[danso]

You really ought to consider doing a full-time job, or consistent free-lance, for long enough so that you can earn a reliable stream of part-time jobs in order to fund your main passion. Your software skills, as you've described them, are in high demand...but freelance/part-time requires additional effort to keep the pipeline of paying-jobs consistent.

Having not much experience in hardware, I'm just going to assume the stories are true, that hardware has generally a longer, more troubled slog toward viability than software. In that case, it seems very optimistic for you to think that you'd only need a few thousand dollars, and a few months, to execute properly. It may take much longer, and unless your idea has a short shelf-life, wouldn't it be more efficient to get the personal income issue settled so that you're more prepared for a longer development time for your hardware product?