I don’t need more Dev Kits. My house is piling out with STM boards, Nordic dev kits, Arduinos (both green and black), ESP32s, Raspberry Pis, and plenty of LoRaWAN development boards I don’t even remember ordering.Prototyping has never been easier with the pletoria of available devkits, free developer accounts, and publicly available documentation. Then why don’t we focus on the real challenge of turning these prototypes into real-world products? This remains one of the most painful parts of building connected products. According to SG Wireless, <a href="https://sgwireless.com/" target="_blank">83% of IoT projects fail</a> “because they can’t handle real-world complexity.”One of the biggest complexities is crossing the gap between a POC and a scalable product.<h3>Why do we keep starting from scratch?</h3>“I think embedded development has a bad habit of wanting to build everything from scratch. And that is proven to be a pretty difficult approach” as stated by Joe Schneider during the latest<a href="https://iotstars.com/blog/modernizing-the-embedded-stack-lessons-from-iot-stars-at-ewna25" target="_blank"> IoT Stars show in Anaheim</a>.It’s a pretty difficult approach I can say, having to figure out the processes around firmware updates, secure boot, or general low-power performances blocks me from turning my many projects into a real-world product.The tooling ecosystem doesn’t help either. Embedded development remains heavily vendor-locked. Developers are nudged into STM32Cube or Microchip’s MPLAB, and each ecosystem comes with its own SDKs, HALs and build systems. Firmware written for one chipset doesn't transfer to another. Switching hardware usually means rebuilding your codebase from the ground up.Then there’s the hardware development process. From PCB design, to RF optimization, certification, to manufacturing. The upfront investment easily reaches 6+ months and hundreds of thousands of USDs.No wonder so many projects die along the way.<h3>The Rise of Software-Defined Everything</h3>Slowly but steadily a shift is happening, though. In a previous article,<a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/the-reprogrammable-machine-the-rise-of-software-defined-iot" target="_blank"> The Reprogrammable Machine</a>, I questioned the industry’s fixation on hardware. Success in IoT rarely depends on the hardware itself; it depends on the software that powers it. The market is slowly waking up to that idea, and you can see it in the momentum behind Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOSs) like <a href="https://www.freertos.org/" target="_blank">FreeRTOS</a> or <a href="https://www.zephyrproject.org/" target="_blank">Zephyr</a>, but also on <a href="https://www.atym.io/" target="_blank">Atym</a>’s platform which is primarily based on the WebAssembly/Wasm to make binaries portable from one platform to the other.For the industry to scale, we need hardware that behaves more like software: flexible, reusable, extensible, and not tied to a single vendor’s ecosystem. That means treating the hardware not as a static asset, but as a platform layer on which software sits.This is where semi off-the-shelf hardware comes in.<h3>What Semi Off-the-Shelf Hardware Actually Means</h3>Semi off-the-shelf hardware is not yet another dev kit. And it’s not a fully custom board that kills your business case either.It’s the middle ground we’ve been missing: a field-ready hardware foundation that works for prototyping and production.It’s small and power-efficient enough to deploy in hundreds of early devices without redesigning anything. It’s open, both in terms of hardware and software, in a way your team can build upon it.This kind of hardware lets prototypes grow into products, instead of being discarded the moment they work and having to start all over to build the production-ready product.<h3>Examples of Hardware Moving in This Direction</h3>A few companies are already leaning into this idea.The <a href="https://www.quickspot.io" target="_blank">Walter module</a> from <a href="https://www.dptechnics.com/" target="_blank">DPTechnics</a> is a good example. It is fully open-source, both hardware and software and supports a wide variety of development environments, including Zephyr, ESP-IDF, MicroPython, and Arduino. The size is production-ready; the power profile works both on the bench and in the field. You can build a prototype on Walter and then deploy the same module in the real-world without restarting the entire engineering process. Packed with multiple radios (LTE-M, NB-IoT, WiFi, BLE and GNSS) and certifications, the end-product certification efforts and costs are also minimized.Others are operating with similar principles.<a href="https://www.actinius.com/" target="_blank">Actinius</a> builds Nordic-based products designed to be cost-effective, pre-certified and low-power.<a href="https://blues.com/" target="_blank">Blues</a> offers the Notecard: a cellular module that’s meant to be used directly in products, not just prototypes.<a href="https://www.rakwireless.com/en-us" target="_blank">RAK Wireless</a> provides lego-like Wisblocks which can be industrialized in a later stage. These companies aren’t selling dev kits, they’re offering foundations for developers to build upon.<h3>Where the Industry Needs To Go Next</h3>A healthy IoT ecosystem should look more like the modern software world, with hardware-agnostic firmware, development environments that don’t lock you in, tools for easy scaling, and a more collaborative mindset where work is openly shared.The real antidote to the 83% failure rate isn’t more devkits. It’s making the economics of hardware development work by closing the POC-to-Production gap.I am eager to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-dont-need-more-devkits-make-economics-hardware-development-u0uqf/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">hear your thoughts</a>.

Semi Off-The-Shelf Hardware: The Missing Link in IoT

We don't need more devkits, we need to make the economics of hardware development work

﻿This article is based on a conversation with Fabio Rosa, CEO of Tago.io.Pilots are not to prove the technology, it's to prove your business caseIn today’s IoT landscape, the technology has proven itself. Sensors are accurate. Devices are reliable. Connectivity is everywhere; from 4G and 5G to LoRaWAN and non-terrestrial networks. And IoT platforms are powerful, flexible, and customizable.Yet, despite this maturity, too many IoT projects don't make it past the pilot phase.Why?Because companies often treat pilots as technical exercises, instead of what they truly are: business case validations.<h2>5 questions to ask yourself during the pilot phase</h2>A real pilot should force you, and your team, to face some hard truths. Here are five critical questions to ask yourself:<ol><li>What is the minimum required scale for this project to succeed? Companies often over-estimate the scale and speed of hardware rollouts. Take an honest look at the numbers and define the required scale of the project to make the numbers work. </li><li>If I would get free access to hardware / connectivity / IoT platforms, would the business case look significantly different? There’s an obsession with costs, leading to tough negotiations to scrape off cents per device. If these negotiations have a significant impact on the business case of your IoT project, something is awfully off.  </li><li>Am I ready to change the roles and responsibilities of my personnel if the pilot succeeds?  IoT solutions streamline operations and automate tasks previously handled manually. If your project delivers the expected efficiencies, it will impact job roles and performance metrics. Are you ready to adjust how you evaluate, reward, and organize your team? Are you truly ready for the consequences of success? </li><li>What transformation does my company need to go through when implementing this IoT project? New processes, new skills, new departments. A real pilot highlights the organizational changes you must be willing to make, and the likelihood of these changes to succeed. The metrics used to define the success of projects and performance need to be realigned. </li><li>What additional resources do I need for installing and maintaining the solution?  Every connected device requires maintenance, support, and updates. Factor those into your business case at this phase, not during the production phase. Leaders and managers should be prepared to run a marathon, not a sprint. Therefore, additional resources and budget are necessary to achieve the long-term goals.</li></ol><h2>Focus where it matters</h2>A successful pilot is not one where everything "works" from a technical perspective. A successful pilot is one that proves your business case, that shows you can scale economically, create real value, and transform your operations sustainably.When you start treating pilots this way, your entire IoT strategy will change for the better. If you want a partner who understands this mindset, and who can help you build IoT projects that go beyond the pilot phase, talk to the team of <a href="https://tago.io/" target="_blank">TagoIO</a>.  <h2>About TagoIO</h2>TagoIO is an industry-leading IoT platform designed to empower businesses and individuals to connect, manage, and analyze the growing amounts of data IoT devices generate. The all-in-one platform streamlines data processing and visualization by eliminating complexity, saving businesses time, and freeing up resources so they can innovate their products and services.The platform is trusted by thousands of businesses that customize and deploy as the backbone of their solutions to connect IoT devices to hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. TagoIO has become a go-to solution for many IoT applications across many verticals, such as Agriculture, Buildings, Energy, Industrial, and Logistics.From its headquarters in Raleigh, NC, USA, TagoIO supports domestic and international businesses in more than 130 countries to build the best IoT solution. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.tago.io" target="_blank">www.tago.io</a>

IoT projects do not fail because of the technology, they fail because of bad business cases.

