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I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

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Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#351

Post by konschubert »

layer8 wrote: post #309
konschubert wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, you are right, I need to add a FAQ section to the page! - It weights about 400g including the wooden stand. - It draws very little power. I am not sure how much, but you can run it on a battery pack for quite a while. (The power draw is so low that some external battery packs think that nothing is connected and go into standby, which is annoying.) - Yes it uses WiFI. Not sure about WPA3 to be honest. - Private iC…

Thanks. Would you open-source the server software so one can self-host it? To be honest, I wouldn’t want to disclose my calendars to a third party.

I’m a worried about my IP being stolen, to be honest. I don’t have much of a moat besides the software which is quite solid, I think

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#352

Post by dom96 »

konschubert wrote: post #233
dom96 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And you have to pay for certification This is the thing that got me down and it seems to be the biggest barrier to entry for commercializing hardware products. The CE/FCC certification is killer.

CE is much worse than FCC. Maybe the US Market would work as a start? I can recommend Sunfire Testing for certification. They are used to working with hackers. If you want you can email me and I can maybe help with you with some advice.

Sadly I am in the UK. I guess I could certify it with the FCC anyway, but my aim was to sell locally initially.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#353

Post by andrewstuart2 »

giarc wrote: post #350
woadwarrior01 wrote: post #335

I just saw the Kickstarter[1]. The margins on these coat hangers look so good that it'd make NVIDIA blush. [1]: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/simonegiertz/coat-hinge...

Where is the COGS mentioned?

True, I think it's fair that these hangars are a bit more expensive, given they're clearly more niche (so no huge production runs are happening) and given the extra thickness you can clearly see just looking at them.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#354

Post by dom96 »

anymouse123456 wrote: post #292
konschubert wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CE is much worse than FCC. Maybe the US Market would work as a start? I can recommend Sunfire Testing for certification. They are used to working with hackers. If you want you can email me and I can maybe help with you with some advice.

We just had a great experience working with US TECH ( https://ustech-lab.com ). The price was reasonable (for what it is), the main contact was great, they were very fast and super flexible with our delays. I know they offer CE, but we just went for FCC on unintentional emitters. It wasn't nearly as challenging as we thought it would be. Expect to pay something around $2,500 to $5,000 depending on how labor intensive…

> Expect to pay something around $2,500 to $5,000

Yeah, that's what's discouraging. For something that is effectively a hobby project, spending many thousands of dollars is too much of a risk, when you're not even sure people will buy the thing you created.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#355

Post by prmoustache »

mgaunard wrote: post #305
konschubert wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the best ideas come when you make something that you really want for yourself. In 2020, I really wanted an eink calendar to hang on my wall. Still, many people built one for themselves and never turned it into a commercial product. It’s a lot of work and some of it is boring. And you have to pay for certification and worry about all that paperwork that comes with a business. It took me 3 years: https://shop.i…

For that price I can purchase 3 Google home smart displays which do all this and more. I guess the main advantage would be always-on with little to no power consumption, but all your pictures still have cables.

But those 3 google home smart displays are ugly, use watts of power and are spying on you.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#356

Post by Workaccount2 »

woadwarrior01 wrote: post #335

I just saw the Kickstarter[1]. The margins on these coat hangers look so good that it'd make NVIDIA blush. [1]: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/simonegiertz/coat-hinge...

The margins are likely not that great.

Small run hardware manufacturing is extremely expensive. It's not until you are doing volumes in the millions, the factory has invested in custom tooling, and you're buying material by the truckload straight from the manufacturer that prices really start to collapse.

Right now she is probably getting the steel off the shelf, the plastic pieces from a small shop, the forming from another small shop, and the construction done by hand. All expensive relatively speaking.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#357

Post by mattlondon »

y04nn wrote: post #349

I really like the idea, but it only makes sense if you custom build your hanger on the wall, that is, there is no commercially available (afaik) hanger that would make this useful. But this may be an opportunity for a second product and sell it with the coat hangers, and people would spend more on furniture than a coat hanger.

The rail is part of the Kickstarter

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#360

Post by pbhjpbhj »

gpt5 wrote: post #105
schlauerfox wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I'm sure she's patented it and amazon wouldn't want to get caught for intellectual property theft so will be diligent about policing sellers. They wouldn't want a bad reputation. And the customs office will destroy any imported product in violation of her patents.

You cannot patent a foldable coat hanger. The only thing she could patent is the specific mechanism she used to enable folding, but I doubt the copycats would use exactly the same design.

Sure you can patent a folding coat hanger, in fact someone did recently in granted US patent US1139964B2 [0].

If you look at the claim, which defines the scope of the monopoly, you'll see it is very long. That is because folding coat hangers were already invented and reinvented many times over. Some example published applications would be US4997115A [1], US5632422A.

I've not looked at the OP yet, but I'd be surprised if they had a new invention in this space; possible of course.

A lot of these things don't make it to be products because they're too expensive for the utility they provide.

[0] https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/0748815...

[1] https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/0231371...

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