If you've ever had to maintain firmware for more than 5 GPS tracker SKUs simultaneously, you know the pain. Different pin assignments, different peripherals, different wiring harnesses, different protocol parsers on the platform side.
I've been designing IoT tracking hardware for over 20 years, shipping to 100+ countries. The pattern that finally broke the cycle for us was modular I/O: one base PCB, one connector, swappable wiring harnesses that determine the device's function.
This post walks through how we allocate a 9-pin connector across 6 hardware modules.
The Problem: SKU Sprawl
A typical telematics provider needs hardware for:
