You need about $3k worth of equipment to start to effectively do basic hardware from home, but can maybe start for less than $1k. A scope and logic analyzer are

You need about $3k worth of equipment to start to effectively do basic hardware from home, but can maybe start for less than $1k. A scope and logic analyzer are a must, for dealing with misbehaving peripherals, so there’s around $900 just to get started. There’s other tools that may or may not be necessary depending on what you’re working on. But I’ve spent just under 3k in the last 2 years to do embedded work from home. That includes troubleshooting hardware, which may be someone else’s job. I also have a bunch of tools and materials to make it easier to breadboard and prototype. If you’re thinking about making the switch, the hard part is learning all the things you didn’t know you needed to know. That’s where having someone you can walk up to, wait until they look interruptable, then ask a really dumb question is priceless, and really hard to replicate remotely.