Developing Sports Technology FAST

21 March 2016 S3908-P-809_forslide v3.0

Commercially ConfidentialRuth Thomson

As presented at the Wearable Technology Show – London – March 2016

Developing Sports Technology FAST

21 March 2016 S3908-P-809_forslide v3.02Commercially Confidential

WHO WE ARE?

500 engineers, designers, scientists, and consultants.

Delivering innovative product development for our clients across many market sectors including medical, consumer healthcare, sports & fitness, enterprise, and personal care.

We work with our clients at all stages from concept generation, through prototyping to transfer to manufacture & implementation of systems.

Further details at http://www.cambridgeconsultants.com/

http://www.cambridgeconsultants.com/

http://www.cambridgeconsultants.com/


Being connected is now expected, and we’re seeing an increasing variety of connected

products/systems across many different market verticals including sports & fitness


WHY NOW?

Technology availability

Data storage and accessibility in the cloud

Consumers already have part of the system


Imagine…

…you have an idea for a connected product/service…

…you know you need a device, but you don’t know if what you want is possible in a size/cost/power that will fulfil your

target value proposition…

…you want to get a better of understanding of what is possible before you invest lots of time and money in

development…


Imagine…I can envisage an elegant wearable design….but will it all fit? How big will the

device be?

…I want the battery to last 2 wks min….is

that possible?

…what will it cost?...

…can the measurements be

‘good enough’?


To deliver your connected product/service there are lots of things that you need to consider…



In this talk we are focusing on the technology


TRADE-OFFS – Understanding what is important


It’s important to consider the trade-offs and think through what is important for your idea so you can balance the requirements for your target

application



Consider an implantable medical device…

…clearly for this application optimising the battery performance is much more important than the cost of the device…





…whereas for a high volume consumer fitness wearable device optimising the cost and the size will likely be the most important factors




…think about what is important for your idea and focus the development effort where you are going to get the best commercial return…

…and be aware of the point of diminishing returns. Know how to recognise what is ‘good enough’ performance to meet your value proposition..


So, imagine you have an idea for a connected device / system…

…how can we quickly explore what could be possible before you commit significant time/budget to development?

We can do this using fast simulation tools that we have developed at Cambridge Consultants building on our experience of developing multiple different connected

devices / systems over many years

To illustrate this we will use a simple example of a wearable…


I want a connected product that…


If I take my idea and work with an industrial designer this is a really useful process…

…the idea comes out of my head and becomes alive…

…this enables feedback and discussion so I can quickly iterate and evolve my thoughts on what I want to achieve…



How do we make a better sketch pad for everything else?


We wanted to create a sketch pad for engineers so we can quickly iterate and evolve an idea, and make the trade-offs visible and easy to understand to inform decision making.So we invested in in-house simulation tools to make this

possible!

What’s the first step?Working with engineers I can quickly understand what are

the key components I need within my design…


What do I need inside my connected product?


How big will it be?

2 cm

Using our in-house simulation tools we can instantly generate an approx image of the possible PCB area to get a sense for

the potential size of the device

This is the size you will get if you just use the standard available parts

You may be relieved… or you may think this is far too big for your target application and want to understand how we can reduce the size…

You can see that the large brown area is the dominant factor effecting the size. This is the ground plane for the antenna….


How can I make it smaller?

2 cm

…we know that if we invest more effort in the development we can

reduce the size of the ground plane.

Here we’ve shown the possible reduced size using the in-house

simulation tools.

Clearly this design will take more time and money in development but you can now visualise the

difference this will make to the size and be able to make an informed decision on what makes sense for

your business.


So how long will it last?

LED

Processing ofsensor data:The algorithm

We can use our in-house simulation tools to quickly generate a breakdown of the energy expenditure

This allows us to see what is having the biggest impact on the battery life.

For your target application you may want a longer lifetime than 5 days and so you we can explore how we could improve this by using the simulation tool


That’s not great – make it better

By using a button instead of the LED you can improve the battery life. Clearly this will also impact the user experience but you now have the information to understand the trade off.

You could also invest in more development effort to improve the algorithm to make it more efficient.

…we’re making the trade-offs visible to allow you to make informed decisions


If you are creating a ‘sensing’ device you will also want to understand what is it possible to measure

and at what accuracy

Rather than invest in custom hardware for each project we have created ‘sensor pucks’ which enable

us to quickly experiment…


Next…..Experiment and Play!

+

Hardware data collection platform

a.k.a. a super duper sensor puck

Truth data

a.k.a. capture the full picture of what is actually happening with

human interpretation



+

Apply smart mathematicians and analysis



+


We’ve created a video that tells you more about this approach

which you can view here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKnEm0uVy_s


WHAT’S NEXT?


What’s next?

You have real information to progress your business case, and decide if this is a real opportunity you want to pursue

This ‘sketch pad’ style quick insight helps you manage expectations on what is possible within your team

The quick & dirty experiments help you understand what is possible to measure and at what accuracy

Then… Select and focus on a design direction with confidence - faster to market

New types of products and service revenue for your business


Thanks for your attention! Any questions?


More about the presenter…

More about the presenter…Ruth Thomson leads the Consumer business at Cambridge Consultants. She has more than 14 years’ experience of working with consumer brands, using technology to deliver innovative consumer experiences across a range of products and services. In the wearables space she is working across sports and fitness technology, consumer healthcare and personal care applications bringing Cambridge Consultants' significant skills and experience in the development of novel connected systems to these opportunities for innovation.

More info at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruththomson

Contact Ruth at [email protected]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruththomson

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruththomson

mailto:[email protected]

21 March 2016 S3908-P-809_forslide v3.0

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www.CambridgeConsultants.comThe contents of this presentation are commercially confidential and the proprietary information of Cambridge Consultants © 2016 Cambridge Consultants Ltd. All rights reserved.

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