Connected Products Studio Report

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Connected Products Studio A Feasibility Study Prepared by Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino & Pilgrim Beart February 2014

Transcript of Connected Products Studio Report

Connected  Products  Studio

A  Feasibility  Study

Prepared by Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino & Pilgrim Beart February 2014

Table  of  Contents

Executive  Summary                   3    Objectives,  Scope  &  Methodology               4    The  Connected  Products  Landscape               5  

- Overview                   6  - Analysis  

 The  Connected  Products  Process  &  Pain  Points                    10  

- Analysis  of  Pain  Points                        11  - Leaning  from  the  market                        12  

 Connected  Products  Studio  Resources                      14  Innovation  Processes                          16  

- Connected  Technologies  Library  &  Demo  Space                  16  - Showcase  Events                          19  - Connected  Products  Design  Workshops                    21  - Pilot  Program                            23  

 Building  blocks                              24  

- Connected  Technologies  Library            o Recommended  Components                      28  o User  Journeys                          32  

 Conclusions  &  Recommendations                        34    Appendix                              36  

 

         

Executive  Summary

The Connected Digital Economy Catapult has worked on scoping the role of a Connected Product Studio (CPS) through a series of activities including a stakeholder workshop, interviews with various experts and desk research. The authors of this report researched and documented the landscape of “connected products” in the UK, the resources already at hand and the pain points early stage businesses were experiencing. They then developed up innovation processes to resolve them within the context of a dedicated space to be housed in the Innovator Centre, CDEC’s new home in London. Key pain points related to the challenges in turning a very early stage prototype into a product which adequately addressed hardware and software development issues. Networking opportunities between early stage entrepreneurs and vendors of these technologies was also highlighted as a potential activity. Understanding how corporate partners could contribute to this ecology, either in procuring help from entrepreneurs or vendors or partnering with startups was the third key pain point. This report offers a straw man for some of the activities the CPS could conduct over the course of a 6 month pilot program. It makes sure to highlight the strengths and weaknesses for each processed and learnings from past industrial and governmental programs in similar spaces (local development agencies, R&D spaces, etc). The report finishes with conclusions and recommendations for moving forward with the CPS as a “third space” for entrepreneurs, corporations & technology vendors to meet, collaborate and accelerate the development of successful connected products and therefore businesses in the UK’s unique business landscape.

Objectives,  Scope  &  Methodology

In response to the recent growth in governmental and industrial interest in the development of connected devices in the UK (commonly referred to as internet of things, quantified self, smart cities, citizen science devices) the Connected Digital Economy Catapult requested a report on the feasibility of a Connected Products Studio (CPS). This physical space would be carved out of the upcoming Innovation Centre near Euston station in London and would be dedicated to help accelerate the development of connected product prototypes into commercially viable products by a range of practitioners. The objective of this report is to elaborate on what that role the CPS should play considering existing1 and growing industrial, academic and entrepreneurial landscape. It will also identify some key opportunities and pain points which the CPS can address based on consultations

1 http://designswarm.com/blog/2014/01/the-process-of-connecting-products/

with experts and develop innovation processes that would help resolve those pain points within the context of a possible pilot program. Building blocks for the CPS will be described and examples of how customers might interact with them will be outlined.

                             The  Connected  Products  Landscape    Overview   If a space is to be truly useful to industry, we must start by identifying who would use the space and for what reasons. Startups There are growing number of start-ups across the UK and Europe that fall under the “connected products” category. They are often SMEs or micro-SMEs, at an early stage of development and taking advantage of the rise of crowd-funding to help bootstrap the commercialisation of a next-generation physical product.

Examples of these often consumer-facing connected products are shown below2 and fall under 4 categories: home, wearables, maker tools & smart city applications.

Industrial SMEs & corporations Other companies working in this space include SMEs in B2B applications (military, communications, blue chip) that have started adding sensor networks or internet connectivity to existing product lines. Larger corporations such as Cisco, IBM, Intel have entered the connected products discourse with either large marketing campaigns (Internet of Everything for Cisco, Smarter Planet for IBM) or hobby/DIY centric tools (RaspberryPi, mbed by ARM, Galileo platform by Intel) but their problem space is not the one this report will focus on as the market dynamics for companies is easier to resolve by natural market dynamics. Consumer goods manufacturers Corporations in the consumer product space are currently looking to explore the potential of

2 http://designswarm.com/blog/2014/02/the-past-10-years-of-the-internet-of-things/

new technologies in a dedicated space where they can ascertain the validity of an idea more quickly and meet possible vendors before deciding to invest in resources (new hires & tooling). These types of businesses represent a possible market for the CPS’s paid activities and we will dive into proposing ways to interface with them in the next chapters. Analysis   Startups and SMEs currently have access to a number of spaces and processes which try to encourage the development of next generation products in various ways. Either US-based with access limited to a small number of startups or focused on giving access to space / resources, there are no UK-based physical spaces that are completely dedicated to these types of businesses and their unique challenges.

Name Type Location Elevator Pitch Physical Resources

Funding Duration # of members

Mayo Clinic / Optum Labs 3

Research centre

MA, USA “A neutral setting for collaboration on research and innovation focused on improving patient care and lowering the costs of care.”

Office space No Ongoing TBC

Springboard IOT4 (2013)

Incubator London / Cambridge

Springboard IoT will bring the core methodologies used by Springboard Web & Mobile to massive success with entrepreneurs, partners and also corporates that have pre-existing experience within this sector to create the world's first accelerator bootcamp programme for the Internet of Things.

Makespace in Cambridge, office space at Google Campus in Old Street

£15K for 6% equity

13 weeks 11 startups

R/GA Incubator5

Incubator NYC “the first agency-based accelerator program focused on startups that are creating connected devices and applications.”

