THE CLIENT
|
|
|
|
#4 PROTOTYPEAt this stage, we worked in 2 parallel development branches: design and engineering. Each area had several iteration cycles of specification, prototype, and validation to test assumptions of how the product should work and look.
Engineering
In the engineering topic, our main focus was to ensure that the product is reliable, cost-effective, and safe. This means that from the beginning we built the engineering specifications based on the functional and regulatory requirements. Then, we did several prototyping cycles both in hardware and software. On the hardware side, we prototyped all the components including the electronics, the plastics, the springs, the cables, and even the assembly process, all to guarantee that it is assemblable. The process starts with the creation of the models and the electronics, each in the respective digital tools, to validate as much as we can. Only then we move on to materialization processes, using fast prototyping tools. This results in very efficient prototyping cycles. The software part goes in parallel. Starting by validating libraries and building the basic firmware architecture and then going up in the software layers and levels of abstraction. In every prototyping cycle, the number of features increases along with the system’s complexity.
At the end of this stage, we had a stable cloud platform capable of handling up to 100 devices which include all databases, frontend, and backend interfaces, and the mobile App Design
The design phase is all about human interaction, how it looks and how it feels. We started by defining and building the user’s journey: the unboxing, the installation, and the product setup. Then, we started with the high-level sketches, defining the form factor and size of the plug, and working on the smart sensor’s usability and aesthetics. We did a lot of prototyping in the smart sensor, given its impact on the final design. The focus was to obtain something easy to install and that at the same time assured a rigid connection to the hotter pipe.
At the end of the iterations, a fully functional prototype came up, ready to be installed and used. |
|