#3 Industrial Design

How to bring parts together in an hardware

If you’re done with ideas for a product, then you need to find components. Bringing suitable components together and making them work flawlessly is not an easy task.

There are 3 points to be clarified for anyone who starts developing a HW product from scratch.

• Energy

• Communication

• Form factor

Energy is about whether the device is battery-operated or grid-powered. If battery-powered then how long it should operate with a single charge?

Communication is about what the inputs and outputs device should provide including I/O ports, screens, sounds, and visuals.

The form factor is about the dimensions of the device, water resistance, controls, look and feel.

When you put all requirements to the table it may sound a bit chaotic. I am gonna explain how to sort things out and reach an industrial design.

The first step is defining the most important component of the device. This could be a sensor, a communication module, or a processor. Usually, this component is the one that relates most to the product’s value proposition/main idea.

Once you decide that;

and if you’re building a B2B product, usually communication will take second place in priority. Checking communication requirements first will help. The reason I put communication first is because your B2B hardware will most likely integrate with some other devices, servers, or dashboards. So make sure you have the right communication modules inside. Then prioritize the power requirements and finally the form factor. There are cases where the form factor could be more important than the power choice like aerospace products.

if you’re building a B2C product, I recommend starting with form factor, because look and feel are what matters most in a B2C product. Then power source will be the second priority since it may bring time and location limits to end users. Hence communication remains as last concern.

When you complete the component and material selection, you should make a check-up in terms of price and manufacturability. If the cost of goods will not leave any profit margin then what’s the point, right? Or if you can’t manufacture the device then it loses all points.

If you see that your product fails in terms of price or manufacturability, then go back to the beginning of the list and pick components and materials carefully.

When you’re done with that process you should have skills or get someone skilled to bring these materials and components together in CAD software. That’s what we call the “Industrial Design”.

How to manage the process between mechanical design and the PCB design smoothly? We’re gonna cover these in upcoming posts.

Please find updates about our product below.

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Updates from Mountain Labs 🏔

We’re developing a new air quality detector that has some modes to provide the most convenient experience for users in different locations. It measures the air quality but acts differently if you’re at work, at sleep, or in the car. So you maintain the focus in your daily life and become your best version.

Progress in Marketing and Business:

The newsletter you’re reading is at %45 open rate. It’s fair enough. I’m looking for ways to improve it. We had initial talks with some businesses to gift ODAK to their employees. We have 25 pre-orders so far. We’re still at the beginning. If you want to pre-order, reach us by email (info@mountainlabs.io)

Progress on the Technical Side:

Since we got the first Industrial Design outputs, we started the PCB design process. We’re discussing adding a CO sensor to the device before we finish the PCB design. (This somehow relates to product positioning as is it a device for only offices? or can be used at home, car, or while camping)

I guess we will see this decision in the next post.

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Bye 🙋🏻‍♂️