Unclear $20K + possible 100K convertible loan

3 mo 10 startups

Level 39 Incubator London “Level39 is Europe’s largest accelerator space for finance,retail and future cities technology companies.“

Office space None, paid for services

Ongoing 10+ startups

3 http://www.optum.com/optumlabs.html 4 http://springboard.com/iot/about 5 http://www.rga.com/about/featured/rga-connected-devices-accelerator/

British Library IP Centre6

Business / IP support

London “ can help you start, run and grow your business. “

Class rooms, IP research computers, Inventors

None, paid for services

Ongoing 40+

Institute of Making7

Materials Library / Seminars

London “a cross-disciplinary research club for those interested in the made world: from makers of molecules to makers of buildings, synthetic skin to spacecraft, soup to diamonds, socks to cities.”

Workshop None, paid for services and access to UCL staff & students

Ongoing TBC

Makerversity8 Workshops London “a making and learning space [...] for makers, experimenters, production & entreprise. A place for pioneers & prototypes.”

Office Space, rapid prototyping, CNC

None Ongoing Just opened

Haxl8r9 Incubator Shanghai / SF

“is a new kind of accelerator program. For people who hack hardware and make things.”

Office Space, rapid prototyping, CNC, access to manufacturing

$25K 3 mo 10 startups

What has been popular in the UK and accessible to startups in the early stages of development, are so called “maker spaces”. There are currently over 30 such spaces in the UK which are accessible (through either memberships of around £10/month or on a drop-in basis) to a team or individual with an idea for a product that they would like to prototype.

6 http://www.bl.uk/bipc/ 7 http://www.instituteofmaking.org.uk/ 8 http://makerversity.co.uk/ 9 http://haxlr8r.com/

Most of these spaces offer a minimum of access to soldering, laser cutting and 3d printing facilities that would otherwise be available professionally (services offered by the architectural modeling industries1011or in university engineering & design departments across the country. These point to a strong existing network of physical spaces where the first phase of a connected product can be prototyped and a local community accessed without spending too much time and money on transportation. Beyond that point however, the resources are rather limited.

10 4D Modelshop / www.modelshop.co.uk 11 iMakr shop / www.imakr.com

As such the CPS could position itself as fulfilling the needs of a community of entrepreneurs who might find the resources of the British Library too limited (the business models involved in software and hardware together are unique to connected products), the materials unavailable or expensive to order just to try out and the maker space ill equipped to help them move into production. These assumptions had to be tested with a community of maker space managers, entrepreneurs and corporations which led us to conduct a day-long workshop around these issues to test and scope the problem space and pain points the CPS would be addressing.    

The  Connected  Products  Process  &  Pain  Points

Keeping in mind the existing landscape of services on offer, our stakeholder workshop in January 2014 aimed to focus on

1. identifying the top 5 pain points involved in developing connected products

2. identify what the CPS could offer in terms of processes to help solve those pain points

Additionally we were able to describe a process of successfully commercialising a connected product at a micro SME stage (blue line). This included access to a number of resources (grey columns), some of which were defined as under-developed or hard to reach in the UK right now (green columns).

Analysing  pain  points Out of a selection of 20, 5 pain points were finally identified as unique and difficult to currently address:

● Connecting hardware & software

Connecting a product means designing a physical product which has electronics embedded inside which run embedded software that then connects to the web or other cloud software platforms. Making a choice about which electronics to design, how to write the software and web platform (or mobile platform if need be) can take some time for a startup. What is valid in the early stages of development when presenting a prototype of a product or a demo possibly hinders development at scale in the later stages. Getting support, inspiration and knowing what is out there are crucial pieces of research that all startups in this space must spend time doing. The advantage though is that there are limited set of technologies to choose from which could be presented in a way that could support many startups at the same time. We will discuss these later.

● Developing a proof of concept (specifically access to the right expertise).

Having access to the type of expertise that would allow an entrepreneur to develop a scalable product can be expensive to find (time-consuming) in order to receive basic feedback on a product prototype. This highlights a crucial stage in the product’s development which is the point at which a prototype needs to become a pre-industrialised product. Experts in the development of electronics design & production, back-end web developers, embedded software engineers and other experts are rarely available on a freelance basis, don’t often network in the same events as early stage entrepreneurs and are located close to industrially focused areas in the UK where full-time employment is easier to find. This points to an opportunity to bring both communities to the same table and enable them to directly engage and work together.

● Doing user research / reaching to potential customers

Market validation is important to a startup in the early stages but time-consuming to organise. Giving startups the opportunity to show their work to early adopters or the types of consumers they are looking to attract in the early days means they are more likely to be able to make the right design and production decisions to make their connected product attractive to a larger audience and market further down the line.

● Finding corporate partners Finding the right partners to engage in full production of a product or potential larger partnerships can be time-consuming and expensive for a startup. Finding out which person to speak to within an organisation, getting some of their time,

understanding the timescales involved in engaging with that larger player are all part of the challenges in the space of connected products. What makes it unique and beyond a simple networking problem is that often a connected product will relate to several industries at the same time, so corporate ties will happen at different levels. If a startup is developing a connected watch, they may need to engage with a fashion label, a watch manufacturer, a Machine-to-Machine provider within a telecommunications company. These are all much larger organisations but for the product to survive, those startups do need the expertise available there and the potential partneships.