5 questions to ask yourself during the pilot phase

As aerospace and defense manufacturing targets higher precision and efficiency, digital twin and digital thread technologies are quietly reshaping how products move from design to the real world. These advancements enable companies to bridge the gap between design and production, driving down cycle times while improving innovation, safety, and adaptability. With the aerospace and defense (A&amp;D) sector transitioning to digital-first methodologies, the need for seamless integration of these technologies has never been more critical.A&amp;D manufacturers today must meet tighter production schedules, ensure greater accuracy, and create systems that can evolve in real time to changing conditions. Digital twins and digital threads serve as a single source of truth, ensuring interoperability across the lifecycle of each asset—from requirements capture to assembly and certification. In this context, these technologies are pulling the strings to improve operational efficiency and deliver data-driven insights. Companies that embrace these tools are positioning themselves to lead the next generation of A&amp;D engineering.<h2 dir="ltr" data-element-id="headingsMap-4-0">Digital Twin and Digital Thread in Aerospace and Defense</h2>The A&amp;D sector stands to benefit greatly from innovations like digital twins and digital threads, especially with its demand for precision and safety. As&nbsp;A&amp;D products&nbsp;shifts towards mechatronics, digital twins allow system integration across mechanical, electronic, and software components, capturing real-time data to provide actionable insights into performance and condition. This helps implement&nbsp;smart manufacturing,&nbsp;remote asset monitoring,&nbsp;robust configuration &amp; traceability, predictive maintenance, reducing unplanned downtime and extending equipment lifespan.Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) frameworks combined with digital threads help to standardize workflows from CAD/CAE to CAM/CMM, supporting both new product introduction and industrialization. In defense, digital twins allow for real-time operational readiness assessments of critical assets like fighter jets, naval vessels, and unmanned systems, while digital threads ensure system integrity and a continuous data flow across the entire lifecycle—from mission planning to post-deployment sustainment.These technologies are applicable across multiple domains—land, air, maritime, and space—to optimize design, improve maintenance, and ensure peak performance in all environments. They also support the global nature of defense contracts, with embedded Product Manufacturing Information (PMI) and annotations overcoming language barriers in multinational operations.As companies look to optimize performance and reduce cycle times, adopting these technologies is helping them achieve significant operational improvements, thus creating more cohesive, data-driven systems for better decision-making and long-term sustainability.<h2 id="isPasted" data-element-id="headingsMap-5-0">Watch It On-Demand: Unlocking the Power of Digital Twins for Aerospace Manufacturing</h2>Now available on-demand, “Unlocking the Power of Digital Twins for Aerospace Manufacturing” provides valuable insights into how these transformative technologies are reshaping the industry. Access now:&nbsp;<iframe id="JotFormIFrame-243541854347461" title="Quest Global Form Post-Webinar 1 [Send video]" allowtransparency="true" src="https://form.jotform.com/243541854347461" frameborder="0" style="min-width:100%;max-width:100%;height:539px;border:none;" scrolling="no" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"> </iframe><h2 dir="ltr" data-element-id="headingsMap-7-0">Industry Insights: Driving Innovation through Digital Integration</h2>Quest Global has worked across various A&amp;D projects, helping companies integrate digital thread strategies to accelerate timelines and enhance efficiency. In the defense space, this integration enables complex systems, such as military aircraft and missile defense platforms, to move seamlessly from concept to deployment while maintaining mission-critical performance and security. By digitizing Standard Operating Procedures (SoPs) and augmenting them with simulations through Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), digital twins streamline production and enable maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) with enhanced accuracy.In a project with a leading aeroengine OEM for the US Department of Defense (DoD), Quest Global’s design thread expertise, particularly in MBSE, was critical in connecting systems architecture and accelerating the design process. In another project, they helped reduce manufacturing design cycle times by 30% using adaptive closed-loop manufacturing, predictive analytics, and supply chain connectivity. This digital twin initiative improved the overall efficiency by 44%, demonstrating the power of real-time simulations and predictive analytics in reducing non-conformance and optimizing manufacturing.<h2 dir="ltr" data-element-id="headingsMap-8-0">The Industry-Wide Impact of Digital Twin and Digital Thread Technologies</h2>Digital twins and digital threads enable companies to create continuous, data-driven feedback loops that enhance decision-making, streamline operations, and reduce inefficiencies and complexities. By embedding real-time insights into their processes, A&amp;D manufacturers can optimize performance at every stage of the product lifecycle, from design to production and maintenance.Digital twins, in particular, allow manufacturers to simulate different scenarios and test outcomes without needing physical prototypes. This helps reduce risk, accelerate time-to-market, and improve overall system reliability. With digital twins, we’re seeing a shift from reactive to proactive management in aerospace manufacturing. It goes beyond preventing failures toward continuously improving processes, shortening design cycles, and enabling adaptive manufacturing that responds in real time to operational data.Meanwhile, digital threads ensure that data remains connected and accessible throughout the entire lifecycle, bridging gaps between traditionally siloed systems. This interconnectedness fosters collaboration and allows for more informed decision-making, helping companies meet the growing demands for efficiency, sustainability, and speed. In A&amp;D, real-time data integration supports faster response times and optimizes product performance under changing geopolitical scenarios, empowering&nbsp;OEM’s &amp; Global Supply chain&nbsp;to maintain readiness in dynamic environments.&nbsp;Digital manufacturing and Industry 4.0 technologies also foster increased awareness and improvement toward Health and Social care (HSC).As the A&amp;D industry embraces digital technologies, manufacturers are empowered to optimize their operations and properly position themselves to innovate and adapt to future challenges, laying the groundwork for smarter, more responsive manufacturing ecosystems.

Bridging Design and Production: Why Digital Twin and Thread Are Vital for Aerospace Innovation

