@Aidan_Zebertavage, excellent point/discussion and, as promised, here are 
's 2 
cents as this particular subject is very close to our biz.
This is, ultimately, the same question(s) that everyone in the industry will have to answer since the devices, nodes, sensors, motes (however you want to describe them) are the very âthingsâ that make the Internet of Things. Having thousands or even hundreds of thousands of these now available, it is impossible and, quite frankly, unnecessary to go thru all of them in this discussion. However, we must try to âcategorizeâ them as efficient and narrow as possible to at least begin making some sense of the discussion at hand.
At least for us, these start at two main categories: 1) DIYâs, or do-it-yourself (as you mentioned : âDeveloper/Makerâ boards) and 2) Off the Shelf, or OTS already made/manufactured by somebody else for mass/commercial consumption. Why would you choose one over the other, again, is a plethora of different applications, opinions, needs, technologies, etc, and with both there are PROs and CONs, again, depending on all above. We at , taking into consideration weâre a bootstrapped, family-owned, small biz IoT provider where our main strength and focus has been connectivity, have opted for the OTS / Off the Shelf kind for our upcoming IoT packagesâ solutions, and Iâll give a bit of as to why below to help in the discussion that impacts, not only OTS, but DIY as well; letâs start with the 2 main questions everyone should ask themselves 1st:
I. What is your intended âgoalâ for your IoT device/solution/project? One would be unwise to assume that everyone involved in an IoT project even knows the âwhyâ, and much less the âhowâ. And thatâs ok; weâre all learning here, but at least you need to ask yourself this question first, as honestly and efficiently as possible - the success (or lack of) your project depends on this very question and corresponding answer. The folks at Beecham Research found interesting conclusions as part of their Why IoT Projects Fail survey : ââŚmany IoT adopters [are] unclear what they want from IoTâŚâ and, as a result, are ââŚwasting time, energy and resources on projects that will ultimately be unsuccessfulâ. We know this to be true. In an industrial project we participated in some years ago we asked the question: âAre you involved in IoT because you see the value or because of FOMO?â. We never got an answer. Weâve heard through these last 2-4 years how thousands of dollars were invested in a âsoftware toolâ that couldnât âconnectâ well, or that âconnectivityâ was never taken into consideration and only at the last minute a radio of technology âxâ was âdropped inâ, or that the device needed to be âplugged inâ on an AC outlet and the project money was devoured by the UL certification alone - again, some things that look âtrivialâ and were not taken into consideration since the beginning, now are all examples of failed projects that didnât ask this first question and went ahead with just what they âknewâ (or thought they knew) about IoT. These are just some examples as well of why we decided to go OTS : knowing well in advanced our main goal was a commercial one geared towards solving specific, tangible and prioritized problems that we knew we didnât had the resources and/or know-how to do it ourselves. Of course, our view is âbiasedâ based on our specific needs and applications, and also doesnât mean that DIY isnât the way to go for these or other situations, but I think you get the idea here. Which leads me to the second questionâŚ
II.Once youâve asked yourself the question above, and have the answer and have gone DIY/OTS, do you know enough to ask the hard questions from a device standpoint? Ok, so you know what you want from an IoT device, you know how to solve it and what hardware to use. Whether DIY or OTS, and depending on application, now you need to ask yourself the next round of hard questions: is this IoT device/solution oriented towards the industry, or education, or science, household, or just a hobby? Once again, these 2nd round of questioning goes hand in hand with the 1st to determine what kind of device to pursue: DIY or OTS, and what to look for in each. For example, if its for educational purposes or as a hobby - or even commercial ones! - we know well the cost and awesome availability of DIYâs resources such as Arduinos, Raspberrys, etc have - not to mention the total control the developer have over these. But, again, if eventually the goal is to âsellâ these (or even if this wasnât the intended purpose and then that changed!) then this is exactly the point where things can go on the unforeseen territory.
How will they connect, 1st, at a local level and then at scale, say at a WAN or even LPWAN or even national level? What technology(ies) to pursue in said connection based on that purpose? Do I need to follow guidelines, certifications, licensing for that? Do I go wired or wireless? Do i know enough one way or the other? Once again, having a clear vision and answering all these questions as quickly, âhumbleâ and efficient as possible will help you determine what kind of device to pursue, help to sought, and/or âadjustâ quickly as your project goes along.
Going back to our specific case, we knew we were not ready (yet) to go DIY, so we opted for OTS as mentioned already, and then we knew we wanted to go the LPWAN (low power wide area network) for our intended solutions based on specific long range requirements - meaning we went wireless, which is what we know best 
To that effect, these are some of the hard questions we ask from manufacturers and solution providers, again, as mere example of the topic at hand and not the end-all-be-all guideline (some of these apply to both, DIY and OTS!):
a. If the device is âplugged inâ to the wall, is it/does it need to be UL/CE listed, certified (of course, depending on country/jurisdiction)?
b. If wireless, and meant for commercial use, is it FCC (in the case of US) Part 15 certified? If DIY and for commercial applications, you NEED to make sure you understand this!
c. If technology âXâ for wireless communication is used, is it proprietary or open-sourced? Does it require licensing and/or royalties for its use: personal, educational or commercial?
d. Is the device/technology available/mfr through just one vendor or multiple?
e. Is there any kind of âAllianceâ or local/national/global standardization âentityâ (i.e. 3GPP, IEEE, LoRa Alliance, etc) that governs the device?
f. Whether wired or wireless, what type of information (payload) needs to be sent, what speed, bandwidth, latency requirements?
g. If battery operated, can I use typical easily available ones such as AAA, AA, CR or coin? How much will the battery last? Can I use more effective batteries such as Li or even rechargeable? How much will these cost over time?
h. If wireless, do I understand the limits and capabilities of my radio technology of choice? Does it fit the range I need to pursue? Is it, again, a proprietary radio technology offered by just one vendor or multiple or open-sourced? How does it handle the level of data and requirements from point f above? Can it be upgraded easily without âRip-n-Replaceâ?
i. If wireless, do I know what kind of antenna is best, internal or external? How do I make sure these are of the correct band/kind? Do I know the most basic of antenna theory to make sure the deviceâs performance is not affected : i.e. frequency/band, VSWR, loss/gain, etc?
j. If wireless and OTS, do I get as much of these specs above mentioned from the mfr as possible (even DIY in some cases)? Are they going to support me well after the POS (Point of Sale)?
k. What precautions, guidelines and procedures you need in order to install these devices safely and legally, again, especially on the commercial side of things: indoor, outdoor specs needed (such as IPxy), cabling, grounding, etc (if wired, although even wireless hardware has wires!)?
l. Last, but not least, how secure IS my device? Does it come with embedded security of some kind or do I have to âaddâ it? How far does the security go: between device and access point/gateway, or between device and network or all the way to the application (aka end-to-end encryption)? What kind, is it proprietary or the likes of AES, TLS, HTTPS, etc? Can you build security on top of it?
Again, these are just âsomeâ of the really hard questions one has to ask; I know is a LOT to digest but make no mistake about it: if you donât pay attention to any/all of these - especially if in the business of scaling even at the educational or hobby level - you may very well end-up paying the same price as those mentioned before. Hope this adds a lot more âjuiceâ to the discussion and helps everyone achieve their particular IoT goals.
of the matter at hand! Well done!
âtake our timeâ before we go into full commercial production mode. And yet, in the case of software, we did in fact took the semi-DIY/hybrid path (aka Losant 
âcrawlâ before you can learn to 
âwalkââŚ
) . Also, at this point, you havenât needed/contemplated other connectivity solutions other than cellular and/or WiFi? Cheers! 