Detailed Product Design and Development

This chapter takes the reader, step by step, from concept and engineering requirements through bread‐boarding, microcontroller coding, PCB design, PCB printing, soldering, and surface mount considerations all the way to a finished product. The first product covered is an Internet of Things connected device aimed at helping vineyard owners to remotely monitor the moisture level of the vineyard soil as well as ambient conditions such as temperature, humidity, and light levels at various points during the day. The second product is a wearable solution that can reliably detect an elderly person's accidental fall, and contact emergency for help. When pursuing a new product development, it is essential to define the requirements and any necessary design considerations. The functionality choices presented in this chapter allow for a good demonstration of how to design hardware with multiple components and how to integrate the outputs from these components together into one neat package.