Connecting Networked Devices

Chapter 4. The Physical Environment

At the prototyping stage, the physical environment your device operates in is fairly benign: an air-conditioned office or a lab. However, once out in the world, your final product may face an unforgiving environment: dust, vibration, exposure to elements, and even wear and tear from users.

Physical Environment

When designing the prototype, it’s important to consider where it will eventually be installed. Will it be inside or outside? If inside, what sort of environment will it face? While an office environment may be temperature regulated, a factory floor may suffer extremes of heat or cold. If installed outside, there will be a large variation in temperature over the course of a year, or even over the course of each day. The device needs to be able to cope with the expected maximum and minimum temperature extremes and rapid variations between extremes.

Beyond the temperature, your device may have to face other factors. Perhaps your device’s operating environment is subject to moisture and dust. If so, the device enclosure needs to be sealed against water ingress, with external physical ports covered for when they are not in use.

When your prototype has progressed beyond the breadboard stage, it’s important to take it to the physical environment in which it will normally operate.

Consider the Enclosure

Thanks to advanced manufacturing technology, it’s become easy, and scalable to a certain point, to manufacture one, one hundred, or even one ...