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Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

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Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#711

Post by kylixz »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #74
kylixz wrote: post #34

https://darkhive.ai small uncrewed aerial systems for public safety. Other companies still dominate the market and for good reason. We aim to bring US-made equipment that is competitive and affordable.

This is very cool! Is the intent that it'll have a bunch of modular stuff so law enforcement can equip it to do different tasks (e.g., different cameras or sensors)? Not sure if you ever saw the Axon (Taser) announcement that was quickly halted but they pitched doing something like this for schools with a taser attached. A bit dystopian but maybe useful given the awful number of school shootings and poor response tim…

The smaller unit we are building will have some different payload configs. We aren’t going for glass breakers and such based on feedback and what is most popular on the market (DJI). We want these to help mitigate the dangerous environments in public safety and be disposable. Like a frisbee. Shoot me an email! Happy to chat more.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#712

Post by franckl »

jgoodknight wrote: post #700
franckl wrote: post #217

We are building the world's highest temperature heat pump. It can reach 1000℉, when other commercial heat pumps usually reach a maximum of 320 ℉. It is a big deal because factories have to rely on polluting natural gas to produce their process heat. We estimate that it represents 3% of the world’s annual CO2 emissions and a $10B+ annual market opportunity. We are currently building a 5kW prototype at 480℉/250C to coo…

This is fascinating; I love hear pumps! Can you comment on why this might not have been done before? Maybe new materials make it possible, or it’s marginally more expensive but can be done with clean energy, which people have a premium on now?

Good question! I would say advances in numerical simulations, cheap renewable energy, and a lot of luck/perseverance (we would not have found this technology without spending 3 years on the first idea that didn't work out)

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#713

Post by moralestapia »

jtolly710 wrote: post #549

Small company - but we've have been building tools for Guitarists, centered around our LED display system. https://www.fretzealot.com Personally in charge of hardware, firmware, and too many of the things behind the scenes. About to crowdfund our V2 with hugely improved hardware and LEDs. Covid was fun with MCU shortages and years lead time, so now that we've survived that things are looking brighter. Some people lik…

Wow this is great, thanks for sharing!

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#716

Post by redat00 »

lumb63 wrote: post #627
redat00 wrote: post #602

At my company we're working on building smart boilers, where what's actually heating the water is servers. We then send customers computation to those boilers. This way of doing things allow us to eliminate a lot of carbon emission for computation that would otherwise have been done in classic hardware where the heat is not reused at all. You can learn more about it at https://qarnot.com !

That’s a neat idea. Have you considered expanding to other applications, like home heating? It occurs to me that there are a lot of systems that produce heat as a byproduct, and a lot of other places which want heat, and bringing the two together would be a great accomplishment of efficiency.

That's what we we're doing in the first place ! Only problem is that people usually don't heat there home in the summer.. Obviously.. Meaning the compute would not be available through long time periods..

However public pool still needs to be heated, and same goes for industry that requires hot water, there production won't just stop for multiples month of the year !

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#717

Post by redat00 »

LoganDark wrote: post #636
redat00 wrote: post #602

At my company we're working on building smart boilers, where what's actually heating the water is servers. We then send customers computation to those boilers. This way of doing things allow us to eliminate a lot of carbon emission for computation that would otherwise have been done in classic hardware where the heat is not reused at all. You can learn more about it at https://qarnot.com !

I remember seeing this and think it's absolutely awesome. If I were someone with such a boiler installed in my home, would I be able to run my own workloads on the device as well? I'd be kinda sad having that much compute but only being able to use it for heat.

You can use the compute as a client of the compute interface, but not really for your own boiler.

Something worth to point out : Those boilers are more for industry oriented usage, such as heating a pool, or industry that requires hot water, not really home-grade boiler.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#718

Post by fsagx »

farhadnoorzay wrote: post #672
fsagx wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will you price it relative to a dr dish?

They have so many different models so it depends which model you compare it to :) We'll be competitive if not cheaper. We're still finalizing manufacturing and figuring out pricing but will likely need to start at a higher price and lower volume.

for sure no one is carrying a dr dish around with them. Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#720

Post by starik36 »

distortionfield wrote: post #325
starik36 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any thought given to the fact that every startup in the past decade that attempted in-orbit manufacturing failed or had massive trouble?

I’m sure they haven’t thought about it at all /s Seriously, what kind of question is this? The entire point of engineering is to try things that are new or have not previously been done. Do you think SpaceX gave a lot of thought to prior failures around reusability?

My point is that all these companies over the years made grand proclamations until they hit the hard reality that manufacturing in space is either not feasible, not economic, not possible or too complicated. I am skeptical at this point.
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