Glossary

Key terms from Smart Tangibles — the vocabulary of connected-hardware product management, from unit economics and non-recurring engineering to the book's own concepts. Each term links to the chapter that introduces it.

A

Approve-Pivot-Kill

The book's validation verdict: every test of a concept ends in one of three decisions — approve it to the next stage, pivot the approach, or kill it — with no abstentions and no indefinite holds. Chapter 11 — Beyond Mockups

Autonomy ladder

A staged scale of how independently a connected device decides and acts, from simple monitoring up to closed-loop control — a way to place a product along the Sense-Decide-Act progression. Chapter 9 — The Data Payload

B

Bill of materials (BOM)

The itemized list of every component and material in a single unit. It anchors a hardware product's per-unit cost and the unit economics built on top of it. Chapter 3 — When Gadgets Dissolve Into Features

C

Churn

The fraction of customers lost each cycle. Its inverse sets expected customer lifetime, which makes churn the hinge of all recurring-revenue math. Chapter 22 — Product Valhalla

Commoditization

The slide by which a once-distinctive product becomes interchangeable with rivals' and loses its price premium — the erosion that connected, software-driven features are meant to resist. Chapter 4 — The Moat Erodes

Compute Locator

A companion tool that matches each device workload to edge, hub, or cloud by weighing latency, bandwidth, cost, and battery life. Companion tool: Compute Locator

Conspicuous consumption

Buying and displaying goods to signal taste, status, and belonging — Thorstein Veblen's 1899 term, which the book ties to premium packaging and the unboxing moment. Chapter 15 — First Impressions

Customer lifetime value (CLV)

The total profit a customer generates over the whole relationship with a brand. It justifies free updates and support that pay off in repeat purchases rather than a single sale. Chapter 13 — Lean Hardware

Cyber Resilience Act

The EU regulation setting baseline security requirements for connected products as a condition of market access. Chapter 18 — Connected and Exposed

D

Data flywheel

A self-reinforcing loop in which a product's use generates data that improves the product, which attracts more use and still more data. Chapter 7 — The Miniaturization Engine

E

Edge AI

Intelligence that runs on the device itself rather than in the cloud — one of the layers that turn static hardware into systems that keep evolving after sale. Chapter 4 — The Moat Erodes

Electrum

An open-source companion toolkit for the hardware-software boundary decision — taking a concept from a one-line idea through boundary definition to a gate review. Companion tool: Electrum

EU Battery Regulation

The 2023 EU regulation requiring portable-device batteries to be removable and replaceable by users with commonly available tools. Chapter 19 — The Bill Comes Due

EU Ecodesign

EU rules whose delegated acts will, by 2030, make minimum spare-parts availability and software-support periods binding requirements for CE marking. Chapter 19 — The Bill Comes Due

Externalities

Costs (or benefits) of a product borne by third parties or the environment rather than its maker or buyer — for example, the waste a device leaves behind. Chapter 1 — Why is Hardware THAT Hard?

F

FDA

The US Food and Drug Administration. A connected device that diagnoses or treats can fall under its (and the EU MDR's) medical-device oversight. Chapter 9 — The Data Payload

Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

The US consumer-protection regulator. Its security-failure settlements — as with Ring — can mean consumer refunds, mandated audits, forced data deletion, and reputational damage. Chapter 18 — Connected and Exposed

G

GDPR

The EU's General Data Protection Regulation, governing personal data — with stricter rules (Article 9) for the health and biometric data connected devices increasingly collect. Chapter 9 — The Data Payload

H

HIPAA

The US health-data privacy law that applies once a device's data crosses into medical or health-and-activity territory. Chapter 9 — The Data Payload

I

Internet of Things (IoT)

The network of connected devices — projected to grow from roughly 15 billion in 2020 to 75 billion by 2030 — pressuring every hardware category to become smart and connected. Introduction — Introduction

M

Minimum viable product (MVP)

A bare-minimum build that tests whether the market wants the core function. Easy to ship in software; far harder when the "minimum" still requires real hardware. Chapter 2 — Where Hardware Startups Trip

Moat (competitive)

A durable competitive advantage that keeps rivals from copying you. The book argues pure-hardware moats erode fast, while software augmentation and data build ones that last. Chapter 4 — The Moat Erodes

Mockup

A non-functional model made to test a product's look, feel, and desirability with users before committing to engineering. Chapter 2 — Where Hardware Startups Trip

N

Non-recurring engineering (NRE)

