OK, so obviously this is not really about barriers to entry for hardware startups at all but is a puff piece written by a VC guy trying to promote something a firm he invests in is trying to sell. No need therefore to discuss actual barriers to entry for hardware startups (which are an interesting topic not covered at all in his article).

Instead let's look at his product, which was his actual article goal, for people to think about and discuss the product. It's a sort of plastic or aluminum wine bottle that has a LCD touch screen on the side and wifi. We can see exactly where this concept came from, it's the IoT model. Put wifi on everything, and if its large enough, put a touch screen on it as well. Plus some sensors, like the temperature sensor and a clock that pretty much costs nothing to add since most embedded chips have a temperature sensor in there already. So for each thing in everything: add wifi and touchscreens. At some point thing is wine since wine is part of everything. Thus this product's provenance is in asking "What can we do by pairing a wine bottle with wifi?" And so they answer this and make a product to answer that pairing. The design process and reason for being has nothing whatsoever to do with what anyone wants or would be or that would sell or be useful. It's about pairing every conceivable preexisting product with wifi and touchscreens and forcing them to do something, anything, and desperately hoping it will somehow catch on, no matter whether it makes sense, no matter whether it addresses any real problem or need.