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Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

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Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#191

Post by lotsofpulp »

gambiting wrote: post #166
aquaphile wrote: post #23

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…

The price is insane man. The best of the best car seat according to lots of reviews(Cybex Anoris-T) is "only" £599, your thing is significantly more and I don't see why it's any better. Edit: sorry, let me rephrase that - not insane, just hard to justify.

I am always entertained by the extra amount people are willing to pay for the tiniest bit of risk reduction (or appearance thereof) for baby and kid related products.

For example, paying an extra $900 for a car seat, but then taking the kid on unnecessary car rides, which are magnitudes riskier than not taking the kid in a car. If you are willing to pay that much for such an immaterial decrease in risk, surely you should avoid taking the kid in a car unless absolutely necessary.

Although, I guess some of it is also showing what you can afford.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#192

Post by fsckboy »

gambiting wrote: post #160
Solvency wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

GP's asking a legitimate question about chemical outgassing etc. Parents have concerns like this, and some parents more than others.

let me go pedantic and teach: "The customer is always right" does not mean that no matter what a customer says, you give them a false smile, and pretend you agree with them.

"The customer is always right" means "you are hearing actual feedback from your target audience; somebody giving attention to your product is experiencing friction and wants information or reassurance, and is taking the time to let you know"

Do you know how valuable that is? Most people exposed to your product (ads, PR, etc.) just move along. Customers who don't like your product generally just disappear.

Free market research should not be ignored. This customer is not only right, but is representative of a whole class of customers that you need to learn to win over.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#193

Post by gnramires »

Wolley wrote: post #109

I've been working on a modular vacuum cleaner robot for around 5 years: https://wolley.se I have done it in my spare time but the dream is to be able to sell it as a kit and work on it full time.

Awesome. I had a similar idea. Maybe we could join forces one day?...

I thought about hacking and modding existing robots (I have one at home that has great hardware, but the software is terrible!).

Definitely set up a Liberapay account to get support (if you need economic support), although I guess most people would want to see proof of concept first.

One thing that would be great is to crowdsource the software, and maybe the training data for ML. The open source community got together and made the top chess and go engines with community GPU training, why not do the same for robot vacuums?

Good luck! :)

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#194

Post by sbdaman »

konschubert wrote: post #20

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.

I'll purchase once Outlook calendar is supported natively.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#195

Post by reachableceo »

I’m cofounder and CTO of a self funded , post revenue , pre profit hardware startup .

High altitude balloons that are payload agnostic. Working on the mass manufacturing process.

Make revenue through consulting and renting out the hardware lab when we aren’t using it.

Austin Texas

Charles@turnsys.com to connect .

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#196

Post by ryandrake »

StephenSmith wrote: post #31
DDickson wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this were a camera that identified when and for how long a software engineer showed up to the office and notified their employer of "unwanted behavior", how long would it take for that story to end up on the front page of this site and torn apart as invasive and infantilizing?

I guess I would say that subcontractors are more like hourly workers (who are time tracked meticulously in almost all industries) - not salaried like software engineers, who would deserve the respect and absence of tracking.

Thanks to both the parent for raising the ethical issues in this product and to OP for responding/addressing them. Our industry gets a lot better when we don't shy away from both asking and answering these kinds of questions!

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#197

Post by replicatorblog »

Our fund, Founder Collective, isn't hardware-focused, but we have backed a lot of transformative hardware startups – E.g., Whoop, Formlabs, Cruise, Desktop Metal, Kinsa, Running Tide.

We've also backed a bunch that haven't been able to make it work. It's a tantalizing space, but wickedly hard. That said, we remain ever optimistic and if you're building something in hardware, please reach out – joeflaherty@foundercollective.com

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#198

Post by o_m »

huskyperv wrote: post #125
esalman wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a bit skeptical dad but damn these look nice! The price is justifiable, although personally I'd hesitate because the seat is only good for about 2 years, and the seat seems to weigh higher than Nuna products which we got.

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

I'm the kind of guy that thinks I might be able to sell it for a good price, if it is high quality, after the use. Making the total money spent way less. But that begs the question, why not rent these out for 18 months at a time?

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#199

Post by gambiting »

fsckboy wrote: post #192
gambiting wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

GP's asking a legitimate question about chemical outgassing etc. Parents have concerns like this, and some parents more than others. let me go pedantic and teach: "The customer is always right" does not mean that no matter what a customer says, you give them a false smile, and pretend you agree with them. "The customer is always right" means "you are hearing actual feedback from your target audience; somebody giving…

>>GP's asking a legitimate question about chemical outgassing etc. Parents have concerns like this, and some parents more than others.

Obviously, and outgassing happens a lot in any car especially if it's brand new. So I'll ask again - why drive kids in a car at all if this concerns them this much?

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#200

Post by contingencies »

redband wrote: post #124

We're building an AI tool and die maker. Never officially launched on HN but was YC W21 ( https://atomic.industries ). I would argue this is one of the most challenging intersections of software and hardware in the world. We are building a vertically integrated system that can design and fabricate tooling (injection molds, etc).

Consider broadening your scope. Your offering appears to target a manufacturing stage where it its value-add is relatively capped: since tools, materials and processes are already specified. While generative specification of mould assemblies is powerful, we all know fabrication is the main pain point. Other process geometries such as jigs and fixtures can be similarly critical and deliver more value more quickly and this leads in to questions of flow (handling/storage/palletizing), even machine tool worktable systems.

Huge amounts of money are routinely lost on poor process investments due to invisible process alternatives. Be any part of a general solution there, and you're at the table before a factory is built, when it has resource allocation questions, to tune maintenance processes, or when it needs new revenue streams.

While it's hard to be all things to all people, simply having an integrated offering with an MVP in each major process engineering zone will help immensely. It's certainly more than the big players have tabled (who are addicted to consulting on the status quo), and would therefore set you up well for acquisition.

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