At some point in your IoT product design planning process, you’ll need to decide whether to build or buy. This choice will be dependent on the anticipated lifespan of your product and/or the projected production volume, but there are several other factors to consider in this complex equation.
Building your design from modules will not necessarily be more expensive than an integrated design. When in-house technical expertise or bandwidth is limited, a modular approach might be the easiest and most economical solution, and can help deliver the product on-time even with internal resource bottlenecks.
The key question is: what is your value-add / intellectual property? Is it the hardware design – the innovation, connectivity, integration, simplicity and sheer elegance of your design, OR is it in your software – its porting, GUI, analytics capability and cloud connectivity?
By using processor or radio modules which are already completed and tested, a crucial component of the hardware design is already available before starting the project. The smart module combines multiple different functions typically in a small form factor, ready to use, computing, control and communication device.
Our Solutions
Digi SOM solutions provide a highly integrated hardware and software platform designed for rapid development and time-to-market, along with a full suite of tools and resources for scalability of design and ease of maintenance. With robust, industrial system-on-modules, integrated Digi TrustFence® security, sophisticated open systems software and device management tools, Digi’s embedded solutions reduce total cost of ownership and help catapult OEMs to market success.
Digi has produced an excellent white paper exploring the pros and cons of building your own products versus buying in complete solutions.
Contact us for a copy of the Digi White Paper: Build vs Buy: Navigating The Choice
Silicon Labs offers a range of multiprotocol wireless SoCs which support multiple connectivity options and can speed up time to market. Dynamic multiprotocol wireless connectivity provides a viable means to simultaneously support multiple wireless protocols on a single chip by using a time-slicing mechanism to share a radio between protocols, reducing wireless system cost and simplifying system design.
Quectel smart modules are empowering IoT applications, removing technical limitations and accelerating time to market. By providing the ability to perform multiple tasks in a single module, the need to develop and then integrate function-specific modules into an IoT device is reduced, and deployments are simplified and accelerated. Smart modules also offer a wide range of interfaces so they can support a broad range of functionality from cameras to sensors and audio and video.