That sounds like a familiar recipe for disaster. Most hardware based Kickstarters fail. Even successful ones deliver very late and over budget. I work in electronics and wouldn't do it.
You really need to find someone with experience in bringing products to market. Hardware mass production is extremely difficult and expensive (from prototyping to final layout to component sourcing to quality control) and that's before you get to stocking and delivery. That all requires a lot of investment, time and understanding of the underlying systems.
It's possible to learn a lot from people like Bunnie Huang, such as his "Chumby" product which he blogged the development of.
That will help people around here guide you towards a good way to prototype it.
Because there may be a way to prototype what you want without knowing much about hardware design.
Developing hardware is hard and costly. If you are looking to create a consumer-based product, this would be especially true. There's no way you'd be able to manufacture your product as cheap as getting a manufacturer to supply you with a OEM version of their product, let alone having to amortise the R&D cost spent in developing it! And generally speaking, the cost is the bottom line in a consumer-based product.
This is what the Wyze Cam does. They've created a really nice product, but there's no way they'd be able to sell it for $25 had they also developed and manufactured the hardware themselves.
I also couldn't find a place with people who know this stuff that could help me. It seems that getting software help is so much easier. Does anyone have any suggestions?
1. Acquire MCU (Pi, Arduino, etc.) 2. Acquire sensor (Heartrate, EEG, etc.) 3. Program processor/UI (Python/C++) 4. 3D print enclosure
Make a dope marketing video and $$. Send me a PM if you want help, I've launched a wearable (it failed but there were lessons learned).
When your hardware project is "done" - that is, it works as you'd like, maybe you've made a handful of them - you're only really 30% of the way. First you need to test it - EMC testing can be painful and unless you really designed it carefully you'll probably need to redesign parts of it.
One you've got past that, you need to manufacture it. To get a project to volume manufacture means you need to work out all the little details - how will you program it, how will you test it, how much stock do you hold, who builds it. You'll probably find there's things you overlooked, or a part you can't buy any more, and you have to do a board respin.
When you see polished products on Kickstarter that manage to ship in the schedule they initially proposed, that's because they've already done all of this. They've probably spent 6 or 7 figures to get to that point.
I'm not saying you shouldn't do it (and there are paths you could take which aren't so onerous, like maybe making just a circuit board which you sell mainly to the hacker community) - I find the whole process really enjoyable. It's just that it's a lot of work and can be very, very capital intensive. Plan things carefully and be realistic, not optimistic about costs and schedule.
Any wearable needs a power source, and any prototype is going to involve wires and breadboards that are not by default hermetically sealed. In the event your moist skin provides a lower-resistance path for the voltages involved, you might find your project (and self) dead.
Lithium batteries are extremely unforgiving, as well. Try to stick to a single cell, and if you need to put in multiple cells, put safety circuits on them.
It wasn't long ago (January 29th) where a man was killed when his e-cigarette exploded and part of it shredded his carotid artery.
Edward Thorp's 1961 wearable roulette cheating device started arcing when the young women wearing it started to glisten a bit too much in the sultry Vegas casinos.
I'm sure your prototype will be way cooler if it doesn't cost you an eye (safety glasses), your skin (from burns or explosions), or body parts of your intrepid friends and loved ones.
Realize, that a software developer's role in this kind of product, is literally the least critical aspect of it.
perhaps look at some of the open source wearables for inspiration [1] [2] etc.
[1] https://openhomeautomation.net/open-source-wearable-platform...
https://predictabledesigns.com/
tldr: it's a huge jump (like 90%++ of the effort) from even a polished prototype, to a ship-able box, let alone one sitting on a shelf in Walmart etc
disclosure: I merely subscribe to his email newsletter, but I too have some h/w ideas I'd love to make into products.
That executive is on ‘special projects’ now.
There are a lot of dev kits available for more advanced processors, if you need something more powerful than an arduino. Using them is pretty much the same as an arduino, a lot of the time.
You’ll likely have trouble with fabrication of whatever it is you are making. Hardware is very difficult and you’ll probably end up with low yields on the first things that you make, even with an experienced HW engineer. So make sure you account for that extra cost.
PS: STM's private (but free) Udemy courses were a great help getting me started. The written documentation online is aimed largely at professional electronic engineers and not so much at newbie hobbyists!
It isn't realistic that you are going to develop a product from nothing in your spare time. If you don't know anything about hardware, chances are your idea isn't even any good. You didn't even ask a proper question, presumably because that would ruin the fantasy. Are you telling me you can't google how to make a prototype?
Yes, that sounds pessimistic. So I will give you the real advice. If you actually want to bootstrap a hardware project in you spare time, do something that is realistic. Do an add-on board for an arduino or a raspberry pi, or something with an esp8266 that you design yourself and sell in small quantity on e.g. tindie.
How long is that going to take you? Depending on your software experience, maybe a hundred active hours. How many hours would be realistic on average every week your spare time, maybe five? So around six months if you include holidays. Now you can imagine how long your original idea would take.
Lots of people have been doing that and adding new features. Hardware is hard if you don't have the experience.
