7 key mistakes businesses make when evolving their Industrial IoT device

As the Industrial IoT market matures, user and business demands increase, and hardware capabilities continue to develop, you might be thinking about how to evolve your current device to keep up with changing technology.

But evolving an IoT device isn’t just about more powerful processors and devices getting more capable. It could be about adopting new generations of chips that actually allow you to scale down and squeeze cost out of components or reduce power consumption (a particular concern for battery-powered devices).

Either way, it’s about levelling up the product to better meet the needs of the business and the changing product landscape.

In our previous article, How to Build Smarter Products Without Starting from Scratch, we explored why many companies are choosing to evolve their existing products instead of rebuilding from the ground up. Building on that, this article looks at how to make the evolution successful and the common mistakes that can derail an Industrial IoT project before it delivers value.

At Consult Red, we’ve helped companies navigate this journey, and we’ve seen some common mistakes crop up time and again.

Here are the most common pitfalls – by knowing these, you can try to avoid them!

1. Underestimating Firmware and Software Complexity

What worked before won’t necessarily work in the new product. As devices become more capable, the firmware must evolve, often requiring a shift from bare-metal or RTOS environments to full Linux-based systems, or moving to new hardware with support for edge AI functionality. Often, changes in the operating system or silicon result in a need to port or even re-write significant amounts of existing code, while adding new functionality and support for new hardware features.

If going to a smaller and more resource-constrained device, perhaps driven by cost savings or power constraints, limited flash space or RAM might necessitate a new approach to your software design.

Without a plan to approach the transition from your current device to your next, the complexities involved can become overwhelming, and risk sending your product development well off its expected timeline and budget.

Consult Red is highly experienced with porting software and firmware between generations of devices and adding new features to existing devices. We can work with you to assess the key areas that will affect your product evolution and produce a realistic and effective plan to manage these changes.

2. Ignoring Security Until It’s Too Late

Security is a fundamental foundation for any device. Get it right and nobody will notice, but get it wrong and you can be in serious trouble. Many businesses delay implementing secure boot, encrypted storage, or secure provisioning until late in the process, only to find themselves non-compliant with regulations like the UK PSTI Act or EU Radio Equipment Directive (EN 18031).

Even if your current product is secure and compliant, will adding new functionality open up new attack surfaces or areas of compliance risk? If it involves new connectivity or cloud services, then it definitely will.

Consult Red has over 20 years of experience working with security features of connected devices. Read more about how our device cybersecurity services could help you.

3. Choosing the Wrong Platform or OS

The jump from microcontroller to Linux or Android is significant. It affects everything from power consumption to driver support and team skillsets. Your development team might find that the platform takes care of a lot more of the basics – but there are new choices to be made about what libraries and frameworks you use and what approaches you take to solve a problem. Getting it wrong can lead to functionality and performance issues and costly rework.

Equally, sticking with or moving to a more basic platform and trying to implement advanced functionality using an operating system that lacks support for a range of modern libraries and frameworks could be a recipe for frustration.

Consult Red has experience working with all levels of device, from small microprocessors through to very powerful Linux and Android devices, and we can help you select the right platform and plan your device evolution.

4. Overlooking Cloud and Data Architecture

IoT devices don’t operate in isolation. They rely on cloud or other backend infrastructure for data ingestion, analytics, and control. Poorly designed backends can become bottlenecks or security risks as your fleet grows, or as your ecosystem gets more complex with the addition of a new generation of devices.

Adding new functionality, such as AI processing, can place a huge demand on your backend infrastructure and network bandwidth. Get your cloud architecture wrong and the costs, as well as maintenance headaches, will soon add up.

Consult Red can help review your cloud or backend architecture and advise where you could benefit from changing your approach. We can also review whether edge (on-device) processing might be a beneficial approach for your use cases.

5. Failing to Plan for In-Field Support

Provisioning, in-field debugging, performance analysis of devices and management of in-field software updates are often not thought about until the roll-out phase is well underway. But the ideal time to start addressing these important considerations is much earlier in the development process.

Without a clear strategy, you face a rocky rollout, with difficulty understanding how devices are performing in the field, rising support costs and potentially risk exposure to security vulnerabilities.

Consult Red has extensive experience of planning and implementing device deployment and in-field support strategies for deployments, from under 10 to over 10 million devices, including implementing on-device and in-cloud diagnostics solutions.

6. Siloed Teams and Poor Integration

Hardware, firmware, and cloud teams often work in silos, leading to integration issues and delays.

Misaligned timelines and unclear ownership can derail even the best-laid plans.

Consult Red has in-house hardware, software/firmware and cloud expertise. We are adept at managing third parties and doing whatever it takes to make sure that everyone is on the same page and foster cross-functional collaboration. We use agile project management methodologies and our flexible processes to ensure all specialisms work well as one team. Learn more about our agile software and hardware development services.

7. Underestimating Testing and Certification

Testing at scale is a different beast. Environmental testing, compliance certification, and field trials are time-consuming and often underestimated.

At Consult Red, we can coordinate your environmental and compliance testing and manage your field trials and rollout plans. Read about our compliance and risk services.