Project built in partnership with Gizmo Engineering
The Need
An international software company was looking for a marketing gadget that is also a real product: a physical button that sits on a desk and, with one press, triggers an action in the digital world — opening a task, alerting a team, booking a meeting room, or any other scenario the user defines. The requirements pulled in opposite directions: full internet connectivity, but battery life measured in months — no cable, no daily charging.
The Engineering Solution
The answer is a deep-sleep architecture: most of the time the device is almost completely off, drawing a negligible current, and the press itself is what wakes it. Within seconds it joins the network, sends the action to the server, blinks a confirmation — and goes back to sleep. It is a textbook case of choosing a microcontroller by power profile rather than processing power, and of designing the battery system around short bursts of activity — core disciplines of electronics development and embedded software. On the server side, each button is registered to the organization's account and fires its configured action — the cloud backbone every connected product needs, as covered in our software development resources. On the user side, defining a new action takes minutes: pick a button, pick a scenario — open a service ticket, update a task board, or message the team — and from that moment the physical press drives the whole flow. The device is meant to sit on hundreds of desks across an organization, so every cent of unit cost and every minute of maintenance is multiplied hundreds of times.
From Gadget to Manufactured Product
The design hides all the complexity under the lid: the product face is clean, with an embossed logo that eliminates a printing step — a choice straight out of thoughtful industrial design. The boards were produced in batches on an SMT line, and the enclosure was engineered so final assembly happens with a single snap fit, no screws.
The Lesson
In connected devices, the governing equation is energy per event: a product that sleeps well can afford to wake fast — and that is what turns a simple button into a product that lives on one battery for months.
Planning a connected device for your business? Contact the Projects House team and let's engineer it for real-world deployment.
Photos from the project