   Learning  from  the  market    In addition to these pain points, workshop participants as well as later interviews enabled us to come up with some key learnings based on what the market has already been doing in similar spaces. Connected hardware and software should be easier. Considering the number of vendors working on connected technologies cross the UK’s industrial landscape (wifi, low energy bluetooth, whitespace, GSM and others) there is a gap to be filled by a pool of resources that allows smaller companies to make better design decisions to make their designs scalable. A recurring theme during the stakeholder workshop was the idea of matchmaking services between a fairly technical workforce (engineers, developers, etc) and the entrepreneurs themselves or a connection between universities and entrepreneurs. This presents some interesting challenges for a dedicated physical space as most matchmaking could be entirely digital and work regardless of location but the point remains that there are physical components which entrepreneurs do not have access to and are not currently available easily or require expertise that isn’t affordable to a startup in the early stages. Make the physical space that makes sense Feedback from the workshop points to a desire from community managers & entrepreneurs not to see a competing space created in London to existing maker/hacker spaces which means the CPS will have to offer a complementary set of physical resources and a strong program or activities / events for participants. There were mentions of examples of unsuccessful spaces that attempted to offer material resources with no clear program of activities include Mersey Broadband and Northern Net. Both programs were supported by the North West Development Agency & EU funding between 2000 and 2006 and according to entrepreneurs in the area found little uptake or success with the local community as they over-focused on access to technologies which became very quickly irrelevant or obsolete a few months after acquisition. A successful way to resolve this issue is exemplified by the Ogilvy Digital Labs space in

Canary Wharf which after 8 years supports a healthy relationship with a network of vendors in the consumer electronics space who lend or donate samples of their products for internal demonstration purposes. These vendors understand the importance of being able to expose their products to advertising executives who are then able to think about their products across accounts & develop more technologically advanced campaigns thus leading to more business. Further challenges are found in offering what could be considered prototypical event / meeting / workshop rooms or event spaces. These are widely available in London and commercial pressures mean these spaces often do not offer consistent community events. This role is therefore taken up by pubs such as the ones that have been hosting the very popular Hacks & Hackers meetup of journalists & technologists (http://www.meetup.com/HacksHackersLondon/) or external sponsors. Google Campus for example has been hosting Silicon Drinkabout http://silicondrinkabout.com/london for 3 years and Xivelyhave been hosting the Internet of Things meetup London (http://www.meetup.com/iotlondon/) since late 2011. Another model is Shoreditch Village Hall which offers free events to non-profit events. (http://shoreditchworks.com/shoreditch-village-hall). All of these are long-term engagements with a community and this is something the CPS should consider going forward. London is a hub with spokes There is a clear anxiety in the community of entrepreneurs & community managers about the role of London in a discourse around connected products. The strongest idea that came out of the day was that the makerspaces become a gateway space for anyone to enter or access the CPS’s resources. A team would need to meet with the owners of a local makespace to talk through what they are trying to do to see if existing resources / people are available locally to help them to the next stage of development. This would act as a great way to empower existing spaces across the UK and connect them to local entrepreneurs. This will also insure the CPS doesn’t get flooded with requests for support from teams that aren’t quite ready to use its services. We want to help the leaders, those teams who have enough internal motivation to get to the next stages of development quickly.

Market Validation is difficult. Right now there are no accessible or cheap ways to test a product with potential customers other than engaging with market research companies which is why crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter have essentially become marketing platforms that are both useful to entrepreneurs and investors to validate a marketplace for a product. Market research around connected products is also more challenging as products will often only really make sense to consumers once they can live with the product for a few weeks / months.

Most of these point to opportunities in increasing the exposure of connected products startups to a pool of specialised resources in business, customer & product development fields. This in turn helps them make a better product which will increase their chances of finding funding opportunities which are currently limited due to the lack of clarity around a particular product’s marketability & customer interest.

 The  Connected  Products  Studio  Resources   CPS would be most useful as a “third space” for businesses to really understand in a hand-on process how to move forward with an connected product idea more effectively. It would help them validate a market space more quickly and while meeting companies or vendors they are likely to work with in partnership. The resources and building blocks necessary to achieve these goals would be split between:

- A Connected Technologies Library & Demo Space Offering startups and entrepreneurs access to hardware and software working demos and materials. Activities connected to this resource would include:

o Seminars o Working physical exhibits / demos o Matchmaking resources

- A Showcase Space

By creating a platform for showcasing new connected products (within an open or closed IP context), the CPS would be attracting the vendors or corporations directly to meet entreprenrus thus saving them time and enabling opportunities directly. Activities connected to this resource would include:

o Networking sessions o User feedback sessions

- A Work Space

A dedicated and reconfigurable work space where teams could be assembled and

work together in a space would enable intensive work sessions over a few days or a weeks around themes where rapid development is necessary (health, transportation, energy). Activities connected to this resource would include:

o Themed workshops or Boot camp weeks These resources would help connect entrepreneurs to vendors and corporations through 3 different innovation processes we will now describe.

                                       

   Innovation  Processes

1.  Connected  Technologies  Library  &  Demo  Space   What is it? In this process the “Connected Technologies Library” would be made available to both early stage ideas (no prototype) and later stage startups (looking to go beyond their first prototype to making many) to understand and explore for themselves the technologies (hardware and software) they need to think about integrating and working with.  

What happens? An innovator with an idea would visit the library and a dedicated “Demo Space” where physical demos using connected technologies are set up and maintained by vendors. Not unlike design & architectural materials libraries available around the country, this one focuses on the ingredients for connecting products, getting someone to understand what they should look to invest in early on in the process both in terms of hardware and software. Entrepreneurs would explore these demos, be given basic information about the technologies they use and which vendors offer them and contact details for those vendors. This might enable a designer or entrepreneurs at a very early stage idea to be influenced by the realistic use of connected technologies. Entrepreneurs would also be encouraged to attend seminars offered around a range of topics which would help them understand these technologies in more details. The range of topics

covered could include:

● Getting Started with prototyping a connected product idea (Introduction to the various prototyping platforms available, pros and cons for each)

● Introduction to connecting technologies (an overview of all technologies available) ● Connecting products to a mobile phone (Low energy bluetooth, etc) ● Connecting products via wifi ● Connecting products via radio (Neul, Sigfox, etc) ● Building connected products at scale ● Building services for connected products (web / mobile services, etc)

Theses would be charged at a reasonable rate and give entrepreneurs some high-level knowledge around technologies (hardware and software) and vendors who could get them to the next level. This has the happy by-product of encouraging a community of future innovators to choose technologies and platforms that are open and interoperable instead of dealing with the “fait accompli” of a prototype someone has thought too much about and chosen difficult or inappropriate technologies. The pain points addressed with this process In this process we are clearly supporting the development of better prototypes and informing entrepreneurs (and possibly corporate managers) who aim to understand more fully the details of how to bring an idea to a more advanced stage of prototyping. We aren’t exposing the entrepreneurs to possible consumers or corporate partners at this early stage in the process as we don’t believe it would be that useful to them. We may find we are indirectly getting corporates to attend a workshop where they might meet entrepreneurs or vendors who can help develop ideas further but this isn’t the immediate aim as the core audience for this process is startups and entrepreneurs who, as mentioned, need more support.

