This document provides a guide for building smart products. It discusses why it is the right time for IoT products, the skills needed to build smart products, and the step-by-step process for building a smart product. This includes ideating, designing, simulating, testing, optimizing, preparing for production, and bringing all elements together. It emphasizes user experience, component selection and pricing, prototyping, app development, production, and security/analytics.

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Welcome
This guide walks you through everything you need to know in order to
build Smart Products:
• Why go smart
• Is it the right time?
• What to expect
• How to prepare
• What are the processes, skills and tools you need to have
in place?
• A better way to build smart products: Introducing Seebo,
an end-to-end IoT platform that empowers you to build
and manage smart products fast and safely, transforms
your product’s value, and revolutionizes customer
experience.

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Table of Contents:
I. Is it the right time for IoT products?
Your products can push the boundaries of innovation
IoT - the fastest market penetration
II. The Era of IoT - Virtual and Physical Worlds Unite
Seize the opportunity: Meeting today’s digital customer’s needs….
Smart products dictate new skills
The profusion of hardware and electronic components and challenges in business
forecasting
III. How to Build a Smart Product:
The Step-by-Step Guide
The iterative IoT product Concept Development Methodology
The importance of integrated cross-platform testing
Decided to go smart? Build your smart application first
Getting ready for production
Bringing it all together: Moving on to production
In-market phase: A new world of customer engagement
In-market updates

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I. Is It the Right Time for IoT
Products?
Your products can push the boundaries of
innovation
IoT - the fastest market penetration
In today’s rapidly evolving marketplace, business insight is critical for staying ahead of the curve. The
Internet of Things is pioneering a new era of intelligent products that will help the world live smarter.
Smart devices are everywhere and top industries are already immensely affected by the possibilities that
the Internet of Things has to offer. IoT is in your home, your car, your phone and, increasingly, on your
body. It’s connecting citizens to their cities, linking patients to health services, bringing companies in
closer touch with their customers and capturing our imaginations.
Things around us are being connected to the internet and to one another, which drives companies to
create new business opportunities, transform customer experience and access a new world of customer
insight.
According to research firm IDC (2015), the market for connected devices is expected to more than
double from $655.8 billion in 2014 to $1.7 trillion in 2020; the number of connected devices is expected
to nearly triple from 10.3 billion in 2014 to $29.5 billion in 2020.
2014 2020
$655.8
billion
$1.7
trillion

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Smart electronics prices are no longer a barrier
The costs of connectivity and embedded technology have fallen to a point where they no
longer deter companies from adopting smart technology. Broadband communications, Wi-
Fi, Bluetooth and mobile networks are ubiquitous and able to support large volumes of IoT
connectivity at little incremental cost to enterprises and consumers.
A survey conducted by Gartner reports the following:
When asking 435 product executives,
Based on the Gartner research, the question shouldn’t be, are
you going to develop a Smart Product, but when - and the answer
should be sooner rather than later.
The Third Industrial Revolution has begun - are you
going to get ahead of the curve or stay behind?
29%
Yes
62%
Planning to within the
next 12-24 months.9%
Not yet
“Has your organization already implemented an IoT products?”

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Your customers have fundamentally changed. They are more digital, more social, more sophisticated and
constantly connected. They expect easy and simple device operation, beautiful design, great user experience
and the ability to carry fewer devices. They want consolidation of the physical, the virtual, electronics,
mobile applications and internet connectivity - one product to rule the all.vv
II. The Era of IoT - Virtual and
Physical Worlds Unite
Seize the opportunity: Meeting today’s digital
customer’s needs
Manufacturers like you are actively looking for ways to keep up and build smart products. From smart golf
balls to smart toys, smart travel bags, smart appliances, smart boats, smart buildings and even smart cities,

