The short answer
To Be Named Labs scopes hardware MVPs for founders across India, the US, the UK and Germany. For a connected device with a custom PCB, firmware, a functional enclosure and a basic companion app, engineering in India typically lands between ₹12 lakh and ₹45 lakh. Prototype parts sit on top at actuals. Tooling and certification come later and cost extra.
That range is wide on purpose. A single-board sensor that reports temperature over Wi-Fi and a battery-powered wearable with a display and BLE are both "IoT MVPs". They are not the same project. The rest of this post breaks the number down so you can place your product inside it.
Founders ask for one figure. Hardware doesn't work that way. An MVP is five disciplines that each carry their own cost curve, and they compound when one discipline gets it wrong and forces another to redo work.
| Stage | What you get | Typical range (India) | Typical time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discovery & architecture | Requirements, block diagram, part selection, risk list, BOM estimate | ₹1–3 L | 2–4 weeks |
| Electronics | Schematic, PCB layout, two board revisions, bring-up | ₹3–10 L | 6–12 weeks |
| Firmware | Drivers, application logic, power management, OTA, test firmware | ₹3–12 L | 6–14 weeks |
| Industrial design & enclosure | Form studies, CAD, printed or machined prototypes | ₹2–8 L | 4–10 weeks |
| App & cloud | Companion app, device provisioning, dashboard, backend | ₹3–12 L | 6–12 weeks |
| Prototype fabrication | PCB fab, assembly, components, enclosure parts — 5 to 20 units | ₹0.5–4 L at actuals | runs in parallel |
Stages overlap. A good team runs firmware against dev kits while the PCB is still in layout, and starts enclosure CAD once the board outline locks. That overlap is where a four-month project stays a four-month project.
Five things move cost more than anything else. If your product has two or more of these, plan for the upper half.
Batteries. Battery-powered means power budgets, sleep states, charging circuits, fuel gauging and thermal safety. A mains-powered device skips most of that. A wearable lives inside it.
Radios beyond Wi-Fi. BLE, LoRa, cellular and UHF RFID each bring antenna design, matching, range testing and, later, certification. We built ATSN, our assembly traceability scanner, around QR, barcode, UHF RFID and NFC on one shared PCB. Four modalities on one board is a real engineering problem. It is not a parts-list problem.
Sealing and environment. Kitchens, farms, factory floors and outdoor installs need ingress protection, condensation management and materials that survive UV and cleaning chemicals. A desk device doesn't.
Displays and motion. Screens add drivers, UI work and power draw. Motors add mechanical design, noise and wear.
Regulated domains. Medical, automotive and anything that touches safety brings documentation and testing overhead from day one.
Founders get surprised by three line items that come after a working MVP.
Injection mould tooling. Printed enclosures are fine for 20 units. At a few hundred, you need moulds. A simple two-part enclosure in aluminium tooling can start in the low single-digit lakhs. Steel tooling for a multi-part product with side actions runs much higher. Design for moulding early and you avoid paying for tooling twice.
Certification. Wireless products sold in India, the US or the EU need radio and safety compliance. Budget for pre-compliance testing during development, then lab fees for the formal run. Failing a lab test late is the most expensive way to find an antenna problem.
Pilot production. Your first 100 to 500 units cost more per unit than your thousandth. Setup charges, small-batch component pricing and yield losses all hit hardest at low volume.
Polishing the looks-like model too early. A beautiful shell around unproven electronics is a liability. We lock the foundation first — thermal, structural, electrical, firmware — then we go all the way on aesthetics. The order matters more than the budget.
Building every feature into v1. Every feature adds firmware states, test cases and failure modes. The cheapest MVP proves one core value claim to one customer type. Everything else waits.
Choosing exotic parts. A chip with a 26-week lead time or a single source stalls your pilot. We pick parts with distributor stock in India and at least one drop-in alternate.
Discovery. Skipping two weeks of architecture to "start building" is the single most expensive saving in hardware. Most budget overruns trace back to a decision nobody made in week one.
Test firmware and fixtures. You will need to test every unit you build. A test jig and test firmware cost little up front and save days on every batch.
The second board spin. Plan for two PCB revisions. Revision A finds the problems. Revision B fixes them. Budgeting for one is budgeting for a surprise.
Hourly billing rewards slow work. Fixed fee on an unclear scope rewards corner-cutting. For a build phase, milestone-gated pricing works best for both sides: each payment ties to a working deliverable, like a board that boots or firmware that passes its test plan.
Component and fabrication costs should pass through at actuals. If a studio marks up your BOM, the incentive to pick cheaper parts disappears.
Bring three things to the first conversation:
With those, a competent studio can give you a range inside a week and a fixed milestone plan after a short paid discovery. If someone quotes a fixed price after one call, they are guessing, and you will pay for the guess later.
Start from dev kits and off-the-shelf modules, prove the core function, then design a custom PCB only for what the kits cannot do. Keep the enclosure printed until the electronics stabilise. This sequence avoids paying for rework.
Most connected-device MVPs take three to six months from discovery to a working integrated prototype. Battery-powered, multi-radio or sealed products sit at the longer end.
Engineering labour costs significantly less in India, often a fraction of US rates for equivalent work. Component prices are similar worldwide. Tooling and small-batch assembly in India are competitive. The saving shows up mostly in engineering hours.
No. Components and fabrication should pass through at actual cost so every part choice stays transparent.
Not for internal testing or closed pilots in most cases. You need it before selling. Plan pre-compliance checks during development so the formal test passes first time.
Send us the one-line version of your product. We'll come back with a technical read: the hard parts, what to cut for v1, and a realistic path from prototype to field.
Consumer electronics architects. End-to-end.