Harnessing the Power of Digital Twins for Seamless Digital Thread Integration

Perhaps IoT businesses are just IT businesses. So why the fixation on hardware? Hardware has long been considered the cornerstone of the IoT industry, but we're increasingly recognizing that success hinges not on the physical devices themselves but on the software that drives them. This shift mirrors patterns we've seen in the world of cloud computing, where software is being written without considering the hardware it runs on. Let's dive into this transformation.<h3>Commoditization: Scaling Through Common Hardware</h3>At the heart of the transformation from hardware-centric to software-focused solutions is commoditization. Jason Kridner, founder of <a href="http://beagleboard.org/" target="_blank">BeagleBoard.org</a>, aptly stated:"If you make a reprogrammable machine, then that machine can be used in a whole lot of other applications. We can pretty much put everything into that box. Then you drive the hardware to commodity because that’s what scales."By commoditizing hardware, companies can focus their resources on software development, where true differentiation occurs. Kridner emphasizes that it's the software engineers who ultimately "win" because “that’s where you put your differentiation”. Hardware becomes the scalable foundation upon which innovative software solutions are built.The saying: “hardware is hard” still resonates with many in the industry. Hardware development is associated with complexities, high investments, lengthy development cycles and significant security risks. By treating hardware as a common, reliable platform, businesses may find ways to work around these obstacles and focus on their core competencies.<h3>Software Defined Everything</h3>Hardware lacks flexibility, until it doesn’t. The move from hardware commoditization to software-defined solutions feels like a natural progression. “Software gets abstracted from the hardware layer”, as Gregory Roth from <a href="https://monogoto.io/" target="_blank">Monogoto</a> explains, “leading to more flexible solutions”.This abstraction enables agility and it liberates companies from the complexities of hardware-specific constraints. Francisco Xavier Garcia (<a href="https://www.picmg.org/" target="_blank">PICMG</a>) reinforces this point:"You want a modular solution that is quickly scalable and quickly deployable because you want to respond swiftly to the rapidly changing industry. When you have embedded software and hardware tightly coupled, your flexibility is limited, your adaptability to respond to threats is limited. Extensibility is needed, where you can extend your capability and grow what your system can do. Software gives you all that ability."By decoupling software from hardware, businesses enhance their ability to innovate, adapt, and scale, which is essential in a market characterized by constant change.<h3>Adopting Cloud Practices: Stealing from the Best</h3>The IoT industry's shift mirrors the evolution seen in cloud computing over the past decade. In 2011, Adam Wiggins, one of Heroku’s founders, published the <a href="https://12factor.net/" target="_blank">Twelve-Factor App</a>, outlining twelve principles of modern application development. While many of these principles seem obvious today, they weren’t at the time, highlighting how far we've come in embracing common cloud practices.Brandon Satrom from <a href="https://blues.com/" target="_blank">Blues</a>, drew inspiration from these principles to create a similar set for the connectivity landscape called the <a href="https://12factor.io/" target="_blank">Twelve Factor Thing</a>. This initiative aims to enhance developer efficiency and product reliability, increasing market trust in connected devices that adhere to these principles. Satrom doesn’t want to impose these 12 factors to anyone, but merely initiate the conversation on how to grow the market in terms of efficiency, security and reliability.Consider the common practices such as automated testing, DevOps, continuous integration, you name it. By applying these practices to the world of IoT, reliance on specific hardware components is significantly reduced – a lesson learned during recent chip shortages that exposed the vulnerabilities of tying software too closely to specific hardware.Eventually, there are a couple of things – or principles – we should be able to agree upon, already now. Think of the way we should approach <a href="https://12factor.io/factors/firmware/" target="_blank">firmware as a collection of dynamic assets</a> which change frequently through standardized firmware update processes. The necessity of testing, the 12 Factor Thing specifically mentions&nbsp;<a href="https://12factor.io/factors/hardware-in-the-loop/" target="_blank">Hardware-in-the-Loop test</a> (HIL). And, one of Satrom’s Things he’s most passionate about: <a href="https://12factor.io/factors/transport/" target="_blank">Harmonization of Radio Access Technologies</a> “you don’t want developers having to learn everything from soup to nuts” if they add an additional radio technology. This will “slow them down and increase the likelihood of failures”.<h3>Conclusion</h3>The IoT industry's future lies in embracing the fact that software people ultimately take all the credits. Hardware gets commoditized to better suit software-defined solutions, minimizing the learning curve for developers who can build their solutions using familiar interfaces and APIs, regardless of the underlying hardware.This approach not only streamlines development and deployment but also empowers businesses to swiftly respond to market changes and emerging threats. By focusing on software, companies can enhance flexibility, scalability, and adaptability. It's not just about building better machines; it's about redefining how we manage those machines and how we, as an industry, can better serve the needs of a constantly changing world.<blockquote>This article is based on the discussion that took place at <a href="https://iotstars.com/" target="_blank">IoT Stars</a>, held during Embedded World North America on October 8, 2024. Thanks to Brandon Satrom (Blues), Jason Kridner (<a href="http://BeagleBoard.org" target="_blank">BeagleBoard.org</a>), Francisco Xavier Garcia (PICMG) and Gregory Roth (Monogoto) for sharing their take on Software Defined IoT. To join future discussions on the developments in IoT, visit <a href="https://iotstars.com/" target="_blank">iotstars.com</a>.</blockquote>

In a world where software drives innovation, why are we still fixated on hardware in IoT?

The Reprogrammable Machine: The rise of software-defined IoT

An interview with Adam White from Infineon on Powering the Next Generation of AI Data Centers.

There is No AI Without Power

Unfortunately for engineers, the spec sheet isn't going to tell you everything you need to know about how a material will perform in the real world. Standardized tests from organizations such as ASTM and ISO are designed to be easy to perform and relevant to a broad range of applications and materials. In this regard, they represent a "lowest common denominator" approach. There purpose is the be "standard", not to be the best representation of reality.&nbsp;In this article, I'm going to pick a fight with three standardized tests that are ubiquitous in polymer 3D printing.&nbsp;<h3>1. UTS doesn't matter</h3>Seriously - when was the last time that you broke something by pulling as hard as you can on both ends? The ultimate tensile strength (UTS) is commonly mistaken for real-world strength. Sorry, it simply doesn't matter. There are 3D printing polymers with a UTS of 80 MPa that shatter instantly with any impact, flex, or torsion. That's not strong.&nbsp;UTS is widely reported because its easy to measure. When you do a tensile test, you can get the Young's modulus (aka elastic modulus aka tensile modulus) at the same time as the UTS. The modulus is a geometry-independent, standardized way of assessing the stiffness of a material, which depends on both the material properties and the object's geometry. The UTS is the point at which the stress is highest - for brittle materials, this is when the material fails. For ductile materials, such as polySpectra's Cyclic Olefin Resins, this is when the material begins to yield, undergoing plastic deformation.Because UTS is easy to measure, easy to modulate (with fillers, for example), and easy to understand because every engineer learns about it in school - most 3D printing companies like to boast about their UTS. It's too bad it doesn't bear any resemblance to the real-world strength of 3D-printed parts. From the same tensile test - a more meaningful metric is the toughness, which is the area under the stress-strain curve. But unless you are playing tug-of-war, the tensile toughness isn't actually a true measurement of the materials toughness. For example, some of the 3D printing resins with the highest tensile toughness can be torn with your bear hands, because they have no tear strength.The bottom line is that tensile testing is great for learning about the physics of elastic and viscoelastic materials, and it contains useful information that engineers might need to know while designing components and devices, but for 99% of applications, the UTS has nothing to do with the real-world failure modes of materials. As an engineer - you need to decide what "strength" is most relevant to your application: compressive strength, impact strength, tear strength, flexural strength? The spec sheet won't do that for you.<h3>2. HDT is misleading</h3>The Heat Deflection Temperature, or HDT, is even worse. This is truly a lowest common denominator test that someone designed to be super easy, and for that reason, it's super irrelevant to the real world. The HDT test goes like this: a specific shaped rectangular bar is subjected to a certain force, and when the bar deflects by a certain amount at a certain temperature, that's called the HDT.&nbsp;This has absolutely nothing to do with the true working temperature of a material. The hint that this is irrelevant should come from the fact that there are two different HDTs at two different forces (Method A and Method B), which gives 3D printing companies the opportunity to pick the higher one and report that as their working temperature.The HDT measurement doesn't say anything about what else is happening to that material at that temperature. Without pointing any specific fingers, we've found that many 3D-printed polymers completely degrade during the HDT test. In our work to benchmark other photopolymers, it isn't uncommon for the test specimen to come out of the test looking like a charcoal briquette. So sure, the HDT on the spec sheet is technically true, but it is not representative of the real world working temperature.&nbsp;What might matter more to your application is:<ul><li>Thermal cycling (going between the high and low temperature ranges of the real-world environment)</li><li>Impact strength at low temperature (giving you a better sense of the full temperature failure range)</li><li>Flexural modulus as a function of temperature (providing a better sense of high-temperature failure modes)</li></ul>If you really want to see what is happening to the mechanical properties as a function of temperature, then Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) is much more appropriate than HDT. But because a DMA trace contains a lot of information, it's also not simple enough to just report a single number and call it a day.&nbsp;Unfortunately, HDT is what everybody puts on the spec sheet, and for the undiscerning engineer, it is commonly passed off as a proxy for working temperature.<h3>3. Notched Izod is not real-world impact</h3>Last but not least, let's talk about the notched Izod impact test. In Izod testing, you hit a bar of a certain size with a pendulum of a known weight and measure the energy that's transferred to the bar by seeing how high the pendulum goes on the other side.Here's the thing about the notching: it's an attempt to do two things:<ul><li>First, it tries to "say more" about the bulk property of the material by pre-creating a defect in the surface for the pendulum to hit.</li><li>Second, it attempts to standardize that defect.</li></ul>When you buy an impact tester, you also get sold the notching machine. If you don't use it correctly, you can get wildly different results. The notching machine needs to be calibrated as much as the impact tester itself.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1729696135686-COR-Black-Impact_400-ezgif.com-optimize%281%29.gif" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">I don't have a problem with the reasoning behind these choices. It makes sense why all of those steps are taken and why that's the necessary way to standardize it. But just like the other two examples, this has absolutely no analog in a real scenario.Notched Izod is the real world equivalent of first slashing something with a knife and then taking an axe and perfectly hitting the exact groove on the surface that you slashed, perfectly putting all of the axe's force inside the notch. If you're actually thinking about impact strength and how something might survive being hit with a blade, nicked by some other component, or shot with a bullet, the unnotched impact strength is much more meaningful.For example, a COR part hanging out in a blender experiences forces that are much more like the unnotched impact test than they are like the notched impact test. This again is something that can be really confusing because we're naturally inclined to just compare things at face value. We might look at some material that we know has a certain notched Izod value, then look at another material with a lower value, and think all of a sudden that it can't possibly be an acceptable replacement. In reality, it certainly could be.As a simple example of this, we were communicating with a team that makes "battle bot" robots, who were completely obsessing over the notched Izod while comparing COR to the materials they're used to. Unfortunately, the notched Izod has very little to do with the real-world resilience to being whacked, slashed, and hacked by another robot's weapons. The blender test does.For impact strength, we've found that our industrial and defense customers often use much less quantitative tests simply because they're a much more reliable indicator of real-world performance:<ul><li>Dropping a bowling ball on a part of a specific geometry from a specific height</li><li>Trying to see if anyone in the room can break the actual part with their bare hands</li><li>Taking a panel to the firing range and shooting it with a gun</li></ul><h3>Conclusion</h3>In summary, there's no substitute for real-world testing. Engineers need to be wary not to take these standardized test proxies at face value. At polySpectra, we specialize in making the world's most rugged photopolymer resins that actually survive demanding real-world environments. Our mission is to help engineers think their ideas into reality.<h3>Ready for Rugged Resin?</h3>Through November 7th, we're running a Kickstarter campaign for our latest material, <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/polyspectra/cor-zero-turns-makers-into-manufacturers?ref=cwhpga" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">COR Zero</a>, which unlocks manufacturing-grade materials for makers.

