#hardware

The Battery Test: Runtime Is a Dial, Not a Number

“Runtime isn't a spec you read off the battery — it's a dial you set in firmware.”

Auditing the 95%: A Data-Driven Look at Amazon Sidewalk Before I Bet a SKU on It

“95% of the population doesn't mean 95% of where the dog goes. Coverage maps are static. Dogs are not.”

The City Walk: Path Loss ~4 in Dense Urban — and the Cache That Wouldn't Die

“The chip was telling the truth the whole time. The firmware just wouldn't repeat it.”

The Range Test: 1,250 Feet Direct — and Miles Through the Mesh

“Zero-hop is the floor, not the ceiling. The direct radio cleared the bar on its own — and the mesh I didn't build was already turning feet into miles.”

A Scorecard, Not a Vibe: How I'll Decide Whether to Build the Collar

“A dot moving on a map isn't proof. A dot that moves reliably at 300 meters, for a week on a charge, is.”

The Gear, the Bill, and a Six-Month Nights-and-Weekends Plan

“Step one isn't a product. It's a proof-of-concept I can strap to Quark the day it lands.”

The Renewal Notice That Made Me Build My Own Pet Tracker

“I'm paying a cellular subscription to confirm a cat is asleep on the couch.”

IoT & Connected Devices — 2026 Predictions and Outcomes

“Smart glasses in 2025 are where smart speakers were in 2017 — the breakout product everyone's heard of but only one in four households owns. The chasm crossing happens in 2026.”

Defense in depth for a connected-product fleet

“A single layer of security is hope. Seven layers, each cheap and known to its owner, is a posture.”

4.5 years of connected products — what I'd do again

“I had the v1 OTA post on my desk when I scoped v2. I knew exactly what it cost on v1 to ship without OTA. I deferred it anyway. The mistake wasn't ignoring the lesson — it was assuming the cost curve was the same.”

Field-grade device identity at fleet scale

“If you can't revoke a single device in under a minute, you don't have device identity. You have hope.”

Open-sourcing the Connected Products Starter Kit

“The first 30 days of a connected-product team are mostly the same six pitfalls. Open-source what doesn't need to be re-discovered.”

Secure Boot: how a device trusts its own code

“If the check that decides 'is this code mine?' lives in rewritable flash, an attacker just rewrites the check. The root of trust has to be something no software can touch.”

OTA firmware updates without bricking the fleet

“Bricking a device in the field is a quarter you don't get back.”

IoT & Connected Devices — 2025 Predictions and Outcomes

“The flagship category creators of 2024 (Vision Pro, AI Pin, Rabbit R1) all sold under 500K units. The quiet success (Ray-Ban Meta) sold 2M+. Glasses won. Headsets and pins lost.”

BLE vs LoRa vs cellular — the connected-product decision matrix

“If your spec says real-time and your power budget says two AA batteries for a year, the spec is wrong.”

IoT & Connected Devices — 2024 Predictions and Outcomes

“The AI hardware category in 2024 is going to learn the same lesson the AR glasses category learned in 2016: shipping a sci-fi product without a real use case kills the funding round and the company.”

Building a connected hardware product — month one

“The hardware decision is a five-year contract with your past self. On v1 I argued for two more bytes and lost. This time the room is mine.”

v2 PRD, Part 1 — hardware specs for a battery device

“The PRD answers one question at every layer: 'what does this device need to do that a smartphone with the same app couldn't do?' Every part of the spec earns its place against that question.”

IoT & Connected Devices — 2023 Predictions and Outcomes

“The phone is mature. The watch is mature. The next interface is the one you put on your face — but 2023 is the announcement year, not the ship year.”

IoT & Connected Devices — 2022 Predictions and Outcomes

“AirTag stalking is the first real proof that a $29 IoT device can change real-world human behavior. Privacy is now a product feature, not an afterthought.”

IoT & Connected Devices — 2021 Predictions and Outcomes

“When the world got smaller in 2020, the home got smarter. Cumulative smart-home device counts in US households roughly doubled in 12 months.”

IoT & Connected Devices — 2020 Predictions and Outcomes

“The smart-home thesis of 2017 was 'voice everywhere.' The thesis of 2020 is 'the body wearing 4-6 sensors at once.' Both are correct, three years apart.”

Where hardware specs meet API contracts — the room

“The hardware team ships every 18 months. The API team ships every two weeks. The capabilities the device announces are the only bridge between those two clocks — they're what lets the fast side move without breaking the slow side in the field.”

IoT & Connected Devices — 2019 Predictions and Outcomes

“The smartwatch became a medical device in 2018. The earbud is next, and the ring after that. The body is the platform everyone's racing onto.”

IoT & Connected Devices — 2018 Predictions and Outcomes

“If you bought a smart speaker in 2017, you bought an Amazon device. If you sold a $35 smart speaker in 2017, you sold Google Home Mini. Apple sold the *idea* of a HomePod.”

Agile Hardware Development – Part 1

“Although Agile principles can be applied with benefit in hardware product development (Agile hardware development), it misses the mark in terms of a complete solution for hardware product…”

Hardware Development Accelerating To Agility And Beyond

“You pretty much have to have your head in the sand not to notice the changes in hardware product design innovation and new product development that are condensing product delivery timelines…”

IoT & Connected Devices — 2017 Predictions and Outcomes

“The home of 2017 has 14 connected devices in it. Twelve of them respond to your voice. Two of them are still apps.”

IoT & Connected Devices — 2016 Predictions and Outcomes

“The smart-watch market in 2015 was a fashion show with a wrist-sized computer in it. In 2016 it becomes a category.”