Connecting hardware & software Yes

Developing a proof of concept Yes

Doing user research / reaching to potential customers

Finding corporate partners Indirectly

Strengths In this model we’re addressing all the pain points identified by stakeholders and are insuring that the physical space is essentially constantly busy, active and in flux. We’re also insuring a connection to existing maker / spaces centres and really addressing issues which are at the heart of the development of a connected product. We are offering a format of engagement which is understandable and akin to a hands-on museum experience, not something that is currently available in the UK. This should make it easy to access and should encourage

constant flow of visitors & attendees throughout the duration of a possible trial period. Weaknesses This model is dependent on the right kinds of hires to run the program of seminars and engaging with vendors to maintain the Demo Space. The Demo Space may increase or decrease in size according to vendor engagement so we may need to include budget for a technical staff to be available on contract to maintain the whole space regardless of the vendor. Maintaining a good library and functional Demo Space will be key to the process and adequate measures should be taken so that the demos are simple (ie 10 Ways to Connect a Light Bulb) but using a wide breadth of technologies. We’re also mostly focused on entrepreneurs and young companies, although corporations might find it relevant to send their staff to some of these seminars. This might mean that financial opportunities are not fully explored but can be mitigated by research on attendees at the point of sign-up.                                            

   2.  Showcase  Events     What is it? In this scenario we are building the conditions for ideas to be presented to a larger audience of potential customers & partners. This is a more traditional take on a process of exhibition but enables a closed or open process of learning for startups who find it difficult to find feedback outside their immediate group of family, friends and peers. Tradeshows are expensive and time-consuming for a very early stage startup (it cost Good Night Lamp £13K to exhibit at the Consumer Electronics Show) and the Showcase Space would be dedicated to organizing events focusing on curating a number of events where startups developing connected products along specific themes would be invited to come and show their work. Some of these events could be placed within a non-disclosure context if the industry they operate in is highly competitive (health for example) or more open public events for startups who are at a launch stage and want both potential beta testers or general feedback.

                           What happens? A startup would have the opportunity to look at a schedule of open and closed Showcase Events and apply to showcase their product. This could be done entirely online or by meeting members of the CPS team at a seminar and seeing the Demo & Showcase Event in action. Closer to the event they would be given the opportunity to access the list of invitees to help them dictate how to present their prototype in the best possible light. This Showcase Space could be set up temporarily within the space or be a permanent fixture of the space, so startups would get a chance to sign up to either. Some of them might not be willing to part with an early stage prototype for more than a few hours and the CPS should accommodate both

scenarios. The pain points addressed with this process In this process we are clearly supporting the development of networks of potential future customers for startups and entrepreneurs, we are also helping build a bridge between the outside world and themselves in a sustainable long-term way. This process is more targeted at startups who already have something to show, implying that they are no longer at a stage of prototyping but real development so the support needed is really about meeting customers and potential vendors and partners, something the Connected Digital Economy Catapult already has access to.

Connecting hardware & software no

Developing a proof of concept no

Doing user research / reaching to potential customers yes

Finding corporate partners yes

Strengths At the present moment, the opportunity to showcase a connected product prototype is limited to industry conferences adding on a “showcase” space (Launch in San Francisco, MakerFaire, TechCrunch Disrupt, SXSW, CHI), expensive tradeshows (CES, CeBit) or talks that a founder gets to give at an event where they might demo their product on stage (conferences, meetups, etc). These are limited in terms of exposure as the focus is rarely the startup itself but the event around it and the curation is driven by cost (ie how many startups are willing to spend money for the space allocated). There would be great appetite for recurring events where a community of early adopters as well as potential partners are invited to attend a Showcase Events knowing a little about who they will meet, the theme addressed and self-selecting accordingly. The focus would squarely be on the startups and the innovative solutions they are proposing in a particular industry segment. This format would also allow interest in industries that are more neglected to develop more publicly (health for the elderly, disabled, home energy management). Public Showcase Events would also help the CPS grow its network of possible vendors for the Demo Space and Seminars as these would be run in the same space. Weaknesses The availability of startups to showcase at events is of course dependent on their ability to be present, so recurring themes may need to be visited over the course of a year. There may also be some self-selection when it comes to startups attending as they may realize a competitor is exhibiting. Having organized the British Gas Connected Event in September 2013, this wasn’t the case but the energy industry is very top heavy and not afraid of competition. In more nimble sectors like the automotive industry, we may find startups are unwilling to be in the same room with competitors. This risk is mitigated by having closed events but can never be entirely removed. The schedule of Showcase Events is equally

important to enable a large enough audience to attend, considering a tendency for fickleness on the part of attendees in London specifically (average 40% drop-off rate). 3.  Connected  Products  Design  Workshops   What is it? Smart homes, telecare, energy & elderly care are, as mentioned of great importance to government but the challenges are very large when it comes to small teams attempting to address them (Project Andiamo in Bethnal Green Ventures is a perfect example). Taking inspiration from conversations with corporations and groups like Forum for the Future the idea here is to take a community of entrepreneurs, vendors and corporates and enable collaboration in a closed setting to accelerate the design of ideas and prototypes inside what we’re calling the Work Space of the CPS.

A theme would be set with a corporate sponsor and a cohort of designers & technologists would be invited apply to be part of the cohort of people to spend days or a few weeks in that space. The aim is to create the conditions for the creation of strong teams who want to take an idea forward together and create businesses. The corporate partners could be harnessed as sponsors of a project to enable maximum collaboration and get first right of refusal to the ideas that are generated (a model used in academia). What happens? Two models are proposed to put this process into practice. The first is to take the approach of aiming to develop a high resolution prototype using as many existing resources as possible. This could be by taking a cohort of 30 or so participants and getting them to work on a

particular brief during a fortnight or so.

They would spend the first week in the CPS, spending their time between information sessions giving access to new skills and coming up with ideas, a business case, doing some user research and designing a solution which they’d like to spend time on. They would then pitch at the end of that first week to the sponsor & other industry guests (possibly investors as well) their initial thinking and receive feedback. The second week would be spent offsite at a local hackspace developing a prototype. By the end of the week, the team returns to present their idea again to a more senior stakeholder inside the sponsoring company and a number of other relevant industry guests. This type of format would mean the rapid acceleration of exposure of an idea to the right conditions to turn it into a sustainable SME (team, corporate partner, user feedback). The second format would be by positioning the CPS to be a change agent for corporations looking to use connected products technologies. A corporation would come in for a few days (similarly to Hyper Island Master Classes12 which address digital challenges within organisations) and work on an internal brief with a carefully curated group of vendors & entrepreneurs. They would work in teams and outcomes could include paper prototypes and ideas around possible products that could be developed internally considering available resources and internal processes. Even if this format doesn’t aim to aim for the development of high resolution solutions, it would still take advantage of the Connected Technologies Library in the CPS in order to inform the corporate stakeholders of what is available out there and put them in touch with appropriate vendors and smaller partners. The pain points addressed with this process The real outcomes of this model focus on creating a collaboration space for all 3 audiences of the CPS and the rapid incubation of ideas and businesses in a short period of time. There would be a real focus on taking advantage of an isolated period of time to both educate 12 http://www.hyperisland.com/

participants as to what is possible, and turning that learning into business opportunities that are possible to test because of the network available to participants.

Connecting hardware & software partly

Developing a proof of concept yes

Doing user research / reaching to potential customers no

Finding corporate partners yes

Strengths This model really focuses on bringing value to corporates and vendors more than startups which implies that the financial aspect of this model would be easier to manage. This innovation process is much closer to existing models of outsourced R&D which major corporations have been using for years. Finding such corporations within the CDEC’s existing network should be within reach. This also makes use of the CPS’s space and networks in a flexible yet intense which adapts to the professional lives of entrepreneurs & vendors. The CPS needs to be seen as engaging with existing resources and this model connects the dots as it were. There is great strength in creating a cohort attitude to this type of activity. Teams do well when they interact with each other in an intense environment and under strict deadlines as the first scenario hints at. This cohort attitude should be encouraged and maintained throughout the CPS’s activities. Weaknesses Making sure a good mix of vendors, entrepreneurs and internal stakeholders is key to the success of this model as it would be easy for one vendor to take over the conversation if the mix isn’t curated adequately, leading to participant frustration. The outcomes of this model entirely rely on the quality of the brief given by the corporation which implies that a lot of work should be done to make sure these briefs are generally attractive to the right kind of talent in the network. Guaranteeing the quality of the output is also difficult as this relies on team dynamics which cannot truly be tested so the expectations of the corporate should be managed closely.

Pilot  Program Creating a pilot program for these innovation processes should be examined carefully. During a period of pilot of no less than 6 months, there could be an opportunity to:

o Build up the Demo Space & Library with a minimum of 10 vendors for hardware and 10 vendors for software over the course of a couple of months before the pilot is launched.

o Build up a program of Seminars with industry leads over the same period of time so that a minimum of 1-2 workshops / topic is offered during the 6 month period. This would allow a community of startups and entrepreneurs to pick the workshops they can sign up to in advance and plan to spend some time in London. The exact timing of these Seminars should be examined carefully and appeal to startups that aren’t based in London.

o Run 1 Showcase Event every month for startups that already exist and might already be at a more advanced stage of prototyping. This will enable a community of possible customers, investors and corporates to take the opportunity to attend and take the time to come to London for it.

o Run at least 1 Design Workshop with a corporate to test the model, the

outcomes and the level of engagement from vendors and entrepreneurs. This will take some time to put in place, but will be a more lucrative way to finance the CPS’s activities.

Building  blocks  

The  Connected  Technologies  Library The tools available for Connected Technologies Library would include working, set up examples of 5 basic component categories in any complete IoT solution – see diagram below. There is also an optional 6th one (if the WAN is not IP). Some systems may not require a Gateway (or it may be an existing device e.g. a mobile phone). The Sensor and Application will generally be delivered by the team taking part in the workshop, but we want generic components between them.

In the above picture, it is not what’s inside the components that matters, but the connections between them - that’s where standards matter. CDEC is in a position to choose the “right” standards (which will evolve over time ), and enforce their use amongst suppliers – and it should do this to help drive ecosystem critical mass. Interface standards that CDEC might enforce We have suggested standards that CDEC could choose to support. The exact numbers can be found by surveying the market and optimising for Constrained Choice: enough functionality to allow most apps, but requirements limited-enough that many vendors can meet them, therefore giving choice. If we ensure that there are competitive solutions for each component in the chain, we should also do end-to-end, reference implementations. These could be demonstrable at the Library.

If we get the interfaces right, it should of course also be possible to swap these parts about, e.g.

There exist connected product solutions in the market which provide several of these blocks in one monolithic chunk. There are advantages of this (less parts for the product owner to worry about), but also disadvantages (lock-in caused by lack of standards-compliance). We should be pragmatic about this and allow monolithic solutions, whilst giving a strong steer to innovators and suppliers that using standards at the interfaces is a good thing.

