NowenA user-generated business concept from Nowen — not an existing product.
Feed your plugin one real voltage reading from your battery or wall adapter, and it auto-tunes every LED resistor in your Proteus circuit so your breadboard glows exactly like your screen promised—no more dim LEDs or fried components because simulation forgot batteries sag.
Close the gap between perfect simulations and messy reality so your circuits work the first time you build them.
How it works
Electronics hobbyists and students buy a one-time Proteus plugin that auto-corrects LED resistor values for real-world power supply sag. Users contribute voltage measurements from their batteries and adapters to grow a shared library of droop/ripple profiles, gaining access to the full dataset in return.
Story
For makers who simulate LED circuits in Proteus with ideal power supplies but then find their real breadboard circuit is too dim or too bright because batteries sag and wall adapters fluctuate, the plugin adjusts your resistor values based on real measured supply behavior you feed in once, priced as a small one-time add-on purchase because it fixes the gap between simulation and reality that wastes components and rebuild time
Payer
Hobbyists and students pay directly, once, for the plugin — buying insurance against the frustration of a circuit that simulates perfectly but fails on the bench due to real-world power supply variance
Asset
A growing dataset of real power-supply droop and ripple profiles across common batteries and adapters, crowdsourced from users who contribute measurements in exchange for access to the full library
Revenue potential
We assume about 100,000 reachable hobbyists and students who use Proteus or similar desktop/browse simulators, based on the presence of multiple active hobbyist-targeted simulators and communities. A modest one-time price of $15 is chosen to match hobbyist expectations and to compete with free tools while still monetizing early adopters. Market penetration is set very low in the base case (0.1%), mid at 0.5%, and optimistic at 2% because this is a narrow feature for a subset of simulator users; hobbyist markets and students are price-sensitive and many already use free simulators or web calculators. The capture-rate assumption of about 15% reflects that buyers will spend a small fraction of their tool budget on a single add-on and that many users will prefer free alternatives.
Competition Competitive
The market has many general-purpose SPICE and browser-based simulators (Proteus, LTspice, CircuitLab, EveryCircuit, LiveSPICE, etc.), plus many online LED calculators. The proposed niche feature (auto-tuning resistors using real measured supply sag) is not directly served by major simulators in the search results, but hobbyist-friendly alternatives and free tools make monetization and distribution competitive.
- Proteus (Labcenter) — Commercial PCB design & simulation suite (the Proteus named in the idea). · source
- CircuitLab — Browser-based circuit simulator and schematic editor, targets hobbyists and students. · source
- EveryCircuit — Animated interactive online/mobile circuit simulator popular with hobbyists. · source
- LTspice — Widely used SPICE simulator frequently recommended for professional and hobby use. · source
- Falstad Circuit Simulator — Real-time interactive simulator often used for teaching and quick prototyping. · source
- LiveSPICE — An open SPICE-like tool with examples and GitHub presence. · source
- Altium (power-supply design tools) — Commercial PCB/ECAD vendor that publishes resources on power-supply design and simulation. · source
- NI Multisim — Desktop circuit simulator commonly used in education and lab courses (not in the search results). (unverified)
- PSpice / OrCAD — Established SPICE-based simulation tools used in industry and academia (not in the search results). (unverified)
- KiCad (with SPICE) — Open-source PCB/schematic tool with SPICE integration often used by hobbyists (not in the search results). (unverified)
- LED resistor calculators (web tools) — Many simple online LED resistor calculators and smartphone apps aimed at hobbyists (not individually listed above). (unverified)
Wedge
A defensible wedge is an easy-to-use Proteus plugin that (1) imports real measured supply-voltage profiles, (2) runs automated per-LED brightness/λ analysis and suggests specific resistor swaps, and (3) ships with a crowdsourced, curated library of measured battery/adapter droop profiles for hobbyist power sources — something few general simulators provide out of the box. The wedge requires tight Proteus integration and a maintained dataset of real supply profiles; absent that, there is no obvious defensible advantage versus free simulators and online calculators.
Due diligence
Open questions
- How many active Proteus (Labcenter) hobbyist/student users are there (annual license installs or university seats)?
