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Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

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671–680 of 726 posts

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#671

Building an inexpensive VOC gas sensor tuned for methyl sulfides, hydrogen sulfides and benzopyrroles with MQTT feature. Currently both price and power draw are too high. If it is business successful, I will add other MQTT enabled wireless devices.

Where would you expect to encounter these specific VOCs?

WCs, toilets, lavatories, restrooms, loos, johns, bogs, heads, khazis, commodes and such.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#672
post #463

We're building Hoopfit, the most advanced basketball shooting machine ever. It's battery powered and ultra portable so it can be used in your driveway hoop or you can take it to the park. It's powered by iPad Air so we heavily leverage the cameras for computer vision and AI to automatically track a players shooting stats and provide real time feedback on shooting form. I'm a software engineer but I have to admit, des…

How will you price it relative to a dr dish?

They have so many different models so it depends which model you compare it to :) We'll be competitive if not cheaper. We're still finalizing manufacturing and figuring out pricing but will likely need to start at a higher price and lower volume.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#673
I’m building novel GPS-enabled digital clocks, mostly for myself and family, but I also plan to sell a few on Etsy.

These never need setting or configuration since they grab time/date/location data from the satellites.

My first design is HanuKron, an automatic Hanukkah menorah for sale on Etsy http://HanuKron.com

LunaKron is up next. It shows the current phase of the moon. I am working to get the first prototype running today.

I have ideas for other clocks: a sunset chime; a clock that displays the current astrological sign; advent calendar, etc.

If you’ve got an idea and would like a unique clock made, I’d like to hear about it!

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#674
post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow! Would love to compare this to Flume! Been using it for some time but can’t quite catch one tiny leak I have

Interesting. Do you mean the leak is intermittent and Flume isn't able to detect it? I would love to know more.

Leak is happening every other day, sometimes twice a day. Flume detects it but I can’t find the source of the leak in the house. For many months now. Wondering if this is some bad reading or something else.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#675

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…

I've read the whole thread , I've looked at your product. It looks good , the materials seem fine , but have nobody heard about ISOFix? At least in europe is standard in new cars. The last baby seat that I used , manufactured by MassiCossi , had a better base than yours, with an adjustable aluminium leg and ISOFix links that kept it sturdly attached to the seat frame. It was not cheap too, around 500 euro I think. It…

Glad to hear you found the thread interesting.

Kioma does provide an Isofix detachable base, but in the U.S. it is called Latch. Same thing, different name. All U.S. infant child restraint systems (CRS) must either have Latch attachments permanently to the CRS or must provide a separate detachable Latch base.

So we do provide a Latch base. We don't do a base load-leg though, because there are some cool things done with rotation to dissipate energy :) This is one case where the EU regs specified an implementation rather than a result. Otherwise the EU (r129) regs are very well written.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#676

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…

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.

Thanks! We worked really hard on the design to be functionally useful while visually striking. We are fans of Bauhaus design.

Weight > The total weight is probably similar at 10 pounds even. The company you mentioned likes to quote partial system weight and doesn't include the weight of their canopies and inserts. We've already made the lightest car seat in the world (2017, carbon fiber) at 5 pounds all in, and one of the lessons we learned was that adding weight can be a good performance trade if done well.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#677

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.

How did you get into e-ink screen programming? I read here that e-inks are a market dominated by one company and that all the toolchain is owned by them, did you make your tools yourself?

Nice product, btw.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#678

We make stingray resistant booties! Stingray stings are painful and can be dangerous, and the fear of getting stung can take the enjoyment out of the beach. We’ve mainly targeted surfers so far, but they could be useful for any beach-goer. Definitely been dealing with the fact that “hardware is hard”. We had a design we were fairly happy with about two years ago, but have been struggling to get it manufactured since…

Where does one need to live to have this problem? I’ve been to the Gulf of Mexico countless times and I’ve literally never seen a stingray. I’m guessing they’re not native there?

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#679

We developed a sensor enabled flooring material that replaces the fiberglass structural layer in typical commercial flooring and it turns the floor into a massive readable surface. We use that to create a "spatial API" for applications to be developed for the built world. Our most popular application to date has been one that we developed with the Department of Energy where buildings that have our floor sensors integ…

This has absolutely piqued my interest. Just trying to think of solutions or entertainment options that are better suited with this than CV. Seems like CV would suit the DOE at a lesser cost. Although the privacy is of concern there.

Re: Ask HN: Any hardware startups here?

#680

It's a side income, as the market is way to small to make it a full time thing, but I've designed a digital score card for tabletop wargaming, with relevant tokens for each game (starting with the Warhammer franchises, Bolt Action, BattleTech, Marvel Crisis, Star Wars Legion, Malifaux, and ASOIAF). It's basically a few 7-seg displays, and buttons to tick them up or down, and smaller ones for wound tracking on specifi…

Man, that sounds friggin awesome

I'll go ahead and cyberstalk you, haha.

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