           

Example  Component  selections  

Application Engineer The role of the Connected Product Studio is to make available to innovators the knowledge required to take a connected product to market. Our goal should be to encapsulate this knowledge within our chosen Components as much as possible, so that they can be used like Lego bricks without any specialist understanding of how they work. However in reality, the innovator will always need to:

1. Make informed choices between Components 2. Have some understanding of implications of their choices in terms of functionality,

manufacturability, cost, lock-in etc. 3. Write a little code to configure things (sometimes just a page or so of high-level code in a

relatively friendly language such as Python or Javascript, copied from examples – but it is still coding). In everyday professional electronics development, when an engineer decides to use a component such as a chip, they can avail themselves of the advice of the chip vendor’s Application Engineer, who understands the “ins & outs” of the component and can advise on its best use. I believe that CDEC needs a member of staff in a similar role, but vendor-neutral, who understands how to take all the Components through their paces, including having the right firmware images loaded onto the hardware, and how to tweak example code, and the pro’s & con’s of each choice. I think the tasks of the CDEC Application Engineer in their first 3 months ahead of launch should be to:

· Make final hardware selections · Reach out to vendors to gain their support and co-operation · Order hardware · Bring-up and hardware and join into several end-to-end solutions

o (should only take a day or two per. Abandon/Defer choices if they prove harder) These end-to-end solutions then form out-of-the-box reference implementations that innovators can use as-is, and easily modify.      

User  Journeys  The worked examples below illustrate typical paths that a CDEC customer (an innovator) might take in interacting with CDEC’s catalogue of Lego-like components. The examples are chosen to illustrate a spectrum of customers – from those with no technology knowledge, to those with reasonable technical skills but no knowledge of how to launch at-scale product. In all cases, CDEC’s goal is to get the innovator to the point where they can have sensible conversations with investors and/or with scale-up experts to help with buying/manufacturing & service-provision.

Good  Night  Lamp  (based on the author’s direct experience of developing a connected product)

The Good Night Lamp team has been looking at how to efficiently and cheaply connect their responsive lamps for global families. After many months of trying to scope a radio then wifi solution, they settle on the idea of an M2M provider. With no real sense of what a price structure for that kind of development looks like, they go to the Connected Technologies Library to have a look at some GSM modules on display and collect the name of vendors. Once on site they also sign up for a 2h workshop that their CTO can sit in on so they know how to talk to those vendors and if what they are trying to achieve is beyond the scope of what GSM is capable of offering. They also get a sense of the cost of the modules and data for 5 years which is what they plan to offer their beta customers for their first batch of products.

The  Chameleon  Dress  Fred is a clothes designer. For this year’s London Fashion Week he wants to launch a new range of high-fashion dresses which incorporate panels of e-paper, allowing its appearance to react to the mood of global events. He’s got a very simple electrical prototype where he can make the panels change by connecting them to a battery, i.e. electrics but no electronics. Fred is referred to CDEC by his alma mater design college. He outlines his requirements in a 1-hour consultancy session with a CDEC expert, and they quickly identify the following requirements: Smallest possible electronics on the dress, designed-in-for-life An internet connect to collect newsfeeds, which works pretty-much anywhere Based on these requirements, the CDEC expert recommends using a Bluetooth Smart dongle in the dress, linking to an App on the consumer’s Smart Phone, i.e. phone-as-mothership-and-skyhook As it happens, there is a “Bluetooth Apps” cohort about to run through CDEC, so Fred joins it, and learns about the hardware options, how to design for maximum battery life, and who can help with developing his iPhone and Android Apps. London Fashion Week is a great success. Fred is the talk of the town, with his demonstrations to journalists working flawlessly. His designs are optioned by Vivian Westwood and ASoS offer mass-market distribution, based on his volume price projections. The manufacturing consultant he’s engaged advises him to buy existing

pre-licensed Bluetooth modules, and he enters volume production.

Baristastic Jill is a barista in an international chain of coffee shops. She tinkers in her spare time and so has hobbyist-level electronics and software skills. She notices that customers often want a coffee refill (for which they’d pay) but don’t want to queue to place their order. She sees a win-win opportunity – a coffee cup which signals the staff when it’s empty. Jill takes advice from the British Library about how to patent her invention. She then lashes-up a very basic prototype using a proprietary short-range unlicensed radio module from Maplin, and gets permission from her manager to test it in one of her shops. It is a huge hit. The chain wants to roll it out across all their shops, trial it in other countries and even license it to other chains. Jill knows that her lash-up needs “professionalising” – it will need to be CE-marked, and use a radio frequency that is legal across multiple countries. Her local Makespace puts her in touch with CDEC. In a 1-hour consultancy session, Jill and the CDEC expert identify that the following technology choices make sense for this application:

o A WiFi end-point in the cup, since the shops already have WiFi coverage and it gives sufficient range

o A cloud-based application which integrates with the shops’ existing online tills, to place repeat orders.

The CDEC reference WiFi implementation shows Jill a likely choice of module, so she can start working with industrial designers on the final size & shape of the cup. CDEC put her in touch with a server-side expert who writes a scalable application in the cloud to support her application. The coffee shop gradually finds more and more value in the data they get from their cups, and their profits rise.

Street  Furniture-­‐as-­‐a-­‐service Scandi Industries’ CEO Soren Lorenson has a problem. Her range of networked Street Lights and Litter Bins have been selling well, but now her customers in city councils have started insisting that her products support Open standards, so that they can connect other pieces of street furniture such as signposts, air-quality and flood sensors, and not be locked-in. Her technical team don’t know much about modern technology and they aren’t stepping-up to the challenge. So she books a 1 -hour appointment with CDEC, which she’d first got to know when she attended their gala opening ceremony. With the help of the CDEC expert, Soren identifies that the following choices are likely to fit her needs: o 6LoWPAN as an IP-to-the-edge wireless standard to network between each light,

and to other street-furniture o A Gateway from 6LoWPAN to cellular on every 100th light. In two months there’s a CDEC Cohort scheduled on “Industrial and Commercial networking”. Since this is important but not urgent, Soren decides she can wait so she books-in her CTO to attend. He learns about the value of IP-to-the-edge, and

realises that he can’t be an expert in everything – this is something they should buy-in. As part of the cohort he’s introduced to several vendors, and over coffee during a break develops a good relationship with one vendor in particular. The vendor helps him integrate their off-the-shelf module, using a simple re-spin of their existing PCBs. Scandi go on to become the global leader in connected street furniture.

Are  you  free? Big Bold Buildings is one of the world’s most successful Managed Office Space providers. But they have a growing problem because their customers are not booking shared meetings rooms properly, which leads to inefficient use of space and annoyed customers. Their COO is tasked with finding a solution. Googling doesn’t show him any off-the-shelf solution, but he does note CDEC’s website which advertises expertise in connected products. He’s noticed that all the building’s lighting is motion-sensitive, and wonders why these sensors (already in the meeting rooms) couldn’t also help to detect when they are occupied. He approaches the manufacturer, who admit to having had similar ideas, but a lack of knowledge about how provide the connectivity. Buoyed by this confirmation of need from a customer, and having been given the CDEC contact, their CTO consults a CDEC expert. In conjunction with the CDEC expert, they work out that for this application the right architecture is: o ZigBee to connect the motion-sensors, because they want compatibility with other

ZigBee profiles such as Light Link o A gateway plugged into the corporate intranet, talking to their online room-booking

application The CTO invites the CEOs of both companies to visit CDEC for a demonstration of connected products. The concrete examples he sees there give them both confidence that the problem can be solved, and simply. A ZigBee module manufacturer is identified, and a consultant engaged to help them modify their hardware and software. A year later, their customers are happier and their room-booking fees have increased.

         

Conclusions  &  Recommendations   The UK, because of its mix of technical, corporate and creative industries is in a unique position to give life to the CPS. It’s rich academic and informal (hacker / maker friendly spaces) spaces for startups to develop connected product ideas is very much already established. Helping support the next steps in that development is the key role the CPS should undertake. It should tread carefully in allowing all stakeholders to get involved in shaping its activities so that collaboration is at the heart of its values. Key recommendations to emerge from this report include:

o Support the connection of the technology vendors with startups very early on in the development process. Connect with the environments more likely to support such ideas such as design & engineering colleges, hacker/maker spaces, and consumer goods corporations. We propose to do this through resources available in the CPS (Connected Technologies Library, Demo Space, Seminars) and these should be physically and digitally very easily accessible.

o Support the market validation of ideas The quicker a startup is able to present its ideas to a community of either early adopters or the general public, the more easily it can validate its idea. The CPS should support this at all costs through networking and showcasing of ideas at whatever stage they might be. Offering these types of platforms can save a startup from the delusion that their product might be fit for market and can allow them to “pivot” quite quickly.

o Support the whole ecology Corporations in the consumer goods area are also

interested in the implications of connected technologies on their business but rarely have the right talent at a strategic level. The CPS’s secondary aims should be to allow them to connect to startups and vendors they can learn from (Design Workshops) or acquire further down the line. These could be lucrative enough for the CPS to allow it to offer startups more reasonably priced services.

None of what the report proposes exists in the UK and abroad, the US is leading the way with a rather short-term approach to startups in the connected products space (rapid incubation). The CPS’s potential is to see the support of startups as a long-term activity which will grow an ecology of businesses that will make the UK a leader in this exciting market.

Appendix   Possible  choices  of  interface  standards  to  enforce  

Sensor-to-Module Supply rails are 3.3V and all I/O can comply with this.

· Input o Analogue

§ 2? channels, rail-to-rail, 1Hz? o Digital

§ 5? Bits · Output

o Analogue § 1? Channel, rail-to-rail, 1Hz?

o Digital § 5? Bits

Permissable to have bidirectional pins too, provided they can be easily configured.

Module-to-Gateway A choice of:

1. Bluetooth Smart (aka LE or 4.0) 2. WiFi 3. 6LoWPAN (IP to the edge) 4. ZigBee (especially SE1.2 for UK Smart Metering)

For consumer applications, WiFi & Bluetooth may be good choices, whereas for Industrial and Commercial applications, 6LoWPAN probably the emerging winner.

Gateway-to-Service Should always be IP, except where the WAN is non-IP (e.g. Weightless) A choice of:

1. Ethernet (presumed to go over Broadband, or corporate LAN) 2. Cellular 3. WiFi?

Service-to-Application Always use these:

· HTTP(S) · RESTful · JSON

This is a great place to make the API machine-readable, so promote HyperCat, SenML etc. (but not mandatory)

Example  component  choices   This is not the last word in component selection1415, as the landscape is in constant flux.

For each component type, the Inputs and Outputs of the Component are shown, so that one can see how to chain components together into an end-to-end solution (based on standards). In each case, the emphasis is on off-the-shelf, i.e. something that works with no other hardware, and with no wiring or soldering (at most, a plug-on daughterboard).

Module Components These are all small, low-cost, battery-powered wireless modules whose memory and computational power are limited. They sense the world and forward the readings, generally via a wireless LAN to a gateway. For some uses, some of these choices would be the only hardware required.

Inputs à Module Outputs

60 OTS Sensor boards Libelium Waspmote Cellular, 802.15.4, ZigBee, WiFi, Bluetooth (pick just one or two of these)

ADC x7, USB, UART etc. SolderSplash WiFI DipCortex (mBed + cc3000 WiFi)

WiFi

GPIO, ADC, UART Arago WiSMote mini or Zolertia Z1

6LoWPAN on 802.15.4

GPIO, ADC Telegesis ETRX3

ZigBee SE 1.2

Bluetooth

Each of these needs to be loaded with a firmware image to make it support the given output standard. This code then has to be adjusted (in some cases by editing source code and recompiling, in other cases using a “configurator”) to select which input channels are to be read.

