• Insights
    • Webinars
    • Blog
    • Perspectives
    • Toolboxes
    • Events
    • Awards
  • Offering
    • Academy
      • Innovation courses
      • Innovation programs
    • Consulting
      • Onsite consultants
      • Project management
    • Services
      • Scout it
        • Business & strategy
        • Technology management
      • Invent it
        • Proposition management
        • Feasibility & IP development
      • Create it
        • Strategic design
        • Demonstrators & prototypes
      • Scale it
        • Go-to-market
        • Industrialization & production
    • Funding
      • Innovation grants
      • Seed capital
      • Subsidy applications
    • Solutions
      • MyStartUp
      • MyStartUp Portfolio
      • MyInnovationFactory
      • MyInnovationTalent
      • MyFutureProduct
  • Markets
    • Smart Space & Security
    • Smart FMCG
    • Smart Life Sciences
    • Smart Industry
  • Capabilities
    • Strategic Innovation
      • OpenLab
      • DesignLab
      • InnoLab
    • Digital innovation
      • AILab
      • DigitalLab
      • EmbeddedLab
    • Product innovation
      • MechLab
      • PhysicsLab
      • FabLab
    • High-tech innovation
      • OpticsLab
  • Technologies
    • Technology portfolio
    • IoT & sensors
    • AI & data science
    • Robotics & autonomy
    • Cooling, heating & fluidics
  • About
    • Our story
    • News
  • Jobs
  • Contact
Verhaert Masters in InnovationVerhaert Masters in Innovation
Verhaert Masters in InnovationVerhaert Masters in Innovation
  • Insights
        • Insights

        • Perspectives
        • Blog
        • Webinars
        • Toolboxes
        • Awards
  • Offering
        • Services

        • Consulting

        • Academy

        • Funding

        • Solutions

        • Scout it
          • Business & strategy
          • Technology management
        • Invent it
          • Proposition management
          • IP management & feasibility
        • Create it
          • Strategic design
          • Demonstrators & prototypes
        • Scale it
          • Go-to-market
          • Industrialization & production
        • Onsite consultants
        • Project management
        • Innovation courses
        • Innovation programs
        • Subsidy applications
        • Seed capital
        • Innovation grants
        • MyStartUp
          • Boost your venture
          • Find your incubation program
          • MyStartUp Portfolio
        • MyInnovationFactory
          • Adjacent innovation for corporates
        • MyInnovationTalent
          • Boost your innovation capacity with on-site consultants
        • MyFutureProduct
          • Make your product smart & future-proof
  • Markets
        • Smart Space & Security

        • Microgravity
          Earth observation
          Navigation
          Exploration
          Security
        • Smart FMCG

        • Dispensers
          Cooling & heating
          Servers
          Smart packaging
          Vending equipment
        • Smart Life Sciences

        • MedTech
          BioTech
          HealthTech
          Ophthalmic
        • Smart Industry

        • Mobility & logistics
          Chemical & material
          Home, building & construction
          Manufacturing & equipment
          Energy
  • Capabilities
        • Strategic innovation

        • OpenLab
        • DesignLab
        • InnoLab
        • Digital innovation

        • DigitalLab
        • AILab
        • EmbeddedLab
        • Product innovation

        • MechLab
        • PhysicsLab
        • FabLab
        • High-tech innovation

        • OpticsLab
  • Technologies
        • Technologies

        • IoT & sensors
        • AI & data science
        • Robotics & autonomy
        • Cooling, heating & fluidics
        • Portfolio

  • About
        • About

        • News
        • Our story
  • Jobs
  • Contact

7 crucial tips to connect your device to an online platform

22 August 2022 Posted by Laurent Schauvliege Digital innovation, My Future Product, Perspectives

Nowadays everything is (inter)connected, from your smartphone to your smart home or industrial device. Somehow it’s all connected to the internet. If not, it’s just a matter of time before it will be. In the last 5 years, we’ve noticed the number of IoT projects has become more standard than exception. Devices connected to an online platform have many benefits, think about collecting user insights and offering additional services. 

Building an online platform with connected devices

A challenge for the developers to design effective technological solutions. From applying a design thinking strategy to making smart decisions in the development of IoT devices, here are 7 action points to add to your checklist when you consider building another successful online platform with connected products.

