HOBI Labs, founded in 1997 by Dr. Robert A. Maffione and David R. Dana, is the home of unique scientific equipment for measuring light, and the propagation of light, in oceans and lakes. Starting with the HydroScat-6, the world's first commercial spectral backscattering sensor, HOBI innovations include other members of the HydroScat optical backscattering meter family, the broad line of HydroRad hyperspectral radiometers, the a-Sphere in-situ spectrophotometer, WaLRUS radiometer buoy, and the Gamma line of spectral transmissometers.