Why engineers need to think critically about the materials properties that matter.

The Real World is Not On the Spec Sheet

In this article, we explore how open source is not just for makers anymore, and actually makes great business sense. Business Benefits of Open Source: The Pragmatic Side of a PhilosophyChoosing open source is not just a philosophical stance; it is a strategic decision with tangible benefits for businesses across a variety of sectors: manufacturing, building automation, smart cities, e-mobility, logistics, safety – and any industry where technology is key.Here are 7 reasons to consider open-source solutions:<ol><li dir="ltr">License Included: Escape the burden of hefty license fees, with an open-source model that completely eliminates the need for these costs.</li><li dir="ltr">Limit NREs: Non-recurring engineering costs decrease when you use an open and accessible platform designed for seamless integration.</li><li dir="ltr">No Vendor Lock-in: The growing Arduino ecosystem is not a trap; it’s a versatile offering that allows exploration and evolution, without imposing switching costs.</li><li dir="ltr">Extensive Documentation: Over the years, Arduino has built a treasure trove of documentation, tutorials, and tech specs to support users at every stage of development.</li><li dir="ltr">Community-Sourced Resources: Our vibrant community of over 33 million users ensures a constant flow of libraries, examples, and shared experiences.</li><li dir="ltr">Effortless Integration: Arduino products seamlessly integrate with third-party solutions, enabling cost-effective retrofitting and interoperability.</li><li dir="ltr">Lower Labor Costs: Arduino’s accessibility and user-friendly design mean lower labor costs, with a large pool of engineers familiar with the platform.</li></ol> Shared Commitment, Shared AchievementsArduino was founded on principles of open source since its inception in 2005, and continues to be at the forefront of the movement. Our recently released <a href="https://blog.arduino.cc/2024/01/11/the-2023-arduino-open-source-report-is-out/" target="_blank">Open Source Report for 2023</a> unveils a range of achievements that exemplify in how many directions this core value translates into new projects, products, resources and more.Key highlights include joining the Zephyr® Project, releasing five new open-source hardware components (Arduino UNO R4 Minima and R4 WiFi, Arduino GIGA R1 WiFi and GIGA Display Shield, Arduino Nano ESP32), and a plethora of updates to the Arduino IDE and command line tools. The pivotal role of the vibrant Arduino community is highlighted in the report too, with over 1,000 new libraries and 205 open-source tutorials shared on Project Hub in 2023.&nbsp;Another initiative fueled by the community’s contributions is <a href="https://docs.arduino.cc/" target="_blank">Arduino Docs</a>, a collaborative repository launched in 2021 as a testament to the brand’s commitment to sharing knowledge. The archive has grown into a comprehensive resource hub, and the Arduino Team’s efforts to keep a sea of information updated, organized, and easy to navigate for all recently led to a complete overhaul of the platform’s design and architecture, unveiled in January 2024.&nbsp; Unlocking Innovation with the Open-Source ParadigmIn a world where innovation is the lifeblood of success, adopting open-source technology platforms like Arduino can be a savvy move for entrepreneurs and engineers worldwide. The tangible business benefits, coupled with an outstanding track record of community collaboration and continuous improvement, position open source as not just a philosophy but a pragmatic pathway to sustained success in the ever-evolving landscape of digital transformation, leading to cost-effectiveness, innovation, and a future-proof tech ecosystem.

Open source makes business sense. Photo: Alberto Morici for Arduino

In the ever-evolving landscape of technology and innovation, businesses are constantly seeking ways to stay ahead of the curve, optimize processes, and drive innovation. One powerful approach gaining widespread recognition is the adoption of open-source technology platforms – and for good reason.

Unleashing Business Potential with the Advantages of an Open-Source Approach

Metal wire cloth is at the heart of countless filtrations, homogenisations and other applications with solid, liquid and gaseous media that benefit from the exact uniform structure and stability of wire mesh. Haver &amp; Boecker excels in perfection down to the last detail. This applies not only to the filter medium itself, which covers an extremely wide spectrum from the finest structures in the micrometre range to coarse structures. It also applies to the filters and fabricated parts into which the mesh is further processed, including plastic edging.When touring through the many production halls of Haver &amp; Boecker’s Wire Weaving Division in Oelde, Germany, one thing becomes very clear: it is the combination of tradition and experience on the one hand, and innovative strength and the cutting-edge technology on the other that makes it possible to develop individual product solutions for the filtration of solid, liquid and gaseous media. Plastic injection moulding has become an important component in recent years.&nbsp;“Plastics engineering in conjunction with wire mesh is a discipline in its own right, which also takes us experts to a new level,” says the industrial supervisor who specialises in plastics engineering.Whether simple cut-to-size wire mesh or complex components - made-to-measure metal filters and fabricated parts made of metal mesh are used in a wide variety of industries and areas of application. This is because virtually all manufacturing companies have to deal with the filtration of particles or the retention of foreign substances - be it in the development of individual components such as transmission oil filters for the automotive industry or in the ongoing treatment of waste water or process water. Wire mesh is an ideal filter medium thanks to its exact geometric structure and the precisely definable pore size and the material and flow characteristics.&nbsp;&nbsp;<h3>Custom-made hybrid components</h3>Overmoulding components with plastic is also nothing new. Haver &amp; Boecker‘s Wire Weaving Division introduced plastic injection moulding as early as 20 years ago. The requirements for functionality and handling of metal wire mesh filters increased along with the complexity of the product shapes and production equipment, and even experts in this field confirm that the combination with wire mesh is a whole field of plastics engineering of its own.Many decision-makers, however, are impressed in particular by the production of precision, lightweight fabricated parts coupled with the economical series production as the result of short cycle times.&nbsp;Always bearing speed and resource conservation in mind, Haver &amp; Boecker produces hybrid components on the basis of the state-of-the-art systems engineering integrated into the production line by the employees of its own toolmaking department. They work in wire weaving in many places and draw on a wide range of expertise ranging from adjusting screws on the looms to optimising coarse and fine meshes, to the finishing stations up to the complex production line.&nbsp;The successful series production of hybrid filters and the adoption of proven developments such as HAVER’s Vision System for visual inspection of all components speak for themselves. The development teams from our own toolmaking, research &amp; development, engineering and plastics engineering departments provide advice on new tool and system concepts including optimisation of the plastic itself. PEEK plastic, for example, was thus successfully modified by adding a silicone-based additive: <a href="https://www.haverboecker.com/en/news-media/success-stories/plastics-engineering-haver-adpeekr/" target="_blank">HAVER AdPEEK®</a> makes energy-efficient system utilisation possible by lowering the required melting temperature, amongst other things.&nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjk4NzQzNjQ0Mzk0LVdldm9sdmVyX0t1bnN0c3RvZmZ0ZWNobmlrX1Byb2R1a3RlLnBuZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTUwLCJmaXQiOiJjb3ZlciJ9fX0=" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Metal filters and fabricated parts made to measure&nbsp; All from a single source - All for your safety&nbsp; © Haver &amp; Boecker3D printing for prototypes with plastic edgingEvery development process is characterised by a regular exchange of information and coordination. Specific, three-dimensional and tangible approval samples are enormously helpful as a basis for discussion as they can be used to check handling, test the fineness of the meshes and develop packaging options. Haver &amp; Boecker uses 3D printing here on order to act quickly, flexibly and individually and thereby shorten the product development process.&nbsp;<h3>Flexibility is a valuable asset nowadays</h3>The various types of mesh, of which more than 3,600 are in stock alone on a total storage area of more than 6,000 square metres at the company’s headquarters in Oelde, cover a wide spectrum ranging from the finest of micrometre structures to coarse structures. Although such a high inventory level contradicts the general trend, it increasingly pays off as regards to dependable deliverability and adherence to delivery dates.&nbsp;Thanks to this interaction of tradition and innovation and the courage to put its own experience ahead of a trend, this family-owned business has become the world's leading manufacturer of wire mesh since the company was founded more than 130 years ago.<img width="510" src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjk4NTY3Mzc5NDczLTE2OTg1NjczNzk0NzMuanBlZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTUwLCJmaXQiOiJjb3ZlciJ9fX0=" class="fr-fic fr-dii">Plastics engineering in the Wire Weaving Division &nbsp;The individually developed production lines meet the highest standards of quality and reliability. © Haver &amp; BoeckerLearn more on our <a href="https://www.haverboecker.com/en/product-solutions/metal-filters-and-fabricated-parts/plastics-engineering/?lso=wevolver-kunststofftechnik-beitrag&utm_campaign=kunststofftechnik&utm_source=wevolver&utm_medium=beitrag&utm_content=_102023" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">website</a>.

