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This article is written by: Jake Felser – Mechanical engineer and project manager at Cooper Perkins.  Background in startups, manufacturing, and hardware design. Chris McCaslin – Mechanical engineer and project manager at Cooper Perkins.  Fifteen years of experience bringing consumer goods and new technology to market. Developing hard goods involves many disparate and potentially overwhelming aspects, all […]

The most popular question we get at Fictiv is around 3D printing material choice: “Which material is best for my project?” Each material has its own benefits and drawbacks, and it can be hard to make a decision without holding and seeing the material for yourself. You’re always welcome to come by the Fictiv office […]

The week’s top hardware news. January 27th, 2016. Products Like FitBit for Food This product is for those cooks who can take advice in their own kitchen. It’s the “world’s first smart cooking pan,” the $200 SmartyPans. What can it do? It measures weight, temperature and ingredients, integrates with nutrition and fitness apps and guides […]

Most hardware-focused startups have only one chance to build a product that users will value, enjoy using, and adopt into their lives. If a user has difficulty using a new device or isn’t able to seamlessly integrate it into her life, chances are it will end up in the home ‘electronics graveyard’, banished to the closet or basement to […]

If you’re developing a product, you’ve probably come across the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach, which seeks to create a product with the highest return on investment and the lowest risk. The idea was popularized in Eric Ries’ book The Lean Startup. Ries focuses on software development for startups, but many of the principles can be […]

The week’s top hardware news. January 20, 2016. Products The Most Normal-Looking Smart Glasses Another product that stirred some wonderment at CES was a pair of seemingly regular prescription glasses from Zeiss. They look normal, but perform as fully functional smart lenses. Who knew smart glasses didn’t have to look creepy? + further improvements on […]

The week’s top hardware news. January 14th, 2016 Products Programmable Drone There are so many gadgets that teach people how to code these days, it’s a miracle if there’s anyone left uninitiated. Robolink uses a drone, though. That’s new! CoDrone is the first drone that can be programmed to do whatever tricks you want. Like […]

We had an awesome time last week at CES 2016. For the uninitiated, CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is a massive expo of the world’s leading technology that takes place the first week of January in Las Vegas, Nevada. Spanning multiple locations on the Las Vegas strip, large enterprises and new startups alike showcase the best […]

Congratulations! After a long design and prototype verification process, mass production has finally begun for your product. Let’s imagine that your first batch of a few thousand units sells out in a few weeks (hooray!), you place a bigger order with the manufacturer, and then an even bigger one in a few months. How do […]

The weeks top hardware news. January 7th, 2016 Products dokiWatch Born from a developer’s need to find his nephew at the mall, this 3G enabled smartwatch for kids has some appeal for kids and grownups alike. It’s got video calling, GPS tracking and a hard-to-miss red SOS button connected to the parent’s smartphone. + The […]