Electrical & Software Engineering

Remember the Coolest Cooler? The most popular Kickstarter product of all time when it launched in 2018, the connected cooler was a perfect example of what happens when a hardware startup underestimates development and manufacturing costs.

The biggest pitfall for aspiring hardware entrepreneurs isn’t the funding part; it’s the hardware part and clearing the production hurdles.

53% of digital health apps are uninstalled within 30 days of download. How can you design a consumer wellness app that engages and retains users?

Aging consumers are an ideal market, with plenty of free time and unprecedented disposable income. We should get serious about age-aware design and tech for older adults.

Headless provisioning is part of the unboxing experience — specifically, it’s the part when a user connects the device to the Internet for the first time. Unfortunately this process is often confusing for users.

Now that everything from phones to automatic sprinkler systems have functionality that requires an internet connection, most of our clients’ products need some kind of communications rig. Most often, that means a radio frequency antenna.

Outsourcing your engineering needs can be the answer—if you do it right.

People are now more willing to share personal health information online. What’s the responsibility of digital marketers in the health and pharmaceutical space?

Sometimes the simplest designs are the most difficult to get right. Here's how we approach the design of a low-information-density user interface.

Inside every electronic device sold today – whether it’s a coffee maker, phone, automobile, or Mars Rover – is an embedded solution, or a combination of hardware and software that makes the thing run.

You’d be surprised how many startups come to us with excellent connected device concepts that have failed under routine, predictable environmental stresses.

Using leading-edge parts comes with risks. You may have a great, even disruptive, product to debut, but realistically it needs to get to market before someone else beats you to it.

The huge number of unsecured IoT devices currently connected to the internet make DDoS attacks it all too easy. There are measures you can take to make sure yours is better protected.

Here are some of the harshest environments you might come across as a product designer or engineer and the ruggedized solutions and products that stand up to them.

Product design and manufacturing are always more challenging when the wet stuff is involved.

Wireless updates are good for manufacturers and users who are worried about security concerns. But for product designers, they require extra planning.

Medical device companies can boost usability by adopting these consumer product development practices.

At Delve, we believe that mobile, voice, and “interfaceless” applications should consider accessibility before the first line of code is written or the first wireframe is constructed.

Launching nine to 12 months late can cost a project up to 50 percent of its potential revenues. Here’s how we reduce technical risks to keep connected device development on track.

Creating a connected device is a bit like making a movie: it has a beginning, middle, and end; challenges to overcome; and an ultimately victorious hero, the user.

There are an infinite number of ways to write the software for an embedded system. How do you decide which way is the right way?

You've grasped the basic anatomy of an IoT device, identified how you’ll connect with and begin to communicate with the cloud, and selected a cloud service provider. It’s time to get prototyping.

Make sure your provider uses a well-known and secure method for communicating.

When you’re designing a connected device, there’s a lot of testing you can do before you get to the production-grade prototype. Here are a few examples of different fidelity levels of prototypes you can use to test early on in your IoT product development.

Delve has long been a go-to shop for creating rugged, mission-critical products. The communications equipment required for IoT devices adds an extra twist.

Connecting a device to the Internet adds layers of complexity.

Adding a sensor or touchscreen to just about any product has become cheap and straightforward. But it doesn't always make things better for the user.

Convincing discerning consumers to buy a home robot isn't easy. To earn a spot in our homes and our lives, “home bots” (and those designing them) must answer four important questions.

The acceleration of tech, and especially the mobile revolution, has deeply impacted both the consumer and medical device industries.

Design efforts to maximize battery run time typically focus on minimizing standby power, but an equal emphasis should be placed on designing for peak power.

These four steps for repeatable technical innovation have proven trustworthy for us on project after project.

Creating product requirements can seem like a straightforward task, but it has plenty of potential pitfalls.

Given the maze of use cases and associated certifications, designing an IoT medical device may take longer and cost more than you expect. Take the shortest path to a completed project by considering four factors.

More often than not, designing your cool new product relies on some new widget. You’re not sure if you should design your own or buy one from a supplier. What if there was a straightforward way to decide?

Successfully troubleshooting these problems prior to product launch is in everybody’s best interest, and can be the most rewarding part of a project for an engineer.

The “fuzzy front end” of product development can pose some unique challenges for engineers.

Authentication is not appropriate for every product, but there are many applications where it's necessary for the manufacturer, end user, or both. Authenticating your consumables need not break the bank.

Medical device manufacturers need to design for a new kind of user. This has big implications not just for the devices they design but also for how they do business.

We’ve been experimenting with a new methodology for designing medical devices with hardware/software interactions. Here’s what a new, holistic development process might look like.

A coffee pod system without a plastic pod. Headphones that read your mind. A touch-sensitive prosthetic hand. Check out the biggest innovations to influence product design in 2022.

We opened up wearables from leading companies to see how so much was packed into something so little.

Learn about the 5 important factors to consider when deciding between an off-the-shelf or custom embedded display for your digital interface.

We asked our staff to nominate the biggest innovations of the past 12 months that will have an influence on product design.

We’ve compiled some advice for those facing, or anticipating, the semiconductor shortage. These workarounds are useful when facing any kind of hardware part shortage.

The vehicle expo area of CES has been one of the most exciting parts of the trade show in recent years.

