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Ha! I met Scotty (the man featured in this video) in Bali, Indonesia about 1.5 years ago. We wound up crossing paths a few more times at a hackerspace after I moved to SF. As you can imagine, he's an incredibly focused but personable guy. Hope to see more videos like this!
As a Shenzhen local, I'd consider this video one of very few that present a 100% accurate view of the local hardware and market culture. It's very well done and everything he says is correct and that's unusual.
As an American, what differences do you see in the electronics community now that you're an expat in China?
Makes me wish you could buy a kit and assemble your own phone. We need someone like Arduino to come along for this kind of tech. Would be awesome to just pick up my old and faithful Hakko and solder some sensor to a phone.
Depending on what you're thinking of when you say "phone", you can do that. 3G modem, controller (either a microcontroller like Arduino or one of the smaller Linux-based ARM computers), various LCD options, and either touch or buttons for input. People have built variations on that. Here's an example using a Raspberry Pi, touchscreen, and custom-written UI: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/tytelli-a-diy-smartphone/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depending on what you're thinking of when you say "phone", you can do that. 3G modem, controller (either a microcontroller like Arduino or one of the smaller Linux-based ARM computers), various LCD options, and either touch or buttons for input. People have built variations on that. Here's an example using a Raspberry Pi, touchscreen, and custom-written UI: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/tytelli-a-diy-smartphone/
Do wonder how it would look if we replaced the B with that new Zero W.
As a Shenzhen local, I'd consider this video one of very few that present a 100% accurate view of the local hardware and market culture. It's very well done and everything he says is correct and that's unusual.
That's great to hear that it's accurate! As an American, what differences do you see in the electronics community now that you're an expat in China?
I've tried to fix the screen on an iPad and an iPhone. In both cases, I destroyed a ribbon cable connector and rendered the devices useless. I tried to follow the instructions, I tried to use proper tools and go as slowly as possible, and in both cases, the delicate surface mount connectors just turned into powder and flaked right off the board.
Why should phones break? It's not like they can't be made much tougher.[1] The real question is, why do people put up with such fragile phones? Is this an interim stage of the technology? Does this stop when iPhone N+1 comes out and the reaction is "yawn?"
So what does all that Shentzen parts retail look like when you're building something new? Can you go into those buildings with a bill of materials and come out ready to load your pick and place machine? Can you get boards fabbed one-off while you wait? Or is it all about repair and simple mods?
As a Shenzhen local, I'd consider this video one of very few that present a 100% accurate view of the local hardware and market culture. It's very well done and everything he says is correct and that's unusual.
That's great to hear that it's accurate! As an American, what differences do you see in the electronics community now that you're an expat in China?
So there's just this really different approach of "what can I make myself with the tools I own" versus "what professional services do I have access to, and which of my friends have factories with the right production equipment".
As a result, you see stark difference in quality of initial prototypes.
The flip side is that I think western makers/hackers are more focused on coming up with completely new ideas, with less of a focus on quality of execution, whereas a lot of chinese makers/hackers/manufacturers are more focused on iterative improvement - how can I be really clever to make something cheaper or easier to produce, that looks like a professional product. Both sides are very clever and creative, but focus on different aspects.