Issue No. 4074 min read
There Are Two MR1s and That Is Fine
One is a red handheld that played video games. The other is a set of open design files that was called something else until Sunday. They share a name, a microcontroller and an amplifier chip.
Ferris Calloway
Since Sunday, Molecular Reality Corporation has had two things called MR1. Both are nanopore instruments and neither is on sale. This issue puts them side by side.
The first MR1
The first MR1 is a handheld. The company's descriptions call it the MR1 Molecular Streaming Device, "a portable device about the size of a large smartphone", priced at $300. Photographs on the company's site show a red 3D-printed body with a white fluid cell that snaps onto the top, closed with a teal cap. A looping animation on the site explains how to use it in three captions: "1. Add sample", "2. Snap on Fluid Cell", "3. Play Molecular Games!" The third step is the point. The handheld was built to run Maxine's Quest, the company's game, in which the monsters come from the live current trace.
Inside, according to the same descriptions, are an ESP32-S3 microcontroller, an LMP7721 preamplifier, a MAX11169 16-bit ADC and an MCP4822 DAC, with rechargeable batteries, an SD card and Wi-Fi. The 3D-printed case was to come in several colors, "including lapis lazuli".1 Its lineage is on the founder's CV, which lists an "MR Molecular Streaming Device (formerly demonpore 64)", the demonpore 64 being the company's earlier nanopore instrument in the shape of a 1980s game console.
As for shipping: I have read what the company has published about it, and nothing I have found says a unit went to a customer. An initial batch of around 50 was planned. The company's FAQ, written in August in the voice of its felt mascot Keltar, now files the handheld with the other prototypes:
The MR1 deserves one sentence of its own: it is one of several prototypes the team has built over the years, a citizen science device that carries the electronics we tested in earlier rigs.
The FAQ then gives it a second sentence, about keeping "its details light". There are two videos of it on the company's YouTube channel, "MR1 preview video" (5 minutes 24 seconds) and "Keltar explains MR1" (3 minutes 47 seconds).
The second MR1
The second MR1 is a desktop instrument that exists as files. On October 16 the company put the design of a solid-state nanopore reader on GitHub under the AGPL, version 1.0.0: CAD models, KiCad files for four circuit boards, firmware and a test suite that checks the parts fit. It has a pump module, a reader board running at 100,000 samples per second, a hexagonal cartridge that holds a 4 by 4 mm silicon die between two chambers, and an amplifier board tucked under the cartridge. Nobody has built one yet. The files went up under the AGPL; on October 21 a commit titled "Relicense project to Public Domain under CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0-1.0)" placed the whole project in the public domain.
When the files went up, the system was not called MR1. The README opened with "Sentinel Nanopore Reader (Daemon Pore)". Sentinel was the working name for at least ten months; a commit on December 23, 2025 added "Sentinel Nanopore Reader Rev 11" as an OpenSCAD file. Daemon Pore was the old company name, demonpore, wearing a different spelling. "MR1" was the name of the reader board inside the stack and of its firmware folder.
On Sunday, October 18, a commit titled "refactor: Rename Daemon Pore/Sentinel to MR1 across codebase" changed 71 files, adding 139 lines and deleting 139.2 The README now opens with "MR1 Nanopore Reader (MR1)". Its parenthesis used to hold the old name; it now holds the new one again. The rename missed at least one line. As of October 20, a design document in the repository still described its "System Target" as "MR1 Nanopore Reader (Daemon Pore)".
What they have in common
More than the name. Three parts from the handheld's short list turn up again in the reader: the ESP32-S3, the LMP7721, used here as a transimpedance amplifier, and the MCP4822 that sets the bias voltage. In August the FAQ said the handheld "carries the electronics we tested in earlier rigs". The open reader carries some of the same electronics again, with an ADC from Analog Devices' AD40xx family in place of the handheld's MAX11169, in a box that sits on a desk instead of in a hand.
After the parts list, the differences start. The handheld was designed around the games. The reader has two peristaltic pumps, pressure sensors, a four-electrode cell and a leak detector its README calls a "Conductive Weep Moat", and it has no games in it.
Why it is fine
A name used twice causes trouble when someone has to pick the right box off a shelf. Nobody has to. No source I can find says the first MR1 reached a customer, and the second has not been assembled. For the moment the only people who need to tell them apart are the company and people like me.
The company has also been renaming things for as long as it has existed. In 2021 demonpore, inc. became Molecular Reality Corporation. Epic Quest Biotechnology, the company's game, became Epic Quest Bio. The community called the Molecular Streaming Services Corps became the Molecular Streaming Corps, although Keltar's mug still carries a paper sign that reads "M.S.S.C." The demonpore 64 became the MR series, and the MR series produced the handheld MR1. Sentinel and Daemon Pore became the second. The FAQ has a sentence for this habit, and it is a fair one: "Names change as work finds its shape."3
- The company's chatbot had a prepared answer to the question "Do you really offer lapis lazuli?" It reads, in full: "Yes, we'll get the lapis lazuli filament and make you a lapis lazuli case. And several other colors."
- Equal additions and deletions are what a clean find-and-replace looks like in a diff. Every renamed line came out and went back in with the new word.
- The disambiguation problem is older than either device: "MR" is also a common abbreviation for magnetic resonance.