Things to Consider Before Beginning an IoT Design Project

The Internet of Things is considered the next big thing in technology. Nearly every electronic device manufactured now can potentially be connected to the IoT. Creating IoT features on devices presents an exciting opportunity for both established and new businesses.

But very few companies have the resources or the expertise to create all the components in an IoT design. This has led to the growth of off-the-shelf solutions that bring IoT to different devices. At the same time, embedded developers are hesitant to adopt new technologies, because they think they don’t have the experience or the support tools to work on them. They also fear their product design cycle will increase in duration if they go down this road. You can actually avoid many of these embedded development problems by adopting what is called virtual prototyping.

Virtual prototyping allows designers to test/design system attributes before launching a full fledged project. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself before you embark on an embedded or IoT project.

What is the end goal of your application? Where is the application to be applied (are there any size requirements?) What is the communication range of your application? From where will the application draw power? Are there any environmental considerations to think about? Do you want your application to talk with other products? What security arrangements will you make? Once you answer these questions, it will be much easier to design your IoT project.