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A record-breaking year and what's next for product development
Explore the key trends shaping physical product development in 2025, backed by insights from Design 1st’s experience across 104 projects last year.
Design 1st
February 04, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
Breaking Records and Tracking Trends in 2025
Whether you are building, scaling, or refining a new product in 2025, Design 1st is here to help keep you on track. This newsletter is packed with insights you can use to accelerate your product development projects and navigate the fast-paced world of hardware.
In this issue:
The opportunities for smarter, faster product development have never been greater than in 2025. Explore the sections below to find the insights and resources that most matter to you. Let’s make this your most innovative year yet!
Breaking Records in 2024
Life’s not all about numbers, but we’re happy to say we broke our record for products delivered in a calendar year. Partnering with clients across 12 industries, Design 1st helped to deliver 104 innovative products and launch 14 first-to-market designs.
This banner year in productivity would not have been possible without our incredible team—big kudos to everyone from our product designers, engineers, manufacturing support, operations, and more. Together, we helped our clients with an integrated approach that brought smarter, faster solutions to life—from consumer products to cutting-edge AI devices. It was a genuine team effort.
Check out the graphic below to understand the breadth of industries we served and the impact made at Design 1st last year. Here’s what we designed in 2024:
The 104 physical products Design 1st worked on in 2024
Key Trends Shaping Product Development in 2025
After working on 100+ products last year, what did we learn?
Multiple trends are reshaping product development, but these three are driving the biggest impact right now:
AI at the Edge: Smarter devices like medical diagnostics and cobots embed AI for real-time insights and better performance.
Seamless Connectivity: Products now demand flawless Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Matter integration to meet user and certification standards.
Legacy Upgrades: Proven products are being modernized to reduce costs, add features, and gain a competitive edge.
Want to dive deeper into these trends and opportunities for 2025?
The 2025 Client Product Launches You Need to Know
We’re excited to spotlight a few recent client product launches. These six groundbreaking products drive innovation across multiple industries, including consumer, medical, and industrial robotics. Explore the stories below:
Design 1st client product launches in 2024
🧲Lūp Cable: A magnetic self-organizing USB-C cable that eliminates that rat’s nest of cable tangles. This was the fastest launch in Design 1st history—just 3 months!
🔦GeoSight: The mining industry's toughest 3D scanner—rugged, cable-free, and built for high-risk underground borehole mapping.
🌬️Calibre Bio: We helped commercialize R&D, creating a $500 wearable for real-time metabolic and respiratory measurement.
🛴 Levy Scooters: A plug-and-play hardware platform upgrade, making it easy for anyone to launch their own shared scooter fleet.
🤖 SwabBot™: Our robotic expertise helped create a collaborative robot (cobot) for precise pharmaceutical tank cleaning solutions.
🔬 Pavonis Diagnostics: We helped package AI-powered diagnostic intelligence into a portable, label-free protein detection device.
💨 Barnakl: A magnetic air purification system that transforms ceiling fans into air filters, using the Krane tool for effortless, step-free filter replacement.
Recent Review from Clutch
"Design 1st brought a fresh, innovative approach to our air sampler project, delivering a robust, dependable prototype with detailed 3D models and a full BOM. Their passion for engineering, problem-solving, and responsiveness made the process seamless from start to finish."
AI Tools to Accelerate Your Product Development
AI can’t replace creativity, but it can make your product development faster and smarter. Here are three tools to help you get ahead:
Design 1st Budget Tool: Custom ChatGPT tool to estimate and refine your product development budget.
Founder Odyssey: Validate your product idea with streamlined research and quantitative feedback.
ACCIO: AI-powered B2B sourcing tool with tailored search results, trend insights, and supplier connections.
IdeaAPE: Generate deep audience insights to refine product strategies and decision-making.
Pre-Launch: AI-powered product validation that helps predict customer demand before you manufacture and launch.
Wishing you a prosperous 2025!
From all of us at Design 1st, we wish you a productive, problem-solving, and innovative 2025. If you need help with your product idea, use the link below to schedule a free 30-minute consultation today.