Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product
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Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product
#2Author here, happy to answer any questions about the journey!
Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product
#3Well-written and valuable for insight whether you have similar personal experience or not.
As someone who does hardware and software as well, I relate to the challenges of making something you can hold; it's very easy to underestimate the challenge difference between the two.
Your Murphy's law references are spot on; I feel comforted reading I'm not the only one this happens to! Misery does love company, and it's important to hang on that I think, so that you don't lose hope :)
Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product
#4Author here, happy to answer any questions about the journey!
So just to confirm, the actual cause for the controls not working is still unknown to the reader but the reason the measurements didn't make sense was swapped labels?
Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product
#5Just a few slots down in my YC feed: the benefits of bright light
Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product
#6For someone who has no idea about light engineering or electronics if I stack two 25k Lm lamps next to each other does it make 50k Lm light?
I recently changed my car's headlamps to Chinese LED which claims to be about 37kLm and I don't know how much it is probably less than that.
Two of those lamps costee me around $24 on Amazon US (pretty sure under $10 in China).
What makes this $800+ ?
Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product
#7For someone who has no idea about light engineering or electronics if I stack two 25k Lm lamps next to each other does it make 50k Lm light? I recently changed my car's headlamps to Chinese LED which claims to be about 37kLm and I don't know how much it is probably less than that. Two of those lamps costee me around $24 on Amazon US (pretty sure under $10 in China). What makes this $800+ ?
Just to add context those are just dumb lamps and I acknowledge that the product here has a lot more features including IoT support and the ability to change Hue.
Is it the ability to change Hue that makes this expensive?
Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product
#8Author here, happy to answer any questions about the journey!
Do you have any recommendations for FCC/CE testing providers?
Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product
#9For someone who has no idea about light engineering or electronics if I stack two 25k Lm lamps next to each other does it make 50k Lm light? I recently changed my car's headlamps to Chinese LED which claims to be about 37kLm and I don't know how much it is probably less than that. Two of those lamps costee me around $24 on Amazon US (pretty sure under $10 in China). What makes this $800+ ?
For colours to look natural you need your white light to contain lots of different wave lengths. It’s usually measured as Ra. Artificially looking LEDs