At CES in 2019, Verizon Chairman and CEO Hans Vestberg gave the opening keynote address about the upcoming advantages of 5G.

If your home is your castle, during the pandemic it’s also your office, classroom, coffee shop/restaurant/bar, gym, entertainment venue, spa, and, yeah, that place where you sleep.

The list of industries experiencing huge disruption fueled by “technology” is growing by the day.

Over the years, there have been designers still young in their careers that have come to me looking for advice and ideas of what to do next. They’ve all told me their tales of woe about how design is just not respected or understood where they work. And this, of course, coincides with their (and design’s) struggle to find a solid footing within the organization.

The Consumer Electronics Show always starts the new year off with a bang. It packs roughly 170,000 extra people from around the world into Las Vegas for a seizure-inducing week of stimulation.

Teach yourself to become a multilingual digital-physical product design practitioner using five simple strategies.

Our team spent the second day of CES at Tech West, home base for health, wellness, home, wearable and fitness technology. It's also the hub for Eureka Park, where the scrappy startups vie for attention of venture capitalists and potential partners.

We roamed the massive Las Vegas Convention Center the first day of the Consumer Electronics Show, better known as CES. Here are some additional fun things we saw.

We have a team roaming the massive Las Vegas Convention Center today at the Consumer Electronics Show, better known as CES. We'll be adding to this blog post throughout the day as we find cool stuff to share.

As 2019 winds to a close it’s time to make my annual appraisal of some of the more noteworthy products and events shaping world of design and Innovation. And the last year certainly saw its fair share of significant steps and missteps. So, let’s wade in with a few things I’ll remember that helped define 2019 for me.

Robots unleashed; the emergence of hearables; sustainable plastics and processes — we weigh in the biggest innovations of 2019 to influence product design.

A list of emerging, innovative technology being developed to reduce carbon, geoengineer the environment, and improve battery efficiency and cooling tech.

VR is an extremely powerful storytelling tool and powerful stories are fueled by giving people a sense empathy. More empathy is better for everyone.

We weren't setting out to invent something radically different, but we wanted to prove to ourselves that we could make our own split-flap display.

When not orchestrated well, a design review can very quickly turn into an unproductive meeting and send a team spinning with a poorly conceived action item list.

Here’s my list of “a few-of-the-mostly-best innovations from the last year or so.”

What happens when all the engineers from Delve's three offices gather in Madison? We buy stuff and tear it apart to understand how it is made. Our product of choice? The robotic vacuum.

What’s a bigger number, the total number of atoms in Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s body or the total number of microprocessor clock cycles since the dawn of time?

E-bikes, solutions for ocean-borne plastic, real-life Babel fish, 3-D printing metal, robot overlords, and more — we weigh in on 2018's biggest innovations.

Engineers constantly balance two roles: the engineer responsible for understanding and mitigating risk, and the product developer considering the ideal customer experience and wanting to delight.

Explore some of the issues that need to be dealt with and acknowledged before a quick-turn electronic prototype can be put into high-volume production.

The increasing sophistication, diversity, and affordability of sensor technology for autonomous cars has rippled into the sports world. Did we see the results in PyeongChang?

As more products become software-enabled, our notions of expected performance and life cycle are changing.

IoT makes sense for industrial applications where there are endless opportunities to monitor and automate.

Dave Franchino takes a whirlwind tour of a crazy year ... and that includes product design and tech.

When major utilities accept a standard, you know it’s going to be real.

Increased performance and declining costs will pave the way to new uses and improved system performance for supercapacitors.

Sure you can make your product "smart." But have you really assessed the desirability of doing so for your users?

One of the best ways for engineers to learn about product design is to carefully examine other products. Engineering details, manufacturing processes, and material choices can all be used to inspire your own designs and decisions.

Using the Decision, Devices, Data, Design and Deployment framework, also known as the 5Ds, can help medical device companies develop connected products.

Repairing the complicated carburator of a 1974 MGB convertible is a good reminder that multidisciplinary design produces better products.

Disney fosters a greater sense of fantasy by concealing the mechanisms of personalization.

Delve's industrial design for OneWeb wins an International IDEA award in the social impact category.

Educating tomorrow's engineers will take more focus on teaching creativity, inclusivity, hands-on and team learning without losing site of the fundamentals.

Our industrial design for the AmpStrip, a 24/7 heart rate and activity monitor, recently won a Gold Spark Award.

Is the IoT feeling overwhelmingly complex? Here's seven rules to extract simplicity from complex IoT product design projects.

Connected devices too often rely on a "master operator" framework that ignores the wonderfully messy realities of family life.

Want a Sansa or an iPod? Sometimes getting to market first is better than making a better product.

The urge to merge technologies can lead to really cool stuff ... and really stupid stuff, too.

LED technology opens up a world of possibilities and some new considerations for product design.

Many SxSW Interactive talks pondered the future of connected devices. What we can address now and how we may bridge the user-experience gap for the future?

Drinking from the fire hose is an understatement.

As the consumer-driven IoT culture, which moves fast and iterates frequently, meets the highly regulated med device industry, designers face new challenges.

Using the BioReactor we helped design and manufacture, Dr. Hopkins' team have reached a milestone in developing a process for replacing pediatric heart valves.

As the world and its devices have grown more electrical, Delve has followed suit.