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“Playing catch-up will be costly for laggards, as the IoT could
potentially change the shape of whole industries.”
Gartner, Agenda Overview for the Internet of Things, 2015
Industries were wiped out by internet evolutions that weren’t addressed on
time:
When was the last time you rented a movie from Blockbuster? Or listened to music from a CD? Your
kids would never use a CD player and will probably never read a hardcover book in their spare time.
Music, books, video rental - all have disappeared. Taxi, hospitality and shopping were dramatically
disrupted. The retailers who have survived are the ones that established successful online businesses
on time. Either you react on time, or stay behind.
smart products are going to be bigger than social networking and will include EVERYONE whether or not
they are onboard. People will pass through country borders with smart passports that signal their identity,
eliminating the need for airport staff; smart devices will protect children when they play outside, increasing
their independence while providing a solution for concerned parents; smart cities will rid themselves
of street violence and property fraud; our home refrigerators will automatically shop online for us - the
Internet of Things, connected devices and intelligent products, if utilized the right way by humans, could
help us build a better world.
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On top of all this, you’ll have to develop methodologies to work correctly with your smart product digital
content and correctly choose and build the cloud infrastructure that will go with your product during the
product's lifetime.
To move from physical to smart products, you must navigate across complex architectures, heterogeneous
partners, digital components and a myriad of technologies, all of which are new and many still evolving.
Smart Products dictate new skills
It’s exciting, but also a little terrifying - tapping into the world of the Internet of Things can be complex,
expensive and error-prone.
Smart products entail new technologies, new expertise, new specifications and a myriad of new interfaces.
Moving from the tangible world to the virtual and digital worlds requires the following:
• Implementing new design methodologies;
• The ability to adapt your hardware to be smart;
• Reaching informed decisions regarding the electronics selection process;
• Researching distributed component costs;
• Firmware development;
• Software that operates the hardware and mechanisms to gather data from your products and
communicate back insight and intelligence to your business applications, empowering you to grow
your business.

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Adding smart capabilities to your product involves costs that you may not be familiar with . Thousands
of electronic components exist in the market today and the variety is constantly growing at a fast pace.
This includes not only multiple brand names, but also different capabilities; multiple levels of sensor
accuracy; different levels of power consumption; long or short-term battery life; varieties of light strength,
of movement measurements, of humidity and heat; different memory storage sizes; different types of
Bluetooth devices; motion and touch sensor sensitivity...the list goes on. There is a veritable ocean of smart
behaviors, electronics and features that could boost your product’s revenue stream.
Your selection of each component is affected not only by the desired smart capabilities, but also by lead time
and costs. The availability of each component may change by the week or month; product and marketing
teams should build their business plans based on the most updated price lists and close orders based on
freshly-updated data. In addition, thanks to huge demand, hardware prices are constantly decreasing.
Given the large amount of components which must be evaluated and ordered, as well as the constant price
decrease, manually researching this data may deliver results that are unreliable, inaccurate and more
expensive for you.
To build a cost-effective IoT product lifecycle, you must constantly refresh your data to make informed
decisions about rapidly changing prices and electronics lead time.
The profusion of hardware and electronic
components and challenges in business forecasting
The stip decline over time of sensors prices

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The iterative IoT product Concept Development
Methodology
Smart Products must be designed from the eyes of the consumer
1. When building smart products, user experience is key. During the smart product design phase you must
address how the operational aspects of the smart product affect the end user to ensure they are positive
and drive engagement. For example, when designing a wearable smart product with a microphone, the
microphone must be located near the product’s surface and close enough to the wearer’s mouth to pick up
their voice, but not so close as to be uncomfortable to the wearer or pick up unwanted sounds.
III. How to Build a Smart Product:
The Step-by-Step Guide
Ideation Design Simulation
TestingOptimization
1 2 3
5 4

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2. The importance of electronics placement has never been greater. Design may change based on the
specific selection of electronics, as some electronic components necessitate specific designs. Also, the
product layout must take into account the compatibility of each smart component with the others. Returning
to the example above, if creating a product with both speaker and microphone, the two components must
be far enough apart to not pick up sound from one another. Or, if placing magnetic sensors on a product too
close to a Bluetooth device, the magnets could interfere with how the device functions.
3. The placement of electronics must be based on shape, material, distance and location. For example,
in order to measure ski performance in action, you must embed sensors into the tip of the Ski as well as in
the middle. Additionally, sensors should be placed where they are best protected against impact and drastic
temperature changes.
Or, if you want to build a smart doll that connects to a screen and would like to track the movement of its
legs as you walk it back and forth, motion sensors must be placed at the bottom of its legs to be able to track
and identify the widest spectrum of movement.
These are merely a few examples of design requirements that dictate the placement of electronic
components.
4. Design and costs are strongly intertwined. IoT design hinges on the selection of smart components,
taking into account their functionality and placement. The design period is often referred to as the Concept
Development Phase, in which you finalize your concepts, components selection and placement. Yet how can
you finalize your component selection without knowing the prices?
Seebo IoT Platform - Ideation Module - selecting, placing and defining your smart features and electronics and timeline