In plastic injection moulding, edgings and complete fabricated parts are made from metal wire mesh.

Perfection in detail - Plastics engineering in the Wire Weaving Division

The world is not short on pressing problems. And many of them will fall to us - to the engineers - to solve. This article explores, arguably, the best approach to problem-solving, including the way I applied that approach to my own company which solves a problem inherent to the world of manufacturing.&nbsp;Engineering is about solving problems. And, for the most part, we&rsquo;re engineers in the first place because we&rsquo;re curious about things, the way they work and the way they can be improved. But that doesn&rsquo;t make us perfectly diligent and dependable.&nbsp;Engineers &ndash; at time of writing &ndash; are all too human and we often think we are solving problems when in fact we are just finding clever ways to live with them. Often that&rsquo;s because time and resources are limited. To tear something up and start again is normally the expensive, difficult route, at least at first. But I feel strongly we should always try to consider what something might look like if we went back to the start and approached it as if for the first time.&nbsp;There&rsquo;s an important distinction between completely fixing something and merely improving something. The latter is a kind of solution, but often it&rsquo;s just delaying the inevitable, kicking the can down the road, as they say. A useful way to ensure you are solving a problem and not simply finessing it is to ask how you would approach things if you went back to the beginning. This clears your mind from the existing solutions and creates room for visualising the perfect future without constraints. Once you get there, you can start asking what else should be true for this perfect solution to be true? This gives you the requirements along with the smaller problems to solve and you can assess whether this completely new and better solution is viable or not. That new beginning, that new way of doing something, will probably be hard to get to. There will be serious barriers, not least time and cost. But in the long run the right solution will be more economical, efficient and sustainable than any easy improvements you might make to the old method.<h3>Starting over with Fractory</h3>My own company was created to solve a problem, one I feel acutely as an engineer because it takes up my time and energy and is expensive and distracts me from the core engineering work I would prefer to focus on. It&rsquo;s the problem engineers face in procuring parts. It&rsquo;s the problem they face navigating supply chains. For the wider industry it even incorporates the problem of better utilising machinery and material resources. &nbsp;So, with my co-founders, we created Fractory, which automates time-consuming and difficult aspects of the manufacturing process, specifically quoting and buying as well as project management and logistics. We free engineers from the intensive work of traditional drawings because metal parts can be ordered simply by uploading CAD files to our platform. We free them from the crazy stresses of managing supply networks. And we improve things for suppliers too, for the metal fabricators themselves, by providing demand where and when there is capacity and capability to supply.&nbsp;Our solution saves time and saves energy, freeing up talent and allowing people to focus on important work and perhaps allowing them to solve vital problems. Engineering time is precious and the shortage of engineers is a serious threat. So, Fractory greatly improves utilisation of the existing engineering resource.&nbsp;And we really did go back to the beginning. We built a machine (our platform) for instantaneous quoting and ordering from design files, which optimises for cost and lead times. And we built an organisation (our people) to handle those orders that don&rsquo;t achieve an instant quotation and to handle design complexities and supply chain intricacies where they occur. We didn&rsquo;t create just a marketplace where people upload designs and companies quote for them, as this would have actually made the situation even worse for companies wasting their time on quoting. That would be an example of building on top of existing solutions. Rather, we imagined a new way, a solution for both ends - the customer and the supplier.&nbsp;We wondered what a brand-new solution would look like. In fact, the goal was not just a new solution, but rather a perfect solution, something to be imagined without fear of the status quo. And that&rsquo;s what the Fractory software engineers and mechanical engineers are building. And now global businesses come to us for their series and project manufacturing needs. And universities and inventors come to us for their prototyping needs. Our solution is being adopted across the manufacturing spectrum and is already making a difference.<h3 id="isPasted">Things as they could be</h3>In approaching problems it&rsquo;s useful to make sure we are not just thinking about things as they are, but about things as they could be. The pen is powerful, most writers would acknowledge. But someone once decided that the status quo on writing implements could be smashed and that we should create something new, something that was hugely difficult to make, that had thousands of moving parts and weighed a tonne, that would cost a lot of money and take a lot of time and that would be difficult &ndash; at first &ndash; to use. Lo and behold, the typewriter, an object currently recognisable as a crucial part of most computers.That was quite a leap! The process to get to a working typewriter and then to settle on the famous QWERTY layout was not straightforward, surely.&nbsp;<h3>Admitting there&rsquo;s a problem</h3>It would have been easy to just make do with the pen! But somebody recognised a problem and got curious about a solution. Early efforts, machines as big as cars, were perhaps dispiriting. But the search for a solution went on and soon small electric models were being churned out. (And look where it&rsquo;s got us: everyone&rsquo;s got a novel in them!)Yet a great many are all too happy with things as they are. We see it with Fractory. Some engineers do not easily recognise the problem we first identified, the huge amounts of time and expense spent on procurement, spent on navigating supply chains: the problems that Fractory solves. That&rsquo;s why often it is good to talk less about solutions and more about problems. Get into the problems! Recognise them! Admit to them! And then be brave and go back to the beginning. Ask yourself, what would it look like if we started again? &nbsp;

Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash

Let’s not think about things just as they are but let’s think about things as they could be – that is the heart of problem-solving. 

Solve Problems by Going Back to the Start

Let us delve into the profound impact that generative AI may have on employment, exploring both the opportunities it creates and the challenges it presents, as we strive to shape a world where human ingenuity and machine intelligence can coexist harmoniously.


How Will Generative AI Revolutionize Our Work?