Gateway Components For some uses, some of these choices would be the only hardware required. They are 14 http://postscapes.com/internet-of-things-hardware 15 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_sensor_nodes

general-purpose computing platforms with a proper operating system (usually Linux) and require mains power. They all “output IP”, i.e. connect to the internet, via a broadband router or corporate gateway. Generally using wired Ethernet, but WiFi can generally be added with a £8 plug-in dongle. Some are “open hardware”.

Inputs -> Gateway -> Outputs

ZigBee Raspberry Pi with RaspBEE Shield

IP (Ethernet)

WiFi Arduino Yun IP (Ethernet)

6LoWPAN Libelium Mote Runner GA IP (Ethernet)

Bluetooth 4.0 BeagleBone Black with TiWi-BLE

IP (Ethernet)

Each of these needs some simple software loaded to make it talk to a particular service. This could be literally be a page or two of code, using examples from the service-provider.

Service Components These are all cloud-based, providing storage, a Web UI and a RESTful HTTP API to connect the App.

Inputs -> Service -> Outputs

HTTP, MQTT Xively HTTP, MQTT

HTTP, MQTT Libelium/IBM HTTP, MQTT

HTTP, MQTT 124816 HTTP, MQTT

Monolithic end-to-end solutions The above Component approach is ideal for “constrained choice”. An alternative approach is a monolithic one, where a single vendor provides the whole chain i.e. “electrical signals in, web changes out” - though with the risk of being locked-in to the service.

Inputs -> Monolithic end-to-end Solution

-> Outputs

GPIO, ADC, UART Electric Imp (via WiFi)

HTTP

GPIO, UART Neul Terminal HTTP

16 The author declares an interest.

(via WhiteSpace)

Hardware  resource  lists   List of wearable devices / components (by Vandrico inc) http://vandrico.com/database General kit for hackers & makers (by Mark Chevreton) http://ecafe.org/blog/2014/02/11/internet-of-things-kit-for-hackdays-and-hackspaces.html?utm_content=buffer587ad&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer    Transcript  of  blog  post  reporting  on  the  workshop  

First written at http://designswarm.com/blog/2014/01/the-process-of-connecting-products/ Last December, I was asked by the Connected Digital Economy Catapult to help them out scoping a possible Connected Products Studio. This is great fun for me as I have tangible experience of building connected products for installations, industrial applications and now the consumer market. The first thing Maurizio Pilu, the Catapult’s Director asked me to do is put together a consultation workshop where, instead of working in isolation, we would reach out to the possible audience or contributors to such a dedicated space. We ran this workshop last week at the Royal Society of the Arts and were extremely lucky to have attendees from the entire landscape of #iot in the room. I reached out to many friends of course and so did Pilgrim Beart who is helping shape the feasibility report with me. Consultants (Tom Armitage, Ben Ward, Lee Omar, Graham Hitchen, Georgina Voss, Nick Hunn, Paul Tanner), startups (Radfan, MyJoulo, KNRY, BleepBleeps, bergcloud), incubators (Bethnal Green Ventures), maker spaces (DoesLiverpool), SMEs (PAN Studio,Codasign, Soda, body>data>space, Flexeye, 1248.io, AlertMe, Xively) and corporations (Intel, Cisco, BBC R&D, Ogilvy Digital Labs, SapientNitro) came together and very generously spent the day with me teasing out what the key pain points were in developing a connected product. We then took those and tried to offer possible solutions with the skills in each of the teams. I’ve been to quite a lot of these workshops back in the days of the IOT Special Interest Group and wanted to live up to the work Graham and Rachel Jones had done. Pain Points Maurizio, Pilgrim & I worked on a shortlist of pain points that someone would encounter if they were building a connected product and we put this to the community in a questionnaire via the usual social media channels. They were:

• Coming up with an idea • knowing what hardware to use • paying for that hardware • knowing what software to build with • paying for that software • connecting the software and hardware in a scalable way • developing a web/mobile service for the product • access to space • access to prototyping facilities

• developing a proof of concept • doing user research • reaching out to potential customers • finding co-founders • finding corporate partners • finding manufacturing partners who can help with small quantities

Through the a morning session conversation the top 5 emerged as:

• Connecting hardware & software • Developing a proof of concept (specifically access to the right expertise) • Doing user research / reaching to potential customers (access to experts in user

research was also part of this) • Finding corporate partners (this related strongly to being to plan the route to market)

The crux of this landscape of pain points felt like it was a lot about meeting the right people at the right time in the process of commercialising a connected product which got me thinking about what a typical process looks like at the moment. I’ve also highlighted the opportunities that were brainstormed that day that felt like they might be totally new and not trying to replicate existing services. All these thoughts will go and feed the report I’ll be writing up for the CDEC in the next month or so. Fun times.

List  of  physical  maker  spaces  https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zNeCJ4V3DoSI.kJ9cMHEk8j0A  London Hackspace Nottingham Hackspace Leeds Hackspace Bristol Hackspace Make Space Cambridge Does Liverpool Maker Space Newcastle FizzPop Birmingham Build Brighton Access Space Bristol Edinburgh Hacklab 57North Glasgow Electron Club Glasgow 091 Labs Galway, Ireland FabLab Manchester FabLab Airedale FabLab Ellesmere Port Oxford Hackspace Hackspace Manchester Cardiff Hackspace NorthHackton, Northampton Chemsford Makerspace Ironbridge Gorge museum Trust Rlab, Reading Colchester Maker Space Open Shed, Penzance Southampton Makerspace Makerversity, London Maklab, Glasgow Farset Labs, Belfast Tog, Dublin London Scultpture Workshop Institute of Making, London Building Bloqs, London