What happens when you are unable to stream movies from your device to your TV? You simply watch it on your smartphone, or, if you are Sai Srinivas , you decide to make a streaming device of your own, called Teewe . And if you don't like gear-less vehicles, you go and build a bike that suits you, like Tarun Mehta and team of Ather Energy are building.From treading a path beset with challenges all along the way- investment, prototyping, talent, infrastructure -Indian hardware startups have come a long way. The recent investor interest in hardware space does seem to bode well though.Hardware startups Ather Energy, Teewe and Grey Orange Robotics have all raised funding from mainstream investors. Have Indian hardware startups come of age then?Angel investor Manish Singhal , who managed R&D for media streaming device Slingbox, feels Indian hardware startups can create world class hardware components but when it comes to product design, they aren’t able to envision the larger canvas. "India has lot of talent to develop very high end internals for a product. The entire Slingbox heart was designed here in Bangalore but when it came to product design that can really fire up the markets, that part I'm still not seeing getting done in India," says Singhal.The journey of the device from prototype to mass production is really the crux for hardware startups. While prototyping has become considerably easier in the last couple of years, at least for hardware startups in the consumer electronics space; taking the prototype to mass production is still a big challenge feels Sai Srinivas Kiran , co-founder of media streaming device startup Teewe. Kris Gopalakrishnan , co-founder of Infosys and an angel investor in startups, feels that there are a lot of stories about how difficult it is to start a hardware startup and that narrative needs to be changed. The number of people who are coming into this space and the number of people who are trained in doing hardcore hardware development will have to be increased, he adds. “Many a times, if you go beyond the IITs probably they don't even have good laboratories, good fabrication places. Even if a student wants to try something there isn't a facility that is available in the college so they will have to go elsewhere or settle for doing something in embedded systems, software and things like that,” says Gopalakrishnan.While building a startup that resonates 'what's trending', first time entrepreneurs ought to look where their passion lies rather than trying to ride the wave. “You need to be designing something that you first want...That probably will give you the most amount of confidence and motivation to build it,” says Tarun Mehta , co-founder of Ather Energy.Along with funding, ready access to good mentoring and subject experts are something hardware startups need and this is currently lacking in the country, feels Rohan Shravan , founder of Notion Ink . There is also a lack of investment in fundamentals like chip manufacturing and other such electronic component manufacturing in India, he adds. “The government as an entity should invest in these fundamentals and get these fundamentals up. If things are there, already available in India, then we can actually see more startups coming out,” says Rohan.Even though a few startups in the hardware space have received funding from venture capitalists (VCs), it is nothing compared to the funding activity in spaces like ecommerce and Internet.“With the way the industry is exploding, 2018 is going to be the best year for hardware startups. A lot of VCs are then going to think ‘Oh shit!’,” says Shravan.Coming of age or not, we’ve tried to address the elephant in the room and where this ecosystem is headed in India at the recently held ETtech meetup on hardware startups.Here is the video of the panel discussion held during the meetup. Ather Energy , founded by IIT-Madras alumi Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain, has developed an developed an electric scooter called the S340 which can charge as quick as your smartphone or sooner. The IIT-M incubated hardware startup recently raised an investment of around $12 million and is aiming for a commercial launch sometime in 2016.Mango Man Consumer Electronics, founded in 2013 by Sai Srinivas Kiran G and Shubh Malhotra, brought out its first product called Teewe-a media streaming dongle device for televisions, in 2014. This year, the Bangalore-based hardware startup has come out with the second iteration of its product called Teewe 2 and has also raised Rs.11 crore in funding In 2010 Notion Ink brought out its first tablet device, called Adam, with a Tegra-based SOC, even before the first iPads reached stores. Even though the company faced a few setbacks initially, it came out with its latest 2in1 tablet device called Cain, which according to Rohan is leading the sales in the country and plans to soon launch in the American market. The company meanwhile is already developing its next product under the name Eve. Cardiac Design Labs , founded in 2011 by Anand Madanagopal, is designing health-tech products aimed at cardiac care. The company has built its first device called MIRCaM, which helps with the monitoring and diagnosis of cardiac patients, and is currently on with its clinical trials across various hospitals and institutions in the country. Embrace Innovations , founded by Rahul Panicker and Jane Chen, has designed a low-cost infant incubator for developing countries. The company, which has its R&D and manufacturing center in Bangalore, has deployed over 200,000 of its units across the globe. Recently Embrace innovations also successfully concluded its Kickstarter campaign to launch its latest product, called Little Lotus, in the U.S market. Prijector , founded in 2013 by Sunil Coushik, has developed a wireless presentation tool for conference rooms that gets rid of connectivity and communication platform compatibility issues. The company already has enterprise customers in the U.S and India, and is currently in the process of developing more devices that will work in tandem with Prijector.Keep track of ETtech to know more about our future meetups.