OtO Uses Digital Twin to Trim Development Costs

Founder and CEO Ali Sabti created OtO because he wanted a smart, affordable way to water the lawn and treat it without using harmful chemicals. “I was doing a lot of traveling, and I needed something easy to set up,” explains Sabti. “OtO waters the yard with precision and applies natural lawn care solutions, pet odor eliminators, and pest control treatments with little time and effort from the home owner.”

Sabti launched OtO in March 2020. As a SOLIDWORKS user, Sabti was happy to learn his company could participate in the SOLIDWORKS^® for Startups Program and get the support and necessary tools to build out his products at greatly reduced costs. In addition to 3D CAD software, the company also needed a cloud-based platform for managing remote engineering teams who could access files and discuss project issues from anywhere in the world. The SOLIDWORKS Startups Program checked all the boxes. “SOLIDWORKS and 3DEXPERIENCE enabled us to have one source of truth and find everything we need to make the appropriate parts,” notes Sabti.

Precise fluid dynamics and energy optimization were crucial to OtO’s development. The solar-powered device runs via mobile app and contains a great deal of mechanical and electrical software. SOLIDWORKS enabled the 15 OtO engineers to run simulations for fluids for finite element analysis along with model-based definitions and then send those drawings to suppliers and other stakeholders. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform’s collaboration features, especially the ability to access files from the cloud on any hardware device, along with digital prototyping in SOLIDWORKS helped the startup save money.

“The hardware space is very, very costly, very capital intensive, so you should do everything you can to reduce that, especially early development costs, because those are costly mistakes. And one great way to do that is to build a digital twin for prototyping and then validate the results with a physical prototype. This really helped us get to market faster and save a lot of the initial capital we raised to get OtO off the ground,” Sabti emphasizes.

OtO quickly amassed tens of thousands of customers across the U.S. and Canada. Sabti continues, “Now that we’re getting into a lot of the details in development, we’re still seeing the benefit, resolving issues, looking at alternative suppliers, and looking at feature changes to allow the product to operate under more severe conditions.”

He concludes, “Initially, you have speed to market. Once you’re in the market, it’s not enough for you to be first to market. You need to be the best. And that comes through iterations, through making sure you have robust quality and reliability processes in place. The 3DEXPERIENCE features and SOLIDWORKS tools help you to make sure you’re referring to the latest drawings or the latest part number, along with the ability to communicate that to the supplier rapidly and easily.”