How to Build Smarter Products Without Starting From Scratch

Companies today face similar pressures. Devices built on reliable legacy hardware are starting to show their age. Operating systems and firmware are drifting out of date, potentially creating security and compliance risks. At the same time, customer expectations are shifting: connected services, AI-enabled features, and smarter experiences are now the baseline for competitiveness.

The challenge? Balancing the need for innovation with the realities of resource constraints, tight deadlines, and the risk of alienating loyal customers with too much change at once. While a full redesign may sound appealing, it can double resource demands and introduce hidden costs that impact long-term value. Building on a proven foundation instead lets businesses modernise strategically – extending product life, adding new features, and staying competitive without the disruption of a full rebuild.

What ‘Smarter’ Really Means

Smarter products are not defined by the latest technology but by the value they deliver, whether that’s stronger performance, new revenue opportunities, or an improved customer experience.

For some companies, that has meant embedding edge intelligence to improve responsiveness. For others, it has been cloud integration to enable predictive diagnostics and reduce downtime. In some cases, it’s as simple as an OS upgrade that extends a device’s life and strengthens security.

We’ve also seen this play out through connectivity. In our work with a leading product supplier, for example, we helped transform an existing e-cigarette into a connected device. By adding secure Bluetooth data capture and a companion mobile app, the product gained new features and gave the company valuable customer insights, all without starting from scratch.

“Adding low-cost Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) connectivity to this existing product opened up a huge range of data and security features that were impossible previously”- Tom Wood, Head of Engineering, Consult Red

Ultimately, smarter evolution can take many forms, whether that is connectivity, embedded intelligence, cloud integration, or carefully chosen applications of AI. The goal is always the same: measurable business outcomes, not technology for its own sake.

Strategic Paths to Product Evolution

So what does that look like in practice? The good news for anyone considering upgrading their product is that evolution rarely needs to be a single leap. In many cases, it can be phased to fit your roadmap, customer needs, and budget.

Some of the most effective routes we see include:

• Extending product life and security through OS or firmware upgrades
• Unlocking new services and insights with connectivity and cloud integration
• Differentiating with intelligence by layering in automation or edge AI

These approaches have helped companies across industrial, broadband, IoT and media modernise their products quickly, without the cost and disruption of full redesigns.

For example, in our work with a global IoT enabler, we customised and optimised their existing LwM2M stack to reduce connectivity costs, extend device battery life, and improve device management. It showed how evolving existing software and protocols can open new value and make connected devices more competitive.

Even small, targeted upgrades can unlock outsized value, provided they are chosen strategically. The key is to focus on the changes that matter most: improvements that customers notice and appreciate, enhancements that reduce risk or extend product life, and upgrades that fit naturally with the product’s lifecycle.

Why the Right Partner Makes Product Evolution Smarter

Product evolution is most effective when upgrade choices are made with both technical trade-offs and business outcomes in mind. The right partner helps ensure that each step adds long-term value, avoids over-engineering, and guides smarter architecture decisions that last.

We saw this in our work with a specialist lab equipment manufacturer. Their ambition was to evolve a limited microcontroller-based touchscreen to a Linux system. The scale of bespoke engineering threatened to make the project unviable, but by combining off-the-shelf hardware with a custom interface board and leveraging our CRIOS accelerator, we delivered a cost-effective solution that became the foundation for their next generation of products. It showed how the right partner can strike the balance between technical depth, pragmatism, and cost control.

That same principle underpins our wider approach to Connected Product Evolution. While internal teams may have deep knowledge of their product, evolution often demands new skills such as OS porting, cloud integration, or embedded AI. Without external expertise, it’s easy to over-invest in the wrong areas or underestimate hidden risks. At Consult Red, we bring three strengths together:

• Full stack, chip-to-cloud expertise across firmware, drivers, operating systems, connectivity, cloud APIs, UI frameworks, and cloud integration with platforms such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
• Flexible engagement models ranging from specialist pods to fully managed services, with options for time and materials, fixed price, IP transfer, or licensed accelerators.
• More than 20 years of experience helping companies evolve products in broadband, IoT, media and industrial, supported by responsive near-shore teams.

“There’s a reason why we take on hard projects and then end up staying with customers for 20+ years. We deliver again and again, and there’s tremendous value in that.” – Stuart Griffin, CEO, Consult Red

Evolve with Confidence

Product evolution is about finding a smarter way forward. By building on what already works, you can modernise without overwhelming teams or asking customers to start over with you.

With the right partner, evolution does not have to feel risky. It becomes a way to add new features, strengthen security, and open up fresh opportunities, all while keeping your product roadmap moving at pace. The most successful companies take an intentional approach: evolving where it adds the greatest customer value, timing upgrades to the product lifecycle, and always weighing the cost of disruption against the benefit of innovation.