Objective: Practice the complete design process for an IoT product—from problem identification to conceptual model to interaction design.

The Challenge

Choose one scenario and design a connected product solution:

• Elderly Care: Design a system to help elderly people living alone stay safe while maintaining independence.
• Water Management: Design an IoT system for apartment complexes in cities like Bengaluru to reduce water waste.
• Small Business: Design a connected inventory system for kirana stores to track stock and prevent shortages.

Deliverables

• User Research: Who are the users? What problems do they face? What are their constraints (tech literacy, budget)?
• System Architecture: What sensors/actuators are needed? Where does processing happen (edge vs. cloud)?
• Conceptual Model: How will users understand how the system works? Draw diagrams showing device relationships.
• Interface Design: Sketch app screens, physical controls, notification patterns. How do users interact?
• Privacy & Security: What data is collected? Where is it stored? How is it protected?
• Failure Modes: What happens when Wi-Fi drops? When sensors fail? How does the system degrade gracefully?

Evaluation Criteria

Does your design solve a real problem? Is the conceptual model clear? Have you considered privacy? Does it work when connectivity fails? What's the total cost for users?

Objective: Learn to choose the right communication protocol for specific IoT use cases.

The Challenge

For each scenario below, justify which protocol(s) you'd use and why:

• Scenario A: Smart parking system with 500 sensors across a 2 km² city center. Sensors update every 30 seconds when cars enter/exit. Battery-powered, must last 3+ years.
• Scenario B: Home automation with 20 devices (lights, locks, sensors). Real-time control required. Always powered. Users expect instant response.
• Scenario C: Agricultural sensors in rural fields with no Wi-Fi. 50 sensors spread across 10 acres. Update hourly. Solar + battery powered.
• Scenario D: Industrial factory with 200 vibration sensors on machinery. Need sub-second latency for anomaly detection. Wired power available.

For Each Scenario, Document:

• Which protocol(s) you'd choose: MQTT, CoAP, LoRaWAN, Zigbee, HTTP/REST, or others
• Justification: Why this protocol fits the constraints (range, power, latency, cost)
• Trade-offs: What you're giving up by choosing this protocol
• Architecture: Sketch how devices, gateways, and cloud services connect

Learning Outcomes

Understand there's no one-size-fits-all protocol. Learn to evaluate trade-offs between power, range, latency, cost, and complexity.

Objective: Practice evaluating and mitigating privacy risks in IoT systems.

The Scenario

You're designing a fitness tracker for the Indian market. It monitors:

• Heart rate (continuous)
• Location via GPS (during workouts)
• Sleep patterns (nightly)
• Activity type (running, cycling, yoga)

Your Task

• Identify Privacy Risks: What sensitive information can be inferred? (health conditions, daily routines, home/work locations)
• Regulatory Compliance: How does India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act (2023) apply? What consent is required?
• Data Minimization: What data is absolutely necessary? What can be processed locally vs. sent to cloud?
• User Controls: Design privacy settings. What granular controls should users have?
• Transparency: How do you explain data collection in simple language? Draft a one-paragraph privacy notice.
• Technical Safeguards: Encryption? Anonymization? Data retention policies?

Bonus Challenge

How would your design change if this device was for children under 18? What additional protections are needed?

Objective: Learn to decide what processing happens at the edge vs. the cloud.

The Scenario

You're building a security camera system for residential complexes in Indian cities (think gated communities with 50-200 homes). Cameras need to:

• Detect people, vehicles, animals
• Recognize residents vs. strangers (optional facial recognition)
• Send alerts for suspicious activity
• Store footage for 30 days
• Allow residents to view live streams via mobile app

Design Decisions

For each function, decide: edge or cloud? Document your reasoning.

• Object Detection: Edge or cloud? Consider: 20 cameras × 24/7 video = massive bandwidth if sent to cloud.
• Facial Recognition: Privacy concerns with cloud storage. Edge device capability? Cost?
• Alert Logic: What triggers an alert? Where does this logic run?
• Storage: Local NVR? Cloud storage? Hybrid? Cost analysis for 50 cameras × 30 days.
• Model Updates: How do you deploy improved detection models to cameras in the field?