One-time, upfront engineering and setup costs to reach production — design, tooling, testing — that are largely sunk and scrapped if the product fails. Chapter 2 — Where Hardware Startups Trip

O

Over-the-air updates (OTA)

Delivering new firmware and features to a device remotely after sale, turning a fixed product into one that keeps improving in the field. Introduction — Introduction

P

Parts pairing

Electronically binding each replacement component to a specific device so firmware rejects unauthorized parts — a core mechanism behind repair restrictions. Chapter 19 — The Bill Comes Due

Perceptual map

A chart of how the market perceives competing products across two feature dimensions — reflecting the customer's mind, not the maker's intent. Chapter 14 — The Right to Compete

Planned obsolescence

Designing or supporting a product so it becomes outdated or unsupported on a schedule, nudging customers to upgrade — often recast as progress. Chapter 17 — The Swatch Moment

Positioning audit

A disciplined check of a product's market position that can catch a doomed concept before significant capital is committed. Chapter 14 — The Right to Compete

Positioning map

A view of where competing products sit in the customer's mind along the dimensions buyers actually care about — used to find a defensible gap before building. Chapter 14 — The Right to Compete

Pre-production unit

A near-final unit built on production-representative processes to surface the problems that appear only at manufacturing scale, before full launch. Chapter 10 — The Taste Gap

Predictive maintenance

Using a device's own sensor data to spot a failing machine before it breaks, so it can be serviced early rather than after a costly failure. Chapter 9 — The Data Payload

Proof of concept

An early experiment showing that a technical idea can work at all — before users, polish, or production enter the picture. Introduction — Introduction

Prototype

An early working build used to test design and integration. In hardware it is the first of several increasingly production-like validation stages. Introduction — Introduction

R

Recurring revenue

Income that repeats — subscriptions, services, consumables — rather than a one-time sale. The model that offsets hardware's capital intensity. Chapter 7 — The Miniaturization Engine

Right to repair

The principle, increasingly written into law, that owners should be able to fix what they bought — a counter-pressure to closed, unrepairable hardware. Chapter 19 — The Bill Comes Due

S

Second watershed

The book's term for how AI reshapes both sides of the hardware equation: compressing development before launch and compounding capability after it. Chapter 24 — The Second Watershed

Sense-Decide-Act loop

The progression from sensing (monitoring) to adding a decision layer (analysis) to adding actuation (control) — the spine of what a connected device does with data. Chapter 9 — The Data Payload

Sensor fusion

Combining inputs from multiple sensors — motion, biometric, vision — into a richer signal than any one sensor provides; the highest level of the interface stack. Chapter 5 — Leveraging the Interface

Sunk cost

Money already spent that cannot be recovered. In hardware a large share of development spend is sunk, which raises the stakes of every irreversible decision. Chapter 1 — Why is Hardware THAT Hard?

Switching cost

What a customer must give up to move to a competitor. Every shipped update quietly raises it and deepens loyalty. Chapter 22 — Product Valhalla

Systems engineering

The traditional discipline of mastering physical constraints and technical trade-offs to make hardware work — strong on the "how," historically distant from the customer's "why." Introduction — Introduction

T

Tangible Stack

The book's seven-layer architecture — consumables, services, platform, and more — for turning a one-and-done durable good into a source of recurring revenue. Chapter 21 — Beyond One-and-Done

Three axes of disruption

The three dimensions a killer feature moves along at once — user benefit, technology, and business model — that together can redefine a category. Chapter 16 — Killer Features

Tooling

The molds, jigs, and fixtures built to mass-produce a part. Expensive to commission, and worthless scrap if the design changes or the product dies. Chapter 1 — Why is Hardware THAT Hard?

Total cost of ownership (TCO)

The full lifetime cost of owning a device — service, logistics, downtime, support — not just its purchase price. A low device price can still hide a ruinous TCO. Chapter 13 — Lean Hardware

U

Unboxing

The customer's first physical encounter with a product out of its package — a designed moment of first impression, not an afterthought. Chapter 14 — The Right to Compete

Unit economics

Whether a single manufactured unit earns a profit once the cost to source, build, test, and ship it at scale is counted — the make-or-break math beneath any hardware business. Chapter 2 — Where Hardware Startups Trip

V

Vendor lock-in

Dependence on a single supplier, platform, or carrier that is costly to leave — a risk to weigh when choosing connectivity and components. Chapter 8 — The Connectivity Watershed

W

Waterfall (development)

A sequential build process in which each stage must finish before the next begins — well-suited to physical constraints, but resistant to iteration. Introduction — Introduction