# Industrial-Grade Edge Computing Device for Smart Furniture Products
## 4 Solution/Candidate Product  
Since the project goal is to provide a product suitable for the sustainable development and life-cycle management of final houseware products with an emphasis on standardized components, using products from the standardized industrial form factor is a must-have requirement, as the manufacturer needs to maintain mechanical design and thermal solutions for as long as possible and to have this candidate product included in as many separate products as is practical. For the same reason, the commercial-grade solutions that were present in the proof-of-concept (first-generation smart furniture based on ESP32 device) products are not accepted, as their life cycle and the lack of an industry standard contribute to risk factors. Below is a Table 5 of all the industrial form factors that were initially considered, with their main characteristics and features/restrictions. All industry formats in Com Express and Q7 form factors were dismissed as they were too small and too compact to accommodate the needed expansions and connectors, and they lacked the needed power and (mostly) x86 compatibility. All ATX form factors were dismissed due to oversized dimensions, power and cooling requirements, and mostly unavailable SoC solutions. PC/104, JEDEC B11A, and Timepix4 were dismissed due to a lack of expandability. Compact PCI was not a form factor that was favorable due to its requirement to have an active board as an additional piece of equipment needed. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Form Factor** & \begin{tabular}{c} **Dim.** \\ **[mm]** \\ \end{tabular} & \begin{tabular}{c} **Z-Height** \\ **[mm]** \\ \end{tabular} & \begin{tabular}{c} **Max** \\ **TDP [W]** \\ \end{tabular} & \begin{tabular}{c} **Expansion** \\ **Support** \\ \end{tabular} & \
\begin{tabular}{c} **SOC** \\ \end{tabular} &
\begin{tabular}{c} **Key Features** \\ \end{tabular} \\ \hline
**1.8\({}^{\prime\prime}\)****SBC** & \(100\times 65\) & 10–15 & 5 & - & Ready & Ultra-compact design, minimal I/O footprint \\
**2.5\({}^{\prime\prime}\)****SBC** & \(100\times 70\) & 15 & 8 & MiniPCIe & Ready & Compact storage-optimized layout, moderate expansion \\
**3.5\({}^{\prime\prime}\)****SBC** & \(146\times 102\) & 20 & 10 & MiniPCIe+M-2 & Ready & Balanced size, standardized mounting, optimized IoT \\  & & & & & & & \\
**Nano-ITX** & \(120\times 120\) & 20–25 & 15 & MiniPCIe+M-2 & Support & Small footprint with good expansion options, suitable for embedded systems \\
**Mini-ITX** & \(170\times 170\) & 40–45 & 35 & MiniPCIe+M-2 & Support & Desktop-grade performance, PCIe expansion \\
**COM** & \(125\times 95\) & 20–25 & 45 & M.2 & Support & Modular design, high-performance computing, supports \\
**Express** & \(70\times 70\) & 12–15 & 12 & M.2 & Ready & Compact modular design, optimized for low-power ARM \\
**Q7** & \(90\times 96\) & 15 & 5 & - & Ready & Rugged FPGA security architecture, industrial-grade \\
**JEDEC** & \(132\times 77\) & 10 & 15 & - & Ready & Stress-optimized design, enhanced solder joint reliability \\
**B11A** & \(80\times 300\) & 25 & 20 & - & - & High-speed data acquisition (160 Gbps), elongated form factor \\
**Compact PCI** & \(100\times 160\) & 30 & 25 & MiniPCIe & Support & Backplane connectivity, hot-swappable modules \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 5: Initial candidates and their characteristics. The remaining standardized form factors were in the ITX segment. The candidates are presented in Table 6, which shows the selected characteristics of the different-size ITX form factor boards [22]. Considering the defined requirements, with a special emphasis on physical dimensions and thermal solutions (related to the thermal dissipation characteristics of the central processing unit), the Mini-ITX form factor was eliminated for being oversized in all dimensions and lacking SoC integration in most instances (although some products have SoC implementation), as well as lacking Mini-PCI or M.2 form factor communication expansion slots.