This is the second piece in a <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/hardware-is-hard-does-it-have-to-be" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">4-part opinion series</a> for and about hardware/software businesses.<hr>Last week, the media picked up that BMW is selling heated seat subscriptions for $18/month in some countries. As a result, BMW is awash in negative press, garnering headlines such as &ldquo;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/bmw-has-started-charging-by-the-month-to-keep-your-ass-warm" rel="" target="_blank">BMW Has Started Charging by the Month to Keep Your Ass Warm</a>&rdquo; and &ldquo;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/13/23206999/car-subscription-nightmare-heated-seats-remote-start" rel="" target="_blank">The future of cars is a subscription nightmare</a>&rdquo;.Internally, Particle had&hellip; similar feelings. Some choice quotes from our Slack thread on the topic:<ul><li>&ldquo;Would 100% ensure I didn&#39;t buy a BMW&rdquo;</li><li>&ldquo;Very excited to live in the new microtransaction hellscape.&rdquo;</li><li>&ldquo;Reminds me of Spirit Airlines &lsquo;racing towards&rsquo; charging for carry-ons.&rdquo;</li><li>&ldquo;I hate this with every fiber of my being&rdquo;</li></ul>But wait a second. Particle is an IoT platform whose customers ship hardware/software products, generally with subscriptions attached. This newsletter is only on its fourth issue and I&rsquo;ve already advocated for &ldquo;hardware-as-a-service&rdquo; business models at least twice. So why all the shade cast towards BMW?I believe that manufacturing businesses are going through a business model transformation that will lead to any high-value product ($10K+) being sold either partially or completely under a subscription model. Businesses that drive that transformation will become industry leaders, and others will be left behind.But I also believe there is a right way and a wrong way to go through that transformation. And BMW&rsquo;s approach is, frankly, wrong.So, let&rsquo;s use this as a case study. What is the wrong way to implement subscriptions for a hardware product? And what does that imply about what the&nbsp;right way is?<h3>BMW&rsquo;s Subscription Model</h3>First, let&rsquo;s get past the headlines and lay out the facts about BMW&rsquo;s subscription model:In 2020,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bmwusanews.com/newsrelease.do?id=3611&mid=" rel="" target="_blank">BMW announced</a> that they would begin selling features of its cars through &ldquo;digital after-sales&rdquo;. Here&rsquo;s the relevant text from the announcement:<blockquote>BMW already offers its customers digital services and additional vehicle functions in the form of digital after-sales, some of which are deeply embedded in the vehicle&#39;s software. In the US, BMW Drive Recorder is offered through a pilot program. In the near future, additional functions will be added that can access the vehicle&#39;s existing hardware and software, such as certain comfort functions or driver assistance systems.With the option of subsequently booking additional vehicle functions via the ConnectedDrive Store, BMW is strengthening selection and personalization for customers, offering them maximum flexibility. BMW provides the hardware and software in the vehicle at the time of manufacture for the implementation so that it can be adapted later on as required and in accordance with customer preferences. &nbsp;If, for example, vehicle functions were not yet requested at the time of purchase, they can be added later. A second owner thus can configure the used vehicle according to their own wishes.</blockquote>Side note: I find it fascinating that they seem to be avoiding the word &ldquo;purchase&rdquo;, like they don&rsquo;t want to admit that you&rsquo;re going to have to pay for this stuff. You can &ldquo;book&rdquo; additional vehicle functions, they can be &ldquo;added later&rdquo;. Look folks, if you&rsquo;re embarrassed to admit your own business model, you&rsquo;re probably doing it wrong.As promised, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bmw.co.uk/en/shop/ls/cp/connected-drive" rel="" target="_blank">BMW ConnectedDrive</a> is filled with &ldquo;digital services&rdquo; you can buy (sorry, &ldquo;add&rdquo;). As of July 19, 2022, you can &ldquo;add&rdquo; a total of 13 features:<ul><li>Active Cruise Control with Stop &amp; Go function (Purchase)</li><li>Adaptive M Suspension (Purchase)</li><li>Apple CarPlay Preparation (Purchase)</li><li>BMW Drive Recorder (Purchase)</li><li>BMW Safety Camera Information (Subscription)</li><li>Driving Assistant Plus (Subscription)</li><li>Front Seat Heating (Subscription)</li><li>High Beam Assistant (Subscription)</li><li>IconicSounds Sport (Purchase)</li><li>Map Update Package (Purchase)</li><li>Online Entertainment Voucher (Subscription)</li><li>Service Inclusive (Warranty-style purchase, limited to 5yrs/100K km)</li><li>Steering Wheel Heating (Subscription)</li></ul><figure><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbbc5c856-2140-478e-bbcc-78c7c5a63919_3584x2108.png" rel="" target="_blank"><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbbc5c856-2140-478e-bbcc-78c7c5a63919_3584x2108.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbbc5c856-2140-478e-bbcc-78c7c5a63919_3584x2108.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbbc5c856-2140-478e-bbcc-78c7c5a63919_3584x2108.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbbc5c856-2140-478e-bbcc-78c7c5a63919_3584x2108.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjYxODQ2OTAwMTM0LTE2NjE4NDY5MDAxMzQucG5nIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" width="1456" height="856" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbbc5c856-2140-478e-bbcc-78c7c5a63919_3584x2108.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbbc5c856-2140-478e-bbcc-78c7c5a63919_3584x2108.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbbc5c856-2140-478e-bbcc-78c7c5a63919_3584x2108.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbbc5c856-2140-478e-bbcc-78c7c5a63919_3584x2108.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" class="fr-fic fr-dii"></a><figcaption>What do you call &ldquo;nickel-and-diming&rdquo; when it&rsquo;s done in Euros?</figcaption></figure>Putting aside &ldquo;Service Inclusive&rdquo;, which seems like a standard AppleCare+ style model of expanding and extending the warranty, six of these upgrades are one-time purchases and six of these upgrades are subscriptions.If you&rsquo;re like me, you&rsquo;re probably reacting to this list as follows:<ul><li>It seems reasonable to charge a one-time fee for upgrades that I would traditionally purchase as part of a premium trim package (like &ldquo;Adaptive M Suspension&rdquo;). Rather than buying a basket of features up front when I buy the car, I can select only what I want and buy it whenever I feel like it. I&rsquo;m good with that.</li><li>That said, the longer this list gets, the more I feel like I&rsquo;m being nickeled-and-dimed. &ldquo;Bundling&rdquo; does have a clear benefit to the customer: avoiding &ldquo;microtransaction hell&rdquo;.</li><li>I kinda love that you can pay 99 euros to play the BMW engine sound inside the vehicle. That sort of reminds me of buying ringtones circa 2004.</li><li>Once we hit the subscriptions, things go off the rails. The seat heaters are the feature getting all the flack, but &ldquo;high beam assistant&rdquo; and &ldquo;steering wheel heating&rdquo; feel equally wrong.