- Does Labcenter support third-party plugins or APIs to programmatically change resistor values in a schematic?
- Are there existing add-ons or scripts that already do automated resistor calculation for Proteus or other popular simulators?
- What are typical price expectations among hobbyists for small one-time add-ons in Proteus or similar tools?
- Are there legal/IP limits on redistributing measured power-supply profiles contributed by users (consent/licensing)?
Key risks
- Market is price-sensitive and many users rely on free simulators or simple web calculators, limiting willingness to pay for a narrow add-on.
- Proteus is commercial and may not expose plugin/scripting hooks required to implement seamless integration; integration risk is high.
- Competition from many general-purpose SPICE tools and educational simulators reduces differentiation unless the real-supply profile dataset is substantial and unique.
- Crowdsourcing a useful, curated library of supply profiles may take time and has data-quality and licensing challenges.
- Search results included multiple unrelated 'Proteus' products (audio plugin, ProteusAI), so marketplace confusion and discoverability could be an issue.
Industry
Software & Design Tools
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Related Ideas
Stop redrawing. Start simulating.
Drop ready-made LED circuits—dimming, RGB, multiplexing—straight into Proteus with one click, so hobbyists and students skip the repetitive wiring and resistor math that eats the first hour of every project.
From schematic to doorstep in one click
Export your Proteus LED circuit and watch it become a ready-to-buy shopping cart—every resistor, LED, and capacitor found, priced, and compared across distributors so you spend time building, not hunting for parts.
Catch the mistake before you hit simulate
Scan your Proteus schematic and spot LED circuit errors—wrong resistor, backward polarity, missing current limiting—before you waste an hour troubleshooting, while component makers earn placement by offering the exact part that fixes your design.
Fix the circuit, beat the clock
Race through a ladder of broken LED circuits—wrong resistor, backward diode, miswired parallel—diagnosing and fixing each under time pressure while climbing the ranks against other learners, free to play as electronics bootcamps and course creators sponsor the 'what's next' roadmap that appears when you prove you're ready.
Sources
- What are the best circuit simulation programs?
Reddit thread listing LTspice, Falstad and other popular simulators.
- CircuitLab: Online circuit simulator & schematic editor
CircuitLab: browser-based schematic editor and simulator targeting hobbyists/students.
- Power Supply Simulation (Not As Easy As It Looks)
Article explaining power-supply simulation is tricky and error-prone in practice.
- The Best Power Supply Circuit Design Tools With Simulation
Altium resource overviewing tools and considerations for power-supply simulation.
- EveryCircuit: Animated interactive circuit simulator
EveryCircuit: animated online/mobile circuit simulator (hobbyist-focused).
- What is the best simulation software for power electronics?
Industry article discussing choices for power-electronics simulation tools.
- LiveSPICE
LiveSPICE: SPICE-like simulation tool with docs and GitHub presence.
- Free or Affordable Alternatives to Proteus for Circuit ...
Reddit discussion about free or cheaper alternatives to Proteus for students.
- GuitarML/Proteus: Guitar amp and pedal capture plugin ...
GitHub repo for an unrelated audio plugin named 'Proteus' (different domain).
- Proteus v1.2 with new controls released
Post announcing a Proteus audio-plugin v1.2 release (audio domain, not PCB Proteus).
- GuitarML
GuitarML site for audio plugins; not related to circuit-simulation Proteus.
- Proteus - Amp and Pedal Modeller Plugin by GuitarML
Proteus by GuitarML listed as an audio-plugin product page (audio domain).
- A.I. EMT 266x analog limiter plugin extension for Proteus
Forum thread about an EMT limiter extension for the audio Proteus plugin.
- What's the closest thing to an EMU Proteus plugin we have?
Forum discussion referencing 'Proteus' in an audio/plugin context (not circuit sim).
- Plugins – ProteusAI Reference
ProteusAI plugins docs (an API/plugin platform named ProteusAI, unrelated to Labcenter Proteus).
- Low Cost PCB Design Software
Labcenter Proteus pricing page showing Proteus is commercial software with tiered licensing.