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5. In order to align your concept development closer with reality and build a cost-effective IoT product,
you must understand smart component pricing.
Electronics prices are constantly decreasing; real-time visibility for electronics prices and data refresh are
crucial. You must have tools and technologies that allow for this.
6. Physical prototypes will get you closer to reality. Before moving on to production, you must experience
the smart capabilities of your new product and iteratively operate, test, re-evaluate and optimize all moving
parts - placement, electronics, behaviors and performance - until you are positive that your dream product is
coming to life as expected. This step entails a working prototype of your smart product.
Since smart products are larger than their physical dimension and span both the tangible and virtual, it is
important to test both areas, as well as the alignment between them.
An IoT prototype is essential for creating a real-life experience in which to test your new IoT product. An
IoT Prototype consists of a combination of a tangible electronic prototype and a smart testing
application.
The importance of integrated cross-platform testing
Seebo IoT Platform - Forecasting Module - visibility to real time pricing of sensors and hardware
components, understanding the right combinations for your smart prodcut

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The combination of an IoT Prototype and a smart testing application allows for the right validation
process and empowers you to make the right business decisions.
Take the example of a smart toy: product teams must ensure that upon touching a certain icon on
a screen, a virtual toy will start dancing, while lights in the dollhouse change colors.
Developing a prototype gives you assurance that you have designed the experience you were
striving for when launching your new, innovative smart product: a standout product that excites
your target audience and encourages sales growth.
That’s the value of an IoT Prototype, connected to a testing application.
The IoT Prototype is essential for ensuring:
• The best user experience
• The desired smart behaviors and operations
• Ideal alignment between the product and smart element or between the Thing and the Internet
The IoT Prototype lets you test the app and debug it quickly and easily, eliminating the need to work with the
actual hardware or electronics. A testing application that connects to your prototype enables you to test the
smart features and better understand how they will perform in real life. Especially given the unfamiliarity
with the Internet of Things and smart product development, it is essential to ensure that the product’s
performance meets requirements and its features perform as expected.
Seebo IoT Platform - presenting the IoT prototype and the testing application to virtualy test your sensors and electronics

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Decided to go smart?
Build your smart application first!
Upgrading your products to smart products requires tapping into a new world of software, firmware and
application coding. It not only involves applications, but also the combining of hardware components with
electronics.
When starting to build smart products, a whole new set of skills and expertise is required. Customers often
ask themselves,
Moreover, manufacturers must bring on board not only new internal skills, but also new vendors and
factories, as well as engaging with labs and meeting regulations.
• Do I need to establish new teams?
• Do I need to train my current staff?
• Will I need to change internal processes and methodologies?
• Which new expertise do I need to bring in?

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Looking to build Smart Products?
20 questions you’ll find yourself asking
Based on years of experience and hundreds of thousands of smart products on the market, we realize that
manufacturers who want to start developing Smart Products struggle with the following questions:
Development:
1 How will you know which sensors to
choose and what it is possible to measure?
2 How do you keep up with new sensor
development?
3 How do you decide whether a sensor is
worth the price while you are still thinking
about which features to implement?
Component Pricing:
4 What plans do you have to source high-
quality and lowest-price components?
5 How will you keep pricing up to date?
6 How will you know whether or not you
are getting good component pricing?
Compatibility:
7 Will your final product be compatible
with all the widely used operating systems?
8 Will your final product be compatible
with all consumer devices?
9 What will happen when Apple or Android
updates their OS or releases a new version?
Production:
10 How will you find your PCB factory and
determine whether their pricing and service
is good?
11 Do you have a way to understand
what’s happening in your factories in real
time?
12 What will happen if there is a problem
in production – how will you know and
how will you respond?
App development:
13 How will you find an app developer?
14 Will they work with an existing SDK
and will it be robust enough to deal with all
the features you intend to implement?
15 How will you know if your app
developer is quoting you a good price?
16 Once the product is in-market, how
will updates and upgrades be dealt with?
Security and Analytics:
17 How will you implement security in
your smart products?
18 Will you know how your product is
being used by consumers?
19 Do you intend to make use of the data
you can collect to better understand and
serve your customers?
20 Have you discussed new opportunities
for better business models?

