Summer 2026 updates - new products and more!

Here at Pioreactor, we've been busy at work providing new ways to interact with your microbes and your Pioreactor.

Introducing the Pioreactor Aeration Kit!

Our goal with the Pioreactor has been to make it easy to grow your cultures, whatever they need. One key ingredient that has been lacking is proper aeration, and a lack of aeration can limit the growth of aerobic cultures. Furthermore, you can't just force air into the culture. Two things make this much more effective: humidifying the incoming air and increasing the gas-liquid surface area

If you don't have moisture in the incoming air, you will end up evaporating a lot of the liquid in your culture, which, ironically, will artificially increase the optical density. So you need to add a humidifier inline. We designed an inline bubble humidifier that pushes incoming air through water before exiting again.

After many trials, we finally accomplished this with the development of the Vial Cap P2, our first airtight vial cap. This is accomplished by changing how we secure the stainless steel ports. Instead of a silicone friction fit as in our Vial Cap S, we are using a polypropylene-based compression fit. The 2 in P2 stands for the number of ports, something we hope to expand later.

The second issue, high gas-liquid surface area, is important for maximizing the transfer of O₂ into the culture's water.

As you can see in the diagram above, the air volume is identical between the two vessels, but the surface area between the air and liquid is 2x as large on the left-hand side as on the right. The only change is the radius of the bubbles. Smaller bubbles provide more surface area.

We designed a custom sparger that fits nicely in our vials and provides an excellent bubble size. Going too small can increase the risk of biofilm clogs.

Along with a new 12V air pump, filters, valves, and tubing, we now have an aeration kit designed to maximize culture growth. The kit is available today!

A Camera Inside the Culture

The second large R&D project we've been working on is adding camera support to the Pioreactor. This isn't a camera that looks at the outside, but a camera that looks inside your culture!

We accomplish this by using the Raspberry Pi's camera port, a custom 5MP camera, and a Vial Cap S / Vial Cap A compatible port.

The camera is responsive to the IR LED in the Pioreactor, so no additional illumination hardware is required. Currently, our software supports time-lapse camera snapshots in the UI, and we later plan to introduce overflow detection.

The camera kit is available to purchase today and will ship in a few weeks.

An onboard OLED display

Finally, we also quietly introduced a simple OLED display for each Pioreactor that displays the most relevant information, including error logs, at a glance without having to use the UI. It will also report relevant static information like the Pioreactor name and IP address. This is great for classrooms and clusters of Pioreactors. The display kit is available today!

What’s New in Pioreactor Software

We've made a lot of significant changes to the Pioreactor software, too. Some highlights include:

• Experiments are easier to organize and find. The Experiments page became a searchable table with status and tag filters, editable tags, and quick actions to export, end, or delete experiments. Starting an experiment using a previous experiment's setup is also easier.
• You can see and manage what's in each vial. Live vessel diagrams and controls show liquid volume and alternative-media fraction, alongside cumulative media additions and waste removal. Dosing now has stronger overfill protection, checks pump setup before starting, and accounts more reliably for small doses.
• Camera snapshots are now available. With a supported Raspberry Pi or USB camera, you can take manual or scheduled photos and browse, download, or delete them from the UI. 
• USB drives make offline work much easier. You can export experiment data directly to a USB drive, install software updates and plugins from it, and mount or eject it through the UI, including applying updates across a cluster.
• Data exports are faster and more dependable. Large exports run in the background, with better handling of limited memory and disk space. Time-filtered exports are substantially faster, and downloaded archives now include column descriptions, units, row counts, and the filters used.
• Calibration workflows are smoother. In-progress protocols can resume after refreshing the page, instructions and progress displays are clearer, and completed results are easier to find and download. You can also run stirring calibrations on multiple Pioreactors simultaneously.
• Growth estimates and automation behavior improved. The growth-rate algorithm converges faster. Turbidostat reacts to fresh biomass readings and allows more settling time after pumping, reducing unnecessary repeat dilutions. Light/dark cycles support finer timing, and experiment profiles catch more errors before a run starts.
• Everyday controls feel more responsive. Pages load faster, charts more reliably follow changes of experiment or time range, and live setting changes get a subtle highlight. Each Pioreactor now has its own Stop all action, and configuration files can be downloaded together in one ZIP.
• Less troubleshooting during routine use. Adding Pioreactors and diagnosing failures is clearer, a Repair system action handles common local problems, and the Leader page shows disk and memory availability. Reliability fixes address specific Wi-Fi lockups, data recording after messaging reconnects, and jobs lingering after being stopped.

Conclusion

It's been a busy season for Pioreactor! Between aeration, cameras, the new OLED display, and a long list of software improvements, we're continuing to add more ways to observe, control, and interact with your cultures.

We've also expanded the selection of Pioreactor add-ons available in the online store:

Thanks to everyone using Pioreactor, sending us feedback, reporting bugs, and showing us what you're building with it!