Company: Roost | Industry: Consumer Electronics, IoT | Solution (Software Used): OrCAD X
“I personally have been using PCB design tools for 30 years, so in addition to being affordable and capable for our initial product release, I was looking very closely at the long-term growth potential of tools being in line with those of a fast growing startup. EMA provided a solution that easily met these requirements.”
About Roost
Roost is a smart home technology company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The company developed a patented connected platform that enables consumers to transform existing smoke and carbon monoxide alarms into smart devices using the Roost Smart Battery. By replacing a standard 9V battery, homeowners gain remote notifications, battery monitoring, alarm management, and emergency alerts through a mobile application, providing an affordable entry point into the smart home market.
Goals
Roost sought to develop the world’s first internet-connected 9V battery capable of transforming existing smoke alarms into smart devices. The company needed an affordable yet scalable engineering solution that would support the design of compact electronics, facilitate collaboration between electrical and mechanical teams, automate product data management, and establish an infrastructure capable of supporting future product development and company growth.
Challenges
The Roost Smart Battery presented several unique engineering challenges:
Compact PCB Layout
The product required two miniature circuit boards to fit inside a compact two-piece battery enclosure. This introduced additional design requirements including:
- Avoiding electrical interference issues
- Seamless collaboration between electrical and mechanical design groups
To accommodate the compact PCB layout, the Roost design team required design rule checking capabilities, imposed net limitations, and could not generate production-ready outputs compatible with professional PCB layout environments.
Streamlined Purchasing
The Roost team required a reliable method for synchronizing component data between engineering and manufacturing systems and an automated method for transferring the Bill or Materials (BOMs) to their Arena PLM System.
To address these challenges, Roost needed a design tool that fit within their budget constraints while meeting their technical requirements to produce a final accurate manufacturing output.
Results
By leveraging OrCAD X, Roost established an integrated product development workflow spanning schematic capture, PCB layout, BOM management, documentation, and PLM integration.
Streamlined ECAD/MCAD Collaboration
The ECAD/MCAD collaboration capabilities enabled accurate mechanical verification early in development, reducing design iterations and improving product quality. The ECAD/MCAD solution included with OrCAD X enabled seamless collaboration to SOLIDWORKS, ensuring both electrical and mechanical designs can be developed in parallel. By importing board outlines and keep-outs from the MCAD tools, the Roost design team was able to complete the PCB layout accurately, the first time. Similarly, the MCAD team could import the PCB layout to verify fit and mechanical functionality.
Advanced PLM Integration
Integration with Arena PLM eliminated duplicate data entry and improved consistency across engineering and manufacturing teams.
“With OrCAD and the integration to our Arena PLM tool, we are able to create a BOM component once, and it is the same BOM component used in Capture CIS, PCB Editor, and in Arena. These translate into real time-to-market advantages and will result in real operating cost improvements, providing our customers with the best products sooner,”
By adopting OrCAD X for their PCB development, an infrastructure was developed at Roost, allowing:
- Rapid growth for the hardware team
- Product design growth through increased efficiency
- Reduction of duplicate engineering support functions between hardware design, operations, and production
- Reduced common mistakes between functional team boundaries
- Reduced errors during manufacturing package creation
The result was reduced operational overhead, improved time-to-market, and a scalable design environment capable of supporting both current and future product development initiatives.
