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Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

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Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like 18 months or less based on the height and weight limit, completely impractical pricing

Lots of couples stair-step their kids. It’s not 18 months for a lot of families. It’s 4-6 years with hand-me-downs.

We actually sold our 2 year old nuna for nearly 75% of it's original price to another family. It had 10 year warranty and not recall/accident. I doubt how much these would go for secondhand. Which is not an issue if you stair-step the seat.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#152
I'm head of engineering at a local kiosk company (www.advancedkiosks.com) and we are doing fun things with very little resources! We recently implemented Google MediaPipe for presence detection. That was fun. We use custom printed microcontroller boards to control certain peripherals like LED strips and fans. We design in 3D print our own brackets. Things like that. The job requires a lot of creativity and knitting together of technologies. Pretty good fun. Beats writing yet another distributed CRUD SaaS app...though we do have a couple of those. I don't know if my employer qualifies as a startup, but we're pretty small and doing cool things.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of couples stair-step their kids. It’s not 18 months for a lot of families. It’s 4-6 years with hand-me-downs.

Baby seats have expiration dates and it’s scary how many parents fall for the emotional manipulation around that. It makes the used car seat market dead as well as hand-me-downs

>it’s scary how many parents fall for the emotional manipulation around that

Are you saying that the expiration dates are bogus? I knew that rated sports helmets and similar products had expirations, but not car seats. Maybe I'll go check the handed-down seat my son is using...

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#154
post #50

Took me awhile to remember what it was called, but TinyPilot [^0] by mtlynch is pretty cool. Michael sometimes writes about running a hardware business on his blog [^1]. Not exactly a startup, but a small business. [^0]: https://tinypilotkvm.com [^1]: https://mtlynch.io/posts

We're trialing TinyPilot right now at my employer. They're very easy to work with and are willing to work with small companies to find new use cases.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like 18 months or less based on the height and weight limit, completely impractical pricing

You totally underestimate how much baby fever tax first time parents are willing to pay using the logic "once in a lifetime only".

This is exactly what I meant when I said the price is justifiable. It is designed to be advertised as a premium product to an exclusive set of customers.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#156

I am making and selling an eink smart screen. It can display a google calendar. You can also point it to any url that serves an image. Is it okay to post a link? https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-cale... I am planning to release more applications for it and I am opening the platform for 3rd party applications.

Do you have docs on the API / integration mentioned here and on the website? Would be good to know in broad strokes before buying one. Sample apps and whatnot

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#157
At https://www.thethingsindustries.com and the open source LoRaWAN developer platform https://www.thethingsnetwork.org we used to do a lot of hardware ourselves: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/419277966/the-things-ne....

Now we do very little and only focus on the SaaS network management part of it. We still have this product www.genericnode.com

We now have 220 hardware partners that can do it much much better than us: https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/device-repository/

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baby seats have expiration dates and it’s scary how many parents fall for the emotional manipulation around that. It makes the used car seat market dead as well as hand-me-downs

>it’s scary how many parents fall for the emotional manipulation around that Are you saying that the expiration dates are bogus? I knew that rated sports helmets and similar products had expirations, but not car seats. Maybe I'll go check the handed-down seat my son is using...

They're basically bogus but put out because people don't bother inspecting the components and the makers really like selling additional ones.

And basically all thrift stores and other used good dealers won't touch them because of the perceived liability.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#159
We're building a closed loop artificial pancreas (think dialysis but for blood sugar) for hospital use -- the first of its kind in the US. There's a massive unmet need; all critical care patients, and all people with diabetes in the hospital could benefit. Studies have shown you can achieve a 30% reduction in mortality, and 25% reduction in length of stay, in addition to the hours per day you save nurses from managing blood sugar. It's a win/win/win on the lives saved/cost savings/nursing time saves, so we think it'll be pretty important when we hit the market!

Sad to see how few other hard healthtech people there are here, they seem to be few and far between.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#160

We make the world's best baby car seats. https://www.kioma.us Fatherly Magazine calls it "The Car Seat of the Future". It's been crash tested, flight inversion tested, flammability tested and mom tested. It is full of patented innovations to make kids safer and parenting more enjoyable. It required lots of material science, production techniques, supply chain adjustments, and a surprising amount of software (to model…

Ok, I'll bite. I don't want to expose my child to exotic glues, adhesives, PFAS, or any other foreign molecules in their car seat. How does your product stack up?

Why are you driving them inside a car that has literally all of these in the first place then?
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