</li></ul>This subjective, intuitive reaction to the list of 13 features that BMW offers as &ldquo;digital after-sales&rdquo; shows that some fee structures seem reasonable and others don&rsquo;t. As we build a framework for the&nbsp;right and&nbsp;wrong ways to add subscriptions to a hardware product, let&rsquo;s pull in a counter-example from the automotive world &ndash; Tesla&rsquo;s Autopilot.<h3>Tesla Autopilot</h3>If I go onto Tesla&rsquo;s website to buy a Model 3, I am presented with a slick user interface to customize by car by adding/removing features. At the moment, I can spend as little as $46,990 or as much as $77,990 on a Model 3.<figure><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F724aa5b3-b8e0-42b9-852d-3ca4ad59b809_3584x2108.png" rel="" target="_blank"><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F724aa5b3-b8e0-42b9-852d-3ca4ad59b809_3584x2108.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F724aa5b3-b8e0-42b9-852d-3ca4ad59b809_3584x2108.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F724aa5b3-b8e0-42b9-852d-3ca4ad59b809_3584x2108.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F724aa5b3-b8e0-42b9-852d-3ca4ad59b809_3584x2108.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjYxODQ2OTAwNjQ2LTE2NjE4NDY5MDA2NDYucG5nIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" width="1456" height="856" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F724aa5b3-b8e0-42b9-852d-3ca4ad59b809_3584x2108.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F724aa5b3-b8e0-42b9-852d-3ca4ad59b809_3584x2108.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F724aa5b3-b8e0-42b9-852d-3ca4ad59b809_3584x2108.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F724aa5b3-b8e0-42b9-852d-3ca4ad59b809_3584x2108.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" class="fr-fic fr-dii"></a><figcaption>I&rsquo;ll take my burger with everything on it, please.</figcaption></figure>That $77,990 price at the top end includes a whopping $12,000 for &ldquo;Full Self-Driving Capability&rdquo;. Tesla has gotten a lot of shit for how they&rsquo;ve marketed this feature by overpromising and under-delivering on delivering a true &ldquo;self-driving car&rdquo;, but to give credit where it&rsquo;s due, if you put aside the cost and the marketing for a second, this feature is pretty damn nice. Tesla has been a market leader in driver assistance features since it originally launched Autopilot in October 2015, even if other automotive manufacturers have since caught up.But Tesla didn&rsquo;t just lead the pack on driver assistance tech. They also innovated on the business model. Because if I choose&nbsp;not to pay $12K for the feature up front,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tesla.com/support/full-self-driving-subscriptions" rel="" target="_blank">I can choose to activate a &ldquo;Full Self-Driving Capability Subscription&rdquo; later</a>.<figure><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6ef799e3-699f-41ba-8cb4-eea526b9447e_1418x540.png" rel="" target="_blank"><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6ef799e3-699f-41ba-8cb4-eea526b9447e_1418x540.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6ef799e3-699f-41ba-8cb4-eea526b9447e_1418x540.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6ef799e3-699f-41ba-8cb4-eea526b9447e_1418x540.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6ef799e3-699f-41ba-8cb4-eea526b9447e_1418x540.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjYxODQ2ODk5MTk4LTE2NjE4NDY4OTkxOTcucG5nIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" width="1418" height="540" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6ef799e3-699f-41ba-8cb4-eea526b9447e_1418x540.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6ef799e3-699f-41ba-8cb4-eea526b9447e_1418x540.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6ef799e3-699f-41ba-8cb4-eea526b9447e_1418x540.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6ef799e3-699f-41ba-8cb4-eea526b9447e_1418x540.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" class="fr-fic fr-dii"></a></figure>There is something inherently less&nbsp;icky about Tesla&rsquo;s subscription model here. There are some major differences between BMW and Tesla&rsquo;s subscription models that influence how customers will react to them:<ul><li>Tesla offers&nbsp;one&nbsp;subscription instead of many.</li><li>Tesla&rsquo;s subscription makes a&nbsp;very expensive feature more accessible.</li><li>Tesla emphasizes the&nbsp;ability to unsubscribe at any time and thus only pay for FSD when you&rsquo;re actively using it.</li><li>Tesla uses its subscription to&nbsp;facilitate evaluation; customers who are unsure whether they&rsquo;d like FSD can sign up for a month and try it out. This is important because a) most people haven&rsquo;t tried one of these driver assistance systems when they buy a Tesla so they might be unsure of whether they&rsquo;ll like it, and b) the feature keeps improving so if you try it and don&rsquo;t like it you can give it another shot after a year or two of improvements.</li><li>And now the big one: Tesla&rsquo;s subscription is applied to a feature whose&nbsp;value is delivered through software rather than through hardware.</li></ul>This last bullet is, in my opinion, the most important one.As the electronics products that we own have become more intelligent, we&rsquo;ve become trained to separate &ldquo;hardware value&rdquo; from &ldquo;software value&rdquo;. We attribute features that rely heavily on physical characteristics of the product &ndash; like heated seats &ndash; to hardware value that we expect to purchase upfront. In contrast, we understand that some features require a heavier software investment; those features have user interfaces presented on screens and get downloaded over-the-air and are improved over time by the manufacturer. We understand that these features require an ongoing cost to deliver, and therefore we are more willing to entertain the idea that the manufacturer has earned an ongoing fee.<h3>A Better Subscription Model for BMW</h3>Given the nature of the features that BMW is attempting to provide via subscription, is there a different model they could pursue that wouldn&rsquo;t piss people off?Yes! At least I think so. If I were BMW, I would bundle the relevant features into a &ldquo;Winter Driving Package&rdquo; that would look something like this:<ul><li>Heated seats</li><li>Heated steering wheel</li><li>Remote engine start, windshield defrost, and climate control (heat up the car and notify you via push notification when it&rsquo;s nice and cozy inside)</li><li>Advanced driving features to facilitate safer driving on ice and in snow (look, I don&rsquo;t know what these features would be exactly, but I&rsquo;m sure the smart people at BMW could figure it out)</li><li>$49/mo subscription, activate/deactivate at any time (encouraging customers to activate for the winter and deactivate in the spring when the weather warms up)</li><li>Marketing campaigns in the fall to sell a discounted &ldquo;full season&rdquo; winter driving package (e.g. $249 for access to the Winter Driving Package from October 1 to April 31)</li></ul>Why does this feel better than BMW&rsquo;s current approach? Because it&rsquo;s using a subscription model to do something that&nbsp;provides an actual benefit to customers. Not everybody lives in a climate that requires a winter driving package, not everyone is willing to pay for these features, and nobody needs them at all during the summer. If we design subscription packages around how customers want to use our products, we can build subscription revenue in ways that make customers happy.