Calculate Costs

Estimate monthly costs for full-cloud vs. hybrid architecture. Consider: bandwidth, storage, compute, hardware.

Objective: Understand challenges of taking an IoT system from 10 devices to 10,000.

The Scenario

Your air quality monitor startup (from the projects section) was successful! Initial deployment: 50 monitors across Delhi NCR. Now orders are coming in:

• Municipal Corporation wants 5,000 units for city-wide deployment
• 3 other cities (Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata) want 2,000 units each
• Schools and offices: 3,000+ units

Architecture Challenges to Solve

• Device Management: How do you remotely manage 15,000+ devices? Firmware updates? Configuration changes?
• Data Ingestion: Your Raspberry Pi + InfluxDB setup handles 50 devices. Will it handle 15,000? What needs to change?
• API Rate Limits: If using ThingSpeak free tier (15-sec update limit), it won't scale. What's the solution?
• Provisioning: How do 15,000 devices get Wi-Fi credentials and cloud endpoints? Manual entry won't work.
• Monitoring: How do you know which devices are offline? Alerting for 15,000 devices?
• Costs: Cloud ingestion, storage, and compute costs at scale. Calculate monthly AWS/Azure bills.

Design the Production Architecture

Sketch a system architecture that handles 15,000+ devices. Consider: load balancers, message queues (Kafka?), time-series databases (InfluxDB, TimescaleDB), device management platforms.

Team Size: 4-6 people | Duration: 2-3 hours

The Brief

Your team has been hired to design an IoT system for managing waste collection in Indian cities. Current challenges:

• Garbage bins overflow before collection trucks arrive
• Collection routes are fixed, not optimized by actual fill levels
• No visibility into which areas need priority collection
• Fuel wasted visiting empty bins, overflows missed at full bins

Team Roles

• Product Manager: Defines requirements, prioritizes features, manages scope
• UX Designer: Designs interfaces for sanitation workers and city managers
• IoT Architect: Designs sensor network, connectivity, data flow
• Data Scientist: Designs route optimization algorithms
• Business Analyst: Calculates ROI, pricing model, go-to-market

Sprint Activities (30 min each)

• Phase 1 - Research: Identify stakeholders (sanitation workers, city officials, residents). Define success metrics.
• Phase 2 - Ideate: Brainstorm solutions. What sensors? What data? How often to update?
• Phase 3 - Design: Sketch system architecture. Design dashboards/apps.
• Phase 4 - Present: 10-minute pitch to "city officials" (instructor/other teams). Defend design decisions.

Evaluation

Did the team consider constraints (cost, battery life, connectivity)? Is the solution deployable in Indian cities? What's the ROI for municipalities?

Team Size: 3-5 people | Duration: 90 minutes

The Scenario

Your company deployed 10,000 smart locks across hotels in India. You receive reports:

• 50+ locks opened unexpectedly at 3 AM without authorized credentials
• Hotel security footage shows rooms were entered
• Logs show commands came from legitimate cloud servers
• Media gets wind of the story—"IoT Smart Locks Hacked"

Team Roles & Responsibilities

• Security Lead: Investigate how the breach happened. Analyze logs.
• Engineering: Design fix. How to patch 10,000 deployed devices?
• Product/Customer Success: Communicate with hotels. What do you tell them?
• Legal/Compliance: Regulatory requirements. Do you report to authorities?
• PR/Communications: Draft public statement. Handle media inquiries.

Discussion Points

• What likely went wrong? (Compromised API keys? Cloud misconfiguration? Supply chain attack?)
• How do you remotely patch devices without making things worse?
• How do you prevent this in future designs?
• What's the communication strategy to customers and media?

Learning Outcomes

Security isn't just technical—it's organizational. Practice cross-functional coordination during incidents.