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Getting ready for production
How will you identify the perfect PCB factory for your smart components? How will
you successfully communicate, track and manage the production process?
Production for a smart product is nothing like the manufacturing cycle of a traditional product.
The IoT production process requires navigating across third-party distributors, diverse technologies, complex
processes and new product architectures.
In order to develop your smart application - a web or mobile application that is connected and operated in
alignment with smart components embedded in your smart products - you will need to hire two developers:
1. A web developer to develop your web and mobile application.
2. A firmware developer to code the software that operates the smart components in coordination with the
web and mobile application.
By this stage you’ll have your electronic smart features selected and tested; from now on, you’ll have to focus
all your efforts on bringing everything together to form one intelligent product that can communicate with the
virtual world.
This process involves extensive preparations which, if not managed correctly, will result in significant gaps in
expectations between the manufacturer and all the other vendors involved.
Seebo IoT Platform - levraging the firmware toolket to accelerate development time and product time to market

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How to avoid gaps in expectations between
production plans and production process
During this phase you will have your electronics ordered, your Bill of Materials well defined and firmware
and middleware completed.
It is very important to provide your production factory with visibility over the whole production process and
accurate guidance, to avoid any gaps in expectations.
It is highly recommended to prepare a Blueprint file that will act as your main production file and include:
1. Crisp and clear Bill of Materials (BOM);
2. Schematics and layout that specify the interfaces of each and every component with the other and the
exact manufacturing instructions for the PCB factory;
3. Firmware - the software that will be burned on the MCU Processor.
While production plans are forming, it is important to search for the ideal assembly factory:
The factory that will receive your electronics requirements and assemble them on the PCB on the
production line.
When engaging a PCBA factory, there are a few main considerations to note:
• Ownership of Intellectual Property, i.e. would you be able to move from one factory to another? Who
owns the manufacturing plans?
• Experience and expertise that align with your BOM and production plans
• Liability
• Will your PCBA factory notify you if the component manufacturer has reduced the component price?
Bringing it all together: Moving on to production
Take control of your production line
The production process, once reached, is where the many long steps begin to resemble a product and you
prepare for launch. At this stage, the ability to track the progress of the production process, get visibility
into production pace, and test out and validate the quality of your finished product while in production is
crucial.
You probably will not be able to physically attend the production line. Therefore, centralized remote
management and tracking solutions must be available to provide you with comprehensive visibility across all
third parties - electronics vendors, products manufacturing, assembly factories and shipment.
IoT-related production factories: A whole new world of manufacturing
Manufacturing an IoT product entails working with at least two different types of factories:
• Electronics factory
• Product factory such as the ones you are working with today

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Track and monitor your production line across all third parties
Accelerating time to market, meeting intense deadlines, monitoring and management are the foundation of
successful production.
The IoT production line dashboard
If you are an experienced manufacturer of traditional consumer goods, then you are already familiar with
product manufacturing factories. However, manufacturing smart electronics is completely different and more
complex. Like any other manufacturing plant that specializes in plastic, metal or fabrics, the manufacturing of
smart electronics requires industry specific, in-depth expertise.
There are multiple electronics factories to choose from. Each one varies based on the step you are at in the life
cycle and dictates new processes and methodologies. The first step is to understand the responsibilities and
ownership of each entity involved in this process, as well as how you will guide them, monitor the process, and
validate their work.
Monitoring and tracking must be done through an IoT Management Console. You must be able to track and
monitor the production process remotely; maintain visibility and predictability into how things are moving
along; assess the pace, the quality and possible risks; understand bottlenecks and predict time to market - all
this, in order to tightly align your launch plans.
Seebo IoT Platform - project tracking and monitoring dashbaord for real time insight across 3rd
parties, development and production processes

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IoT production line tools and services
Bringing everything together - the assembly of all hardware, firmware,
core product and electronics - requires a few unique tools and services.
Going ‘smart’ means tapping into a whole new world of software and
hardware that involves new assembly and quality validation processes.
Firmware burning tools
A hardware burning tool is used after your components are assembled
into the PCB in order to add the software logic - the firmware - into your
hardware. Without the firmware, your hardware cannot function.
At the PCB factory, a programming Jig will burn the firmware into the
assembled PCB and run the validation and testing scenarios.
Testing is done in two phases:
1. Sensor-based testing across the whole product scope, completed in
the assembly factory.
2. Warehouse Testing that is completed in the Warehouse to ensure
that nothing was damaged en route.
The importance of validating User Experience during
production line
Production line testing is crucial - it is your last chance to uncover errors
and malfunctions that might have slipped across the process and address
them before product units are shipped.
It is important to note that when going smart, you enter the world of
software development and hardware connectivity where bugs are
virtual and hidden; in spite of their invisibility, any errors in the smart
application or in the smart electronics will most probably completely
eliminate the value of your innovative product.
Tools for production line testing :
Testing tools in production line are a necessity. Much as you would with
any other product leaving a factory, you must validate your product to
ensure it meets your specifications and behave as planned and expected.
This combination of software and hardware testing requires unique
testing and validation tools that enable you to remotely operate the
electronics, trigger user events and test results that imitate your Smart
Application as it will be used by your end user.
For mass production, consider duplicating your testing tools to enable
you to complete more tests, more quickly.
Planning these manufacturing tools efficiently can reduce the number of
damaged products, cut down on labor and save on costs.
We live in a world of zero tolerance
for malfunctions, delays and poor user
experience. If the user needs to wait
more than two seconds for a mobile
app to open, he’ll probably close it,
walk away and never come back.
User experience and product quality
must be your top priority at all times
and you must be equipped with all the
right tools and technologies to get
them right.
START NOW