  1. What do you want to measure & why?
  2. What is the environment your device is in?
  3. Ideation, ideation, ideation & iteration
  4. Provision your devices in a secure, scalable & redundant environment
  5. Who will use your devices & who will have access to the IoT platform?
  6. Measure & manage your project
  7. Be agile & act lean

Data really powers everything that we do. – Jeff Weiner

1. What do you want to measure & why?

Collecting a lot of data and feeding it into a data lake without knowing what it is you want to do, is just a cost without any return in sight.

Every project starts with the use case. Think about what it is you want to improve, change or reduce.

  • Do I need to reduce the losses in raw materials by improving quality control?
  • Do I want to reduce the total cost by increasing efficiency in manpower in the production process?
  • Do I want to know upfront when a machine part will fail so I can send the right replacement beforehand?
  • Do I want to learn more about my product in the field to improve the next generation?
  • Do I want to guarantee the quality of my product in the field thanks to thresholds you want to monitor so you can better support your customer?
  • Do you want to reduce the number of calls to the support department?
  • …

The use cases are endless, but don’t start a project without one!

2. What is the environment your device is in?

The above-mentioned examples of use cases will most definitely explain more about the environments you want to measure. You also need to consider the conditions your device is exposed to (i.e. extreme cold or heat, fluids (hot or cold), speed, vibration, etc.). In other words, can your sensor resist these possibly extreme conditions?

Also, your users’ behavior is something to bear in mind when setting up and configuring your product. These actions can also be seen as ‘the environment of your device’. Involving your users as early as possible will help you get the interface just right thanks to the priceless feedback.

3. Ideation, ideation, ideation & iteration

Before even thinking about the setup of your architecture or the provisioning (authentication and authorization) of your devices, you’ll want to mitigate the risks of your project in a few ideation exercises. Iterate as much as necessary before designing your final product or architecture.

In an ideation phase, you want to handle some specific topics (and most probably not all in one session of course). You need to talk to the stakeholders involved and think about the technology you’ll need, the validation processes you want to set up, the costing structure of your architecture, the measurement tools, the onboarding process, the embedded software of your device, etc. All with the same purpose of (re)designing your final product/setup.

Double diamond design processDouble diamond design process (adapted from Service Design Vancouver) © VERHAERT

Download the perspective to continue reading on how to connect your devices to an online platform, from setting up a secure environment to managing your IoT project agile and lean.

Tags: Digital transformation
Share
5

About Laurent Schauvliege

This author hasn't written their bio yet.
Laurent Schauvliege has contributed 3 entries to our website, so far.View entries by Laurent Schauvliege

You also might be interested in

Verhaert-Perspective-2022-7-methods-to-deal-with-component-shortage

7 methods to deal with component shortage

Sep 26, 2022

How we deal with the component shortage

Why user interfaces are crucial in the success of innovation

Why user interfaces are crucial in the success of innovation

Mar 15, 2022

The success of digital innovation relies on intuitive graphic user interfaces to operate machines, gather data & visualize via dashboards.

Featured image - Perspective - AIoT, the intersection of AI and IoT

AIoT, the intersection of AI and IoT for better and faster insights

Mar 17, 2020

Embedding AI into IoT components can bring your devices and systems to the next level, whether applying it in edge or cloud computing.

OTHER CONTENT
  • Navigating the future of the maritime industry
  • Digital innovation: the game changer in uncertain times
  • Cost-efficient, compact & insightful: 6 must-have smart sensors for your FMCG appliance
NEWSLETTER



Verhaert Masters in Innovation is a pioneering innovation group helping companies and entrepreneurs to innovate, creating new products, businesses and services.

Verhaert icon LinkedIn Verhaert icon Facebook Verhaert icon SlideShare Verhaert icon YouTube Verhaert icon Twitter

SERVICES
FUNDING
SOLUTIONS
MARKETS
CAPABILITIES
TECHNOLOGY
PERSPECTIVES
BLOGS
WEBINARS
ABOUT
NEWS
JOBS
CONTACT

© 2023 Verhaert New Products & Services NV • BE 0439.039.420 • Privacy policy • Terms of use

Prev Next