BMW's attempt to enter the world of subscription services.

The Wrong Way to Add Subscriptions

Watch the full interview here.


Interview with Sanjay Dastoor, founder of Boosted and Skip

OKdo is a component supplier and electronics consulting company based in the UK. They are on a mission to inspire and enable customers to generate new ideas and turn them into commercial reality.<h2>The state of the semiconductor sector&nbsp;</h2>Semi-conductor chips are so important across all industries. They are the key component in electronic devices, inside everything from cars to appliances to factory equipment. For OKdo, all our products will contain these types of components as we specialise in hardware for computing power and connected devices.&nbsp;Many of our component manufacturing suppliers and industry partners continue to be in allocation, which means there is no free stock currently and prices are higher than normal. We must give at least 12&ndash;18-month forward forecasts to those suppliers to get in the queue to receive stock, and for new purchases from the main silicon brands, we&rsquo;re often quoted lead times far exceeding 12 months, extending well into 2023.&nbsp;However, we are seeing some indications of change. It has been announced just this week the UK is officially in recession, with rising energy prices pushing inflation above 13%. The picture is similar in most countries around the world. Consumer demand is generally in decline, due to rising costs of living and record interest rates, increasing loan repayments. As consumer demand falls, we would expect ramifications across manufacturing demand for products which require semi-conductors, resulting in greater availability of components early in 2023.&nbsp;<h3>What&rsquo;s caused the supply constraints over the last 18 months?&nbsp;</h3>The events of last 2 years have meant global supply chains have been hit extremely hard. At the start of the pandemic in 2020, we saw a huge demand increase for semi-conductors due to the global pandemic. This demand stemmed from increased demand for consumer electronics, home computing, and the automotive industry, which has been increasing electrifying.&nbsp;Automotive production and manufacturing lines all over the world halted, not only because of the lack of supply of chips, but because of labour shortages due to the pandemic. Uncertainty in the market driven by geo-politics, extreme weather events, logistics capacity shortages only compounded the affect. It was evident quickly that semi-conductor suppliers could not cope with even a small increase in demand.70% of the global foundries are concentrated across 2 or 3 locations and struggled to increase capacity and required huge billion-dollar investments to do so. This exposed a weakness in the supply chain and through years of optimisation of &ldquo;just in time&rdquo; manufacturing, no-one seemed to be prepared to handle extreme events. As demand outstripped supply, price&rsquo;s increased, shortage queues grew and margin-driven customer allocations (with all previous commitments null and void) became the norm.&nbsp;<img width="600" src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjYxMzMwNDI1NzgwLXNodXR0ZXJzdG9ja18yMDc2Nzk5MzMwLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTUwLCJmaXQiOiJjb3ZlciJ9fX0=" alt="inside an electric vehicle battery pack shop at a VinFast factory in Haiphong, Vietnam on Saturday, Dec. 25, 2021." class="fr-fic fr-dii">Image 1: The electrifying of the automotive industry contributed to the semiconductor demand.&nbsp;<h3>What do you think will be next &ndash; when will people start to see a change?&nbsp;</h3>Over the last 12 months, we&rsquo;ve seen global powers of USA and Europe put the semi-conductor supply chain issues at the top of the political agenda. Foundries have invested Billions on programs of increasing capacity and strengthening resilience in the supply chain by near-shoring new facilities in the US and others in Europe. This effort could easily be in vain, impacted by any number of geo-political issues emerging right now, so time will tell.<hr><h3>What can OKdo offer as a solution to customers who are struggling to find supply of SBCs or other connected devices, or who need a reliable manufacturing and design partner?</h3>At OKdo, we offer the following key services to our customers and ecosystem partners to cover the whole product life cycle through to end-customer delivery:&nbsp;<ol start="1" type="1"><li>Design Stage:&nbsp;component selection and rapid PCB/PCBA prototype and EVT</li><li>NPI/Proto/PVT/Ramp Up:&nbsp;agile manufacturing in global locations&nbsp;</li><li>Mass Production:&nbsp;scale up volume in global locations, with cost optimisation by OKdo supply chain and procurement professionals and CMs</li><li>Box Build/Kitting:&nbsp;to get the product customer ready, fully assembled or added value options to end-customers</li><li>Global warehousing and distribution:&nbsp;via a network of RS Group warehouses and OKdo managed 3PLs we offer drop ship or local distribution services to the end-user as well as global inventory availability and fast delivery options.</li></ol>We have a resilient supply chain and an agile design and manufacturing offer for our customers. Our internal supply chain expertise can help our partners navigate the enormous supply chain risks and challenges to the macro-economic climate today. Manufacturing today is entirely different from a few years ago, and we are ensuring we have coverage, capacity, and supply chain plans to manage uncertainty with our world-class team, and partners.Our manufacturing partners have world-class procurement and sourcing teams, ensuring continuity of supply of components to keep our promises to our customers. We have invested in internal resources within OKdo in procurement and supply chain to work alongside our CMs to ensure we negotiate and procure critical components to minimise risk of supply chain disruption for our customers.&nbsp;Our manufacturing services are based on the below 6 principles to benefit our ecosystem partners and to drive meaningful revenue growth for OKdo;<ol start="1" type="1"><li>Customer Orientated:&nbsp;The OKdo Technology, Manufacturing and Procurement Team are dedicated to our customers every step of their design to manufacture journey, fully equipped at a global and regional level for speed of execution and driving value</li><li>The Right Choice of CMs:&nbsp;Global contract manufacturing (CM) partnerships offering regional/local manufacturing capability, with a strong account management team with a range of languages to suit OKdo and our customers</li><li>ESG &amp; Sustainability:&nbsp;Our CMs have sustainability and ESG at the heart of their values and supply chain; aligned to the OKdo ethos and ethics</li><li>Living with Supply Chain Risk:&nbsp;Our CMs aid our endeavour for a flexible and agile supply chain, with global distribution options including direct to customer at a global and regional level and local buffer stocks&nbsp;</li><li>Smart Procurement:&nbsp;Strategic component partnerships directly managed, with multiple procurement approaches from direct through to using Letters of Authority to CMs to purchase turnkey</li><li>Equitable Relationships:&nbsp;Fair and balanced commercial frameworks for all parties based on trust and respect.</li></ol><h2>Is there any alternative SBCs we can offer our customers?</h2>We know there has been a shortage of single board computers due to the semi-conductor market. However, we have been working on a solution to this.We&rsquo;re introducing a new product range called OKdo Rock which has been designed around component availability, with the customer in mind in terms of ability and capability and we&rsquo;ve put in safeguards across the supply chain to ensure continuity of supply.Rock is an advanced SBC designed to empower engineers, students, and developers all around the world to create digital making by providing open, free, versatile hardware. What&rsquo;s more, the ROCK range of boards can be customised. The ability to depopulate SBCs without compromising their integrity brings huge financial and environmental benefits, allowing professional design engineers to leverage cutting-edge technology for developing high-volume end products that meet their exact needs and work towards reducing e-waste. This position it as an important play to our industrial customers.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjYxMzMwNTYwNzMwLU1pY3Jvc29mdFRlYW1zLWltYWdlICg1KS5wbmciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Image 2: new product range called OKdo Rock &nbsp;Visit us on our website <a href="https://www.okdo.com/solutions" target="_blank">https://www.okdo.com/solutions</a> to find out more. Find Sarah Fawcett at <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahangelafawcett/" target="_blank">linkedin.com/SarahFawcett</a>.

Article #4 Electronics Innovation Series. Alternative SBC’s and customer-orientated manufacturing will ease supply chain conditions. 

Chipping in on the SBC Supply Chain - predictions for the future.

Which business model is best for your product?



Hardware and Software Business Models

This is the first piece in a 4-part&nbsp;opinion series for and about hardware/software businesses.&nbsp; <hr>&quot;Hardware is hard.&quot;Phrases like these don&rsquo;t get a lot of critical thinking. If you run a business that manufactures a physical product, &ldquo;hardware is hard&rdquo; is the kind of thing you&rsquo;d say in a meeting while lamenting the unavailability of silicon. Or when complaining about a delay. Everyone around the room will solemnly nod and agree.Hardware companies face unique challenges that pure software companies don&rsquo;t. Inventory, supply chain, shipping, logistics. Slower design cycles. Defects and returns. There are many challenges associated with making real things that software companies don&rsquo;t have to deal with.But there are a lot of things about software that are hard too. Pricing is hard. Reducing churn is hard. Increasing sales velocity is hard. Recruiting is hard. Scaling is hard. Is hardware uniquely hard?I would argue that the biggest difference is the mindset. The challenges a software company might face are perceived as solvable problems that separate strong SaaS companies from weak SaaS companies. Some software companies have high churn; others don&rsquo;t. If your churn is low, you&rsquo;re good. If your churn is high, fix it or die.We&rsquo;ve developed this kind of mindset because the internet is full of great stuff like this:<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjQ5MjMxMTA2MDA1LWJlbmNobWFya3Mud2VicCIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTUwLCJmaXQiOiJjb3ZlciJ9fX0=" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><figure id="isPasted"><figcaption>Do a Google image search of any common SaaS metrics and you&#39;ll find a wealth of useful benchmarks.</figcaption></figure>If you are building a SaaS business, there is an incredible wealth of shared knowledge available to send you down the right path. Investors know what to look for in a SaaS business; founders know what metrics to monitor and improve; executives know what problems to fix and what opportunities to exploit. This knowledge is quickly and easily passed around through Medium posts and tweetstorms and books and conferences and 1-on-1 mentorship and seasoned executives who bring experience from company to company.There is no such shared knowledge for hardware businesses.This is what makes hardware hard. It&rsquo;s not capital intensity or gross margins or operational challenges. Those are all solvable problems. It&rsquo;s the lack of shared knowledge among founders, investors, and executives regarding these challenges and how to overcome them.So, let&rsquo;s fix that.My name is Zach Supalla, and I am the founder and CEO of <a href="https://www.particle.io/" rel="" target="_blank">Particle</a>, an IoT Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). In addition to our cloud service, my company makes hardware &mdash; modules and gateways that connect to our platform. And our customers include thousands of OEMs, service providers, and start-ups who design and manufacture some kind of internet-connected widget. I&rsquo;ve spent the last decade learning the ins and outs of how companies make stuff, and how they build profitable, differentiated, and scalable businesses while doing so.What I haven&rsquo;t done &mdash; what none of us have done &mdash; is write down what I&rsquo;ve learned. The hard-earned lessons, the mistakes made along the way, the experiments that succeeded and failed.This opinion driven series &mdash; named for an oft-used phrase describing businesses that combine hardware (atoms) and software (bits) &mdash; is intended to be a resource for people leading or investing in what I will call &ldquo;integrated hardware and software businesses&rdquo; &mdash; &ldquo;HW/SW businesses&rdquo; for short. I&rsquo;ll &nbsp;answer questions such as:<ul><li>What separates a &ldquo;good&rdquo; HW/SW business from a &ldquo;bad&rdquo; HW/SW business?</li><li>How can HW/SW businesses manage and reduce the costs and risks associated with their hardware products?</li><li>How do you price a HW/SW product?</li><li>How does a pure hardware business become a HW/SW business? How does a pure software business become a HW/SW business? Should they?</li><li>Which SaaS metrics can be applied to HW/SW businesses? Which can&rsquo;t?</li></ul>Some of these questions I can answer on my own. For others, I&rsquo;ll be bringing in experts &mdash; founders, executives, and investors who play in and around this space. This series will alternate between essays like this one and video interviews with other people who know things that I don&rsquo;t know.<hr>If you&rsquo;re interested in following along and seeing what I have to say, follow me on Wevolver; I&rsquo;ll be publishing twice a month.&nbsp;And if there are particular questions you&rsquo;d like me to answer or people I should interview, shoot me a DM &mdash; I&rsquo;m <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/zs/with_replies" id="isPasted" rel="" target="_blank">@zs</a> on Twitter.

Opinion Pieces

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