As the year comes to a close, it feels less like an ending and more like a gathering of momentum. Two major Bela products are now clearly in view, both approaching fruition in early 2026, and much of the past year has been spent laying the conceptual, technical, and practical groundwork for what comes next. What follows is a look back at a particularly dense period of development for the company.

Bela Gem Delivering Any Day Now

2025 marked the most substantial update to Bela hardware in nearly a decade with the introduction of Bela Gem. Built around the PocketBeagle 2 and available in Stereo and Multi versions which will be shipping in a couple of weeks, Gem represents a significant step forward in both processing power and embeddable design. Alongside its expanded audio capabilities, we have been especially interested in how Gem opens up new possibilities for real-time machine learning on embedded systems, from neural network prototyping to playable, responsive instruments.

In parallel, we began to foreground the people approaching Gem from different directions. Through Creators: Bela Gem, we gathered early perspectives from artists, researchers, and instrument designers working with the platform, not as a finished product, but as an evolving system. Conversations with Lauren Sarah Hayes, Yann Seznec, Rafaele Andrade, Alberto Novello, and Marylou Sharrock offered insight into how Gem is being understood in practice: as a site for experimentation, and as a tool for testing ideas that sit between research and performance.

Trails Preorders Soon

One of the most exciting developments was sharing early glimpses of our new module, Trails. A polyphonic touch controller offering four channels of recordable gestures, musicians can draw, transform and reshape control signals and compose with shapes. Presenting Trails publicly for the first time at events like Superbooth in May and Bristronica in October, where we gave a larger interview to DivKid, helped bring these ideas into conversation with musicians and modular communities. Trails will be availble for preorder in the early part of this year, shipping in Spring.

Continued Exploration with Gliss

As expected, Gliss has continued to play a central role throughout the year. A particular highlight was James Plotkin investigating Gliss, and seeing how the metal legend and mastering engineer integrates it into his modular practice, pushing systems to their limits while remaining intensely tactile and physical, explored in this feature. Through this we have come to better understand not just how Gliss is being used as a controller, but as an expressive instrument shaped by the hands and habits of those who use it.

In 2025 we also took time to look back and outward through a series of long-form blog pieces, using writing as a way to investigate how Bela has been used across large-scale installations and institutional contexts in recent years. Revisiting projects such as Your psychoacoustic light ensemble by Olafur Eliasson allowed us to reflect on how Bela functions within collaborative studio environments, architectural sound works and complex production ecosystems, as discussed here.

Bela in Situ: Deep Dives

Although not all of these projects were realised this year, returning to them helped clarify how Bela operates across disciplines, from interactive fashion, explored in our discussion with Sjoerd Leijten, to new approaches to instrument design, such as Halldór Úlfarsson’s halldorophone, a feedback-driven cello that rethinks the relationship between performer, instrument and system. Other reflections, including projects by Scott Myles and institutional contexts such as Symphonie, further expanded this picture of how Bela is embedded within long-term artistic practices.

Across hardware, tools for instrument building, research and artistic practice, what stands out most is how Bela continues to be used and adapted in ways we couldn’t ever imagine. A tradition we hope Bela Gem will continue.

Thank you to everyone building, testing, researching, performing, documenting and thinking with Bela. We’re heading into 2026 committed to bringing out new tools and instruments that invite deep interaction rather than prescribed outcomes. What will you build? And what will you compose?