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In-market phase: A new world of customer
engagement
Keep in mind: the earlier in the cycle that you identify bugs - the cheaper it is to fix them.
Every 10% of progress in the product lifecycle multiplies the cost of fixing bugs 10x.
You must find the right solutions to test earlier and more frequently in the cycle.
Disruptive Big Data Analytics
One of the most disruptive aspects of the IoT in-market model is the ability to achieve visibility and, in turn,
understand the real value your product holds for the end-user.
When physical objects equipped with sensors broadcast information, the ability to capture, communicate, and
process data—and even collaborate— creates game-changing opportunities: greater production efficiency,
distribution, innovation and monetization.
Your smart products constantly aggregate data gathered by the embedded sensors. This real-time insight helps
you discover accurate and meaningful patterns in your data, depending on your measurements and objectives.
Data flowing into your business applications empowers you to make informed decisions regarding inventory,
product usage, end-of-life and user experience.
For the first time, wholesalers can obtain visibility into end-user engagement with your product; their
communication with end users will add data to your channels and that data, once leveraged, will boost the
adoption, sales and re-orders of your products.

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In-market updates: Keep your product smart
What will happen when Apple or Android update the OS or release
a new version?
Your smart product can be connected to multiple operating systems, applications and cloud infrastructures.
These software systems are constantly updated, and at an increasingly quick pace. (Android and Apple update
their operating systems every other week.) You must have an automated mechanism to implement software
updates; otherwise, your Smart Application will fail to operate while your product is in the hands of the end-
user. In order to avoid that, an automated mechanism of remote software and OS updates must be in place.
Build dynamic products: Leverage APIs for customization
The biggest disruption in IoT is turning products into services that enrich user experience while the product is
in the hands of your end-user.
With API software, there are no limitations to scaling, adapting or building your product while in use. You have
a flexible product that is not constrained by its physical dimensions. Your ability to maintain a competitive
advantage, reverse decisions, and improve the product in-market are endless.
Tapping into the virtual world opens up unlimited possibilities for more and better innovation.
Integrations that empower the vendor
In-market insight can improve more than just the customer experience. Gathered data that travels to the
vendor can help you improve inventory and distribution processes, make decisions about production quantity,
connect with your most successful distributor channels and optimize your route to market. Advance your APIs
to allow for the integration of added value services.
How can enterprises build secure, scalable and
reliable Internet of Things solutions?
Protection against identity theft and other security threats is more critical to the well-being of consumers
more than ever. Across our homes, businesses, and the globe, smart systems are collecting data from our
movements, conversations, and personal information.
How will access to that data be controlled? How will users be authenticated? How will wireless security be
handled? How will a secure session be set up and initiated? How will both user data and data generated by the
connected device be encrypted?
When building an IoT product, you’d like to avoid reinventing the wheel for every product and still make sure
that all critical aspects such as security are handled through the right solutions, so you can focus on the primary
functionalities and what’s most important - your product.
Therefore, since IoT products span across multiple layers and platforms, it is important to secure them end to
end through a cross-platform security system.

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Building a solid IoT product through an end-to-end
IoT platform - problem solved
Enterprises must turn their attention to building the solution. At the current
time, few enterprises have given much thought to the IoT. Fewer still have
recognized the value that could result. Nevertheless, there is an urgency to
adopt and start generating value from the IoT quickly — before competitors.
Enterprises therefore need to explore platform-based strategies that will
facilitate a solid and reliable solution.
Gartner, Building IoT Solutions, 2015
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Seebo is that solution. The Seebo end-to-end IoT platform empowers product manufacturers to build smart
products faster, better, and cost-effectively.
From ideation, through production and up to monitoring and management, Seebo provides a complete suite
of tools and technologies to build products that excite today’s digital consumers and transform customer
experience.
Use the powerful in-market analytics to make informed decisions and optimize business models, inventory
management and product strategy. Apply insight from the unique Seebo platform to come up with new
revenue streams and empower your channels to sell more of your products - and sell better.