>> Week 17, May 21: Invention, intellectual property, and income
Develop a plan for dissemination of your final project
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In Lima and other world cities with low temperatures during the whole year or in certain months, water heaters are very common. They can be found in different models, sizes, prices and technologies. In recent years, particularly, instant, electrical and compact heaters have become very common. However, the most of them depend on a inefficient electrical system in terms of electricity consumption. Those models with a efficient electrical system are very expensive and do not become popular.
In this context, I consider there is an opportunity to provide the users with an alternative that satisfies their needs, but an economical offer, so that they can afford better features of the product with the same budget. The idea of developing a water heater controlled by a microcontroller opens the door to a series of applications that may allow the final product to adapt to different requirements. I mean, it would be a product with a flexible design. This allows us to differentiate the demand taking into account variables such as: water consumption volume, time of use, connectivity, price, style and design. This may result in different product adaptations, such as:
›› Instantaneous water heaters
›› Small water heaters
›› Water boilers
›› Water heaters/ wall mounted DHW cylinders
›› Floorstanding cylinders
›› Hand dryers
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Another aspect to have into account is that electrical supply characteristics are not standardized. So, it is necessary to perform functioning tests for heaters’ systems in different scenarios.
Therefore, before starting the commercial dissemination stage, it is necessary to stabilize the product design and to define its operating parameters. In the following interactions, we will check if the implemented circuits include any currently valid patent. We will also be aware to identify if any development of the protocol qualifies to be patented. Therefore, our first prototype will be under a closed-source license.
Finally, taking into account the amount invested to develop our first water heater prototype as well as the retail prices of similar systems, or even with less features, we consider that there is a commercial margin that would justify the development of more prototypes. Thus, the design may be improved and stabilized, which will result in efficient, economic and environment-friendly heaters.
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