Stepping back from the news cycle and reflecting on just how rapidly hardware is evolving shows some clear, interesting trends. A new normal is being defined, even amongst continuing change, such as sentient and connected objects.
Hardware is rapidly becoming the new software. Shenzhen is to hardware what Silicon Valley is to software. It’s much cheaper, quicker and easier to build hardware but that comes with a collapse of the commoditisation cycle.
If you have even the slightest interest in any of this, this presentation from earlier this year is excellent.
[slideshare id=45178242&doc=hardwaretrends2015-150226090440-conversion-gate02]
Hardware differentiation
One consequence of the collapse of the commoditisation cycle is the importance of differentiation. Many new approaches and product angles are being explored, much of it visible on Kickstarter. Most of these fail, yet are necessary to find the few that don’t.
The presentation has a wonderful slide with 12 danger areas that have sunk many hardware startups. Each of these are detailed and collectively represent the wisdom of experience of many, many failed hardware startups.
Source: http://www.slideshare.net/haxlr8r/hardware-trends-2015
OK – so that’s a dozen to be “wary” of, but only -ah- only 11 descriptions?
I think LATEware’s description was missed out by the author. Thankfully, that term is self-explanatory!