll be hosting a hands-on workshop titled "Automating Growth Experiments: From Petri Dish to Pioreactor". This 30-minute session will demonstrate how our Pioreactor platform simplifies microbial growth experiments, enhancing throughput, reproducibility, and real-time data analysis. In addition to our workshop, we'll be available throughout the conference to showcase our latest hardware, including the Pioreactor 20ml and 40ml models.
We look forward to engaging with the microbiology community at CSM 2025. Stay tuned for more updates as we approach the conference dates. We can't wait to meet you in Montreal!
Mar 10, 2025
Posted by: Cameron Davidson-Pilon
This new and improved iteration of the Pioreactor comes with a taller vial design to accommodate double the amount of culture than the previous Pioreactor 20ml. We've also made some improvements versus the Pioreactor 20ml, including:
Dec 11, 2024
Posted by: Cameron Davidson-Pilon
Hello! It's been an exciting year at Pioreactor. We've grown the team, launched new products, and added lots of new features. Let's explore some of our 2024 highlights!
Jul 25, 2024
Posted by: Cameron Davidson-Pilon
We're in the hot months of summer here in Waterloo, Canada! Our manufacturing and R&D office are filled with 3D printers (up to six printers now), boxes of pumps and circuit boards, and orders ready to go out. But let's talk about some of the recent improvements we've made to the Pioreactor:
May 01, 2024
Posted by: Cameron Davidson-Pilon
Available today is the our latest (minor) iteration on the Pioreactor 20ml! We're calling it the Pioreactor 20ml v1.1. This latest version is the culmination of lots of design tweaks over the past year. It's purely a mechanical upgrade - no electronic changes are made - but improves upon the already simple design of the Pioreactor v1.0. You can purchase the improved Pioreactor 20ml v1.1 now from our shop. And the best part: we're selling v1.0 → v1.1 upgrade kits, too!
Apr 05, 2024
Posted by: Cameron Davidson-Pilon
Users with multiple Pioreactors have been asking for the ability to host multiple experiments and assign Pioreactors to them in your cluster. And now, with software version 24.4.3, you can! This means you can more easily share your Pioreactor cluster with colleagues, or manage student experiments in one view.
