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Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

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Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#231

Post by benburleson »

o_m wrote: post #198
huskyperv wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Most likely because you can't guarantee how it has been used once the first customer has used it. And that will lead to major legal problems if e.g. it has been in a crash and is now compromised, but nobody noticed, then failed to protect the 2nd child.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#232

Post by ajolly »

kfreds wrote: post #64

Tillitis AB Our first product is the TKey - a new kind of USB security key - which we have been selling since May. TKey is very likely the most open source USB security key in the world, as well as the first one to feature unconditional measured boot, which we use as a method for key derivation. Tillitis AB is a sister company of Mullvad VPN AB and Glasklar Teknik AB.

How does this compare to an onlykey?

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#233

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.

Side note:

People here often say that hardware is hard, but I think OSHW has the upside of de-risking it too (although I might be somewhat biased in my enthusiastic support of OSHW). If other people are producing it (from 3d printing at home to commercial manufacturing), you don't have manufacturing risks at all. The large costs and difficulty involved are probably mostly around manufacturing. Also by extending the development phase and working closely with customers you can find a product-market fit more naturally (and iterate if it fails... or just abandon it, I guess). If all goes wrong you've contributed an open source project...

The hard part of course in that case is convincing your users and any company that decides to manufacture your hardware to pay you. But not unheard of, see LumenPNP (https://opulo.io/products/lumenpnp)

My dream is a completely (or almost completely) open society, where most development is open and people collaborate more or less freely, and we have good mechanisms (and enough good sense individually?) to reward and invest in all this work.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#234

Post by roland35 »

o_m wrote: post #198
huskyperv wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The foam doesn't stay good for long, I think the car seats we had expired after 6-7 years?

Also car seats can't be used after a crash, even if visually they looked ok. Maybe they could be refurbished (new foam, etc), but obviously this is a liability concern and probably isn't worth it.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#235

Post by _benj »

SpaceL10n wrote: post #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 t…

So cool, and I love all the mentions of "fun" :-)

I remember implementing a "kiosk" but the way my employer wanted it was a full screen electron/react app running on a windows server. It was such a pain working around windows to grab full screen, start a GUI application and so on... all the while I kept thinking, this could be a "simple" Qt/QML app running on frame buffer on an RPI! Heck, we could even customize the startup screen, and it would be easily a magnitude faster with 1/100 the hardware!

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#236

Post by omgmajk »

We are attempting to make some sensors used in the automotive industry, I am currently tied to a client but will start up our internal development again during the autumn.

We work mostly with hardware, as in HIL and everything around a HIL - it's also these kind of sensors we are trying to figure out properly and create a product from.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#237

Post by benburleson »

fsckboy wrote: post #176
huskyperv wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

$1000 is too much for Target and Walmart, but for Beverly Hills, the Hamptons, etc. that's nothing. If your living room has space for a Peleton bike, this will fit right in.

You don't put your Peloton in your living room like some peasant if you're buying a $1000 car seat.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#238

Post by konschubert »

moffkalast wrote: post #226
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.

For the same price one can buy a 10.5" Galaxy Tab A8. But still, very cool. I wish e-paper wasn't expensive as hell and so dreadfully slow to update, it would cut down on energy usage in so many applications.

But the Galaxy Tab doesn't have a paper-like screen ;)

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#239

Post by barelyauser »

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…

What is the COP of a heat pump operating against this temperature gradient?

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#240

Post by Fyrezerk »

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…

>This customer is not only right, but is representative of a whole class of customers that you need to learn to win over.

That's not always true. If a certain subset of customers wants something ridiculous, they can either go elsewhere or learn to adapt. For better or worse, companies often times have the ability to drive public sentiment just as much as they have the responsibility to pander to it. When Apple removed headphone jacks from all their products they did so against a torrent of outrage, but fast forward 5-7 years and they absolutely made the right call. People learned to get over it.

Catering to bordering-on-harmfully-obsessive parents isn't always the best call.

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