“No More Connectors”: A Product Development Project collaboration between Vaisala and Aalto University

In the 2025–2026 Product Development Project (PdP) with Aalto Design Factory, Vaisala invited a multidisciplinary student team to tackle a very concrete field challenge: how probes connect to host devices. Under the theme “No More Connectors”, the project explored how data and power could be transferred without traditional connectors, while making the user experience faster, simpler and more reliable.

The brief was grounded in familiar issues from demanding environments: a large variety of connector and cable types, vulnerability to rust and corrosion, and usability challenges where users must carefully align, orient and sometimes twist connectors in difficult locations. The question to students was straightforward but ambitious: what if we would not need those connectors at all?

To address this, Vaisala worked with a multidisciplinary, international team: seven Aalto University students and three students from Universidad del Desarrollo in Chile. Their expertise covered mechatronics, electronics and digital systems, industrial and mechanical engineering, digital interaction design, industrial design, communications engineering, business, economics and sustainable entrepreneurship. Over eight months, they combined technology scouting, concepting, prototyping and usability thinking, supported by experts from across Vaisala.

The project started in September 2025 with challenge pitches and team selection at Aalto Design Factory, followed by the intensive PD6 workshop, where the entire project arc was simulated in just six hours. This sprint helped align on the challenge and scope and has again proven valuable enough that we can use PD6 as a tool in our own product development work. The collaboration then continued with weekly online check‑ins, visits to Vaisala Headquarters and hands‑on sessions at Design Factory.

Midway through, the team presented their work at the PdP Halfway Show'n'tell and at a Vaisala halfway review, where broader feedback helped narrow several promising directions into one main concept for the final phase. Throughout the project, the team researched and tested various solutions for connector-free power and data transfer, refining the concept iteratively until implementing a working prototype. The project concluded in May 2026 at Vaisala's R&D Open House in Vantaa and the PdP Final Gala, where the students showcased their final "No More Connectors" solution – a future‑oriented platform concept that can inform upcoming product development.

For Product Manager Nevon Mansour and Product and Package Design Specialist Noe Anttonen, the collaboration once again demonstrated why PdP is a valuable format for Vaisala: it provides a low‑risk innovation environment, brings in fresh perspectives on real‑life challenges, sharpens how we frame focused and concrete briefs, and serves as a gateway to future talent. Beyond the final concept, the “No More Connectors” PdP project has delivered new ideas, methods and relationships that will continue to benefit Vaisala’s product development in the years to come.