The Need
One of the home automation companies in North America, wanted to replace end-of-life parts on the board of their gateway, a critical system in their home Automation and security solution.
The customer had developed an IoT solution for premium customers with sensor technology which is embedded in their home smart furniture, that can report the status of them and even control their operations using RF links.
The gateway was having few end-of-life parts on the board which are to be replaced for the sustenance of the product in the market.
More than a sheer technical team, the client was looking for a trusted engineering partner who always goes the extra mile to overcome the challenges encountered.
Impacts Delivered
- Fast turnaround time with the redesign, allowed the customer to reduce overall time-to-market
- RF range was increased by over 30%, enabling the end-customers to have lower number of gateways per installation
- Improved the overall performance of solution and at the same time reduced the size of the gateway
- Our Customer improved their CSAT scores from their existing customers
- Recorded an improvement in new sales over 40%
Our Solution
- Redesigned and developed the new gateway by replacing the obsolete components
- Identified obsolete components on the gateway and the alternative with the right specification to replace
- Replaced the EOL component with the alternative and redesigned the PCB
- Updated the firmware BSP as per the component changes
- Review the performance of radio and antenna in the schematics and layout and corrected issues identified
- Resolved the RF range issue.
- On analysis, the real reason for the limited range was identified as the noise sources on gateway hardware.
- Corrective action was taken to reduce the noise level which resulted in substantial improvement of RF Range
- Initial bring-up of the redesigned board with new components and improved RF range
- RF tuning & Integration testing for checking the overall performance of the newly designed gateway
Tools & Technologies
- Obsolescence management for components in the gateway
- Firmware updates
- Hardware redesign and integration
