Bluetooth Mesh Product Development: In-house, Outsourcing or MESHLE?

The development of new products with Bluetooth Mesh is becoming an increasingly important and relevant topic for many manufacturers. The question is: when is it best to develop your own products internally, and when should you rely on external expertise?

The Question of Development

Once the decision to adopt Bluetooth Mesh technology has been made, there is probably an even more difficult question: who will develop the hardware, firmware and associated software? Primarily, three different approaches are possible:

1. The company relies on its own internal development
2. One contracts external partners for the development
3. One relies on existing solutions by licensing them

In-house Development of Bluetooth Mesh

Advantages of In-house Development

• Reliable software development: Given well-qualified employees, permanent staff lead to strong team cohesion and clean workflows.
• Development of internal know-how: If Bluetooth applications are developed in-house, this creates valuable internal know-how that can be efficiently extended to other products and product groups.
• Higher data protection: In-house development means that no sensitive data or company secrets leave the company.

Disadvantages of In-house Development

• Loss of time: Internal employees often have to learn about Bluetooth Mesh from scratch, or new qualified employees have to be recruited. The training usually takes half a year.
• Recruitment effort: The recruitment of suitable specialists is costly, and in many regions it is often impossible to find excellent specialists.
• High costs: In addition to recruiting, salaries, fringe benefits, vacation, sick leave, and office equipment all add up.

Outsourcing Bluetooth Mesh Development

Advantages of Outsourcing

• Time gain: No need to hire and train new internal employees.
• Cost reduction: Outsourcing to countries with lower cost of living can realize savings potential.
• Access to know-how: Developers with Bluetooth Mesh experience are often not available locally.
• Increase in quality: External service providers usually specialize in Bluetooth Mesh.
• Variable costs: Services are called up on demand and on a project basis.

Disadvantages of Outsourcing

• Higher communication effort: Different ways of working, cultural differences, and language barriers.
• Loss of internal know-how: By outsourcing, you do not build your own know-how internally.
• Dependence on external service provider: A dependency relationship arises.
• Risk of poor quality: The quality of the external service provider is often hard to assess.

Integration with MESHLE

Time-to-market can be drastically reduced by relying on pre-developed solutions. MESHLE GmbH was founded with exactly this in mind: to provide manufacturers with a ready-developed solution so that they do not have to initiate risky, expensive and time-consuming in-house developments or outsourcing projects.

The solution includes an Android and iOS app, a Bluetooth Mesh Wi-Fi gateway, skills for Amazon Alexa and Google Home, and much more. Advantages of a cooperation with MESHLE:

• Time-to-market in record time: Prototypes in days, products in a few months.
• Minimal development costs: No development projects – only minor adjustments.
• Access to excellent know-how: Absolute experts in Bluetooth Mesh.
• Highest quality: Exclusive specialization in Bluetooth Mesh.
• Scalable from prototype to series: From a single prototype to > 100,000 units.

Overview of Advantages and Disadvantages

Conclusion

By and large, you should be sure what your goal is. Do you have the necessary financial and time resources to position yourself as a software company in the long term? Only then should you consider setting up your own software development department.

However, if you want to realize your first products with Bluetooth Mesh with the least effort and risk, which should still be scalable without having to hire your own software developers, then feel free to take a look at our solution.