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Taking over a Dead IoT Company

blog.kchung.co

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Re: Taking over a Dead IoT Company

#201

Post by JAlexoid »

ColdHeat wrote: post #6

Hello, author here. Happy to answer any questions! My apologies for the downtime, I wasn't expecting much traffic today since I submitted the post to HN yesterday but I've started scaling my server now!

Why would you call it a good idea?

Even your calculations are way too optimistic.

Giving it little thought, I can say that NYC would have at best 10k sales of this item. In total... including any knockoffs.

The product may have scaled to be able to sell to London, Paris, Tokyo, Soul, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore. But this is the total addressable market for this item.

Let's say you have 2 engineers in US working on this full time - that's 500k in salaries(that includes all associated staff).

In NYC you would be able to charge $300, but no other major metro area has that kind of disposable income. In London the max price would be $170, Paris and others - $150... And boom, you can't even make a product to cover development costs.(not to mention any operating costs)

Cool art project and commercial viability clash perfectly here. This item is at best - an art piece, that should cost as such($3000+).

Re: Taking over a Dead IoT Company

#202

Post by JAlexoid »

ahaucnx wrote: post #147

Very interesting read. Based on our experience developing and manufactoring air quality monitors, making a customized PCB should be done as early as possible in the developing process. With easy to use editors (e.g. easyEDA) and cheap and fast PCB production/assembly (even for small quantities), there is no reason to use overized MCUs/mini computers like the Pi and expensive modules e.g. from Adafruit. Also, BOM comp…

All of this presumes that the person making these costs $0 per hour. Turning hobby into a business is rarely a successful scenario.

This screeches to a halt, the moment that you put into perspective. My typing this is equivalent to a few dollars, because most people here have at least $50 per hour engineers. Designing PCBs for existing modules(ex. ESP32) takes a very long time(and a lot of knowledge) and it's not just "put this chip here and have software figure it out".

Re: Taking over a Dead IoT Company

#203

Post by JAlexoid »

drakenot wrote: post #191
ahaucnx wrote: post #147

Very interesting read. Based on our experience developing and manufactoring air quality monitors, making a customized PCB should be done as early as possible in the developing process. With easy to use editors (e.g. easyEDA) and cheap and fast PCB production/assembly (even for small quantities), there is no reason to use overized MCUs/mini computers like the Pi and expensive modules e.g. from Adafruit. Also, BOM comp…

How difficult would it be to run a Linux operating system on this custom PCB, allow for Wifi connectivity, etc to provide for the features the product provided. Like the wifi-setup, it having internet connectivity, ability to poll an API, etc. Genuinely curious, as I've typically used things like the Pi for projects like this but have been genuinely curious what it would take to strip it down to something less powerf…

If you are OK with FreeRTOS instead, then it's even cheaper.

The cheapest you can get is about $5(Espressif assembled board), with full LED matrix controller.(that's the cost of manufacturing, though)

a full blown Linux stack is $10+

Re: Taking over a Dead IoT Company

#204

Post by Tangurena2 »

ColdHeat wrote: post #23
csunbird wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love the story! At one point, you are asking about the purpose of the giant hole in the backside of the display: The most plausible explanation is that, it is to allow air circulation within the device to prevent overheating.

Another explanation that I saw [0] was that it was for people to pop the back panel out. I think this is the most likely explanation but it didn't occur to me while working with the sign. I feel like a little notch would have been more appropriate for an actual product. [0] https://hackaday.com/2023/01/09/iot-archaeology-leads-to-api...

That particle board material would crumble too much if they used a notch for removing the back. I've seen other items in similar cases with the exact same drilled hole in the back cover. Many used staples to hold the back cover on as wood screws tend to damage the (other) particle board used to make the sides. The "designers" probably used it because they had some other item at home (stereo, TV, loudspeakers or clock-radio).

Re: Taking over a Dead IoT Company

#205

Post by klinquist »

xd1936 wrote: post #127
klinquist wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

heh, same. I built a little custom sign for my airbnb. Part of my home automation system: https://imgur.com/a/8A5IKV6

Very cool, and well executed! Do you have build details anywhere?

I don't, but it's essentially an Adafruit LED matrix + Pi + Adafruit PiHat.

I modified the adafruit python library to read lines from Redis

then I have another script that makes the API calls, has a REST server, etc and publishes text to reds queues.

Re: Taking over a Dead IoT Company

#207

Post by jagermo »

ColdHeat wrote: post #6

Hello, author here. Happy to answer any questions! My apologies for the downtime, I wasn't expecting much traffic today since I submitted the post to HN yesterday but I've started scaling my server now!

super interesting read, thank you for that.

Re: Taking over a Dead IoT Company

#208

Post by thathndude »

ahaucnx wrote: post #147

Very interesting read. Based on our experience developing and manufactoring air quality monitors, making a customized PCB should be done as early as possible in the developing process. With easy to use editors (e.g. easyEDA) and cheap and fast PCB production/assembly (even for small quantities), there is no reason to use overized MCUs/mini computers like the Pi and expensive modules e.g. from Adafruit. Also, BOM comp…

This further hits home the lack of business acumen of the founders. Let's assume BOM is an order of magnitude off -- 10x what it should be. That doesn't mean fixing the problem would 10x profits. It would merely reduce BOM by 10x. Thus, if you can sell the thing for $600, you actually 20x Profit!

Missed opportunity by this startup.

Re: Taking over a Dead IoT Company

#210

Post by spdustin »

tyingq wrote: post #36
seanw444 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you intentionally leave out Arduino from the "what to drive with" options?

Assuming largish, multi-color matrixes, and/or chained ones, yes. A ~10Mhz+ pixel clock, double-buffering, or just the size of the pixel map would strain most of those. This sign is 32x128 pixels, with each pixel taking data for RGB (on/off), with the PWM rate controlling brightness for each of the three colors. Though there are examples of using something beefier/faster like an ESP32. There's also in this case, the…

The ESP32 can handle a 64x64 HUB75 display pretty handily. Several of them, even. There’s a solid library out there [0] that just pumps pixels right from memory via the ESP32’s built-in DMA engine. Adafruit_GFX is the supported library for drawing primitives/text/bitmaps/etc., so you can re-use a lot of code that’s out there.

But let’s start with a simple, quick hit of dopamine: There’s a web-based installer [1] (it uses web serial, so Chrome is required) for a couple varieties of clock designed for a 64x64 HUB75 panel and an ESP32. $20 in parts from AliExpress if you already have a suitable 5V power supply.

To use that site, all you need is that aforementioned 5V power supply—4A or more recommended, 10A if you’re planning to drive a full panel of pixels on an outdoor panel at full brightness—a 64x64 HUB75 matrix panel, and an ESP32. Everything except power is run directly to the ESP32. Many panels even come with a 16-pin female IDC connector for the panel, with individual DuPont-style female connectors at the other end that you can just slip over the pins on the ESP32.

The source code for each clock (repo is linked from the web page) is a great starting point for making your own versions.

The panels, as others have mentioned, are shockingly cheap from the usual sources like eBay [2] or AliExpress (search for “HUB75 panel” or “p3 64x64”), but even those in a hurry can get a 64x64 panel for under $40 from Amazon [3].

[0]: https://github.com/mrfaptastic/ESP32-HUB75-MatrixPanel-DMA [1]: https://clockwise.page [2]: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=HUB75%20Panel [3]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B3F7WKJ1/

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