The Zalmotek Hardware Design System is the main and only service Zalmotek provides.
But don’t be fooled by this simple statement. It’s a lot when you understand what we do and how we do it!
TLDR: It's a dedicated experienced team that will build you a bespoke hardware solution.
You decided you need a hardware product or solution developed but you lack the knowledge, bandwidth, team or previous experience in building a product?
You are in the right place, building hardware products can be daunting, even when you think you got it there something new to put you off balance.
Use our bellow guide to see where you are in the process and what needs to be done to complete the process. And if you feel we can help, reach out!
We’ve spent 15 years building, teaching, learning from failing, experimenting, challenging ourselves and the most important part, continuing to make hardware!
We specialise in developing innovative hardware solutions designed to empower businesses and individuals to harness the power of Edge Computing.
For the last 10 years we have been perfecting our Hardware Design System, a combination of starter kits for any edge devices from low power and computing microcontrollers for wearables to high computing power for computer vision and robotics.
A few key metrics and highlights of our activity:
In conclusion we have been actively part of the global hardware ecosystem and we have been focusing on the cutting edge constantly to deliver the best results to our clients.
As with any human proficiency doing a thing many times allows you to see patterns, identify good practices, learn from mistakes and find ways to optimise it. 15 years of experience have resulted in a hardware design system that brings together various tools and processes into a cohesive environment that streamlines the entire product development lifecycle—from initial design and simulation to prototyping, testing, and manufacturing. By automating tasks, improving collaboration, and optimising resource use, such a system significantly enhances the efficiency of developing electronic products, reducing time to market and overall development costs.
(or where am I in the process and what needs to be done)
Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) are a systematic metric developed originally by NASA and subsequently used by the European Union and many other entities to assess the maturity level of a particular technology. The scale ranges from TRL 1, which represents the observation of basic principles, to TRL 9, indicating the technology has been fully proven in operational conditions. In the context of developing hardware solutions, TRLs provide a framework to evaluate the progress of technology development from initial concepts through to fully operational systems.
TRL Scale Overview:
We at Zalmotek appreciate this metric because it allows for a more objective and consistent evaluation of projects. This helps in bridging the gap between research and market-ready products, often referred to as the "Valley of Death" in innovation management. We’ve seen countless examples of both clients and R&D companies not understanding the difference between these stages of technical maturity and mistaking a proof of concept for a market ready product both in terms of budgets and development iterations needed to create a hardware product.
Usually when we are being approached by clients they already identified a challenge that they inquire us for a solution so they covered TRL1 and sometimes even a bit of TRL2 when they sense what kind of technology they would need from us, but it is a good idea to allow us to asses the problem and give our opinion on the best way of solving it rather than you as a client to propose the technical solution straight up. You might lose the opportunity of us finding an even better way of solving the problem.
So when presented with a project we usually approach it in the following manner:
In this phase we assess the Technology Readiness Level of the project and establish with you, the client, to what level you want to increase it and offer an estimate of time and resources for it. As you can see from the explanation of TRL above, if you start from TRL1 meaning you have observed the challenge and have some idea of how you want to fix it, that is the best moment to be onboarding our Design System. But it's not an issue for us to onboard a new project at another TRL as well.
Every project starts with a good research phase: What is the competition doing, were any of the features built before, what sensors and actuators are needed for the features, what kind of computation power. All this work is really important to establish what is the optimal route of development and what software and hardware stack is the best option. If the project is beyond the phase of Research at a greater TRL then 2, we still do our due diligence and thoroughly research the project and technical possibilities of making it happen in the most efficient way to ensure the best outcome of the project.
This is the main part of the project and although it might look like a straight line it rarely is. Several iterations of building are necessary and a constant feedback loop with you the client to achieve the desired results and understand our findings on the way. Luckily we have been on this path many times and usually in 2-3 iterations we complete this step. We will be transparent with our challenges and take note of your input on going further.
Preparing the source files for each manufacturer according to their specs for PCB, CAD files for enclosures and Assembly instructions is the main goal of this phase but a secondary and still of great importance is providing a testing rig for the device that either us or the manufacturer can check the functionality of the device in an easy way and insure its working status. The testing rig is in fact a prototype itself that we build that simulates the condition of real life use and thus fully verifies the sensors and actuators of the device.
This seemingly small last part is maybe the most overlooked in the Research and Development process especially by inexperienced teams. The biggest mistake here is to address this at the very end of the process once everything is set in stone. Thinking about how users will interact with the product, what problems could they face and doing tests throughout the process even during the Research and Development phases is crucial so you don't get a lot of returns on your products and thus not achieve your goals.
As you can see from this page making hardware products is heavily dependent on execution (fancy words that can be translated to HARD) and many others confirmed it. But at the same time if you understand the process and the steps involved you can either set up your team identifying the correct developers for all the above technologies or reach out to us to create this dedicated team based on our experience for you.
We have the means of organising teams of any size to tackle any hardware challenges so you can focus on the business side of things.
If you think you are in need of our services do not hesitate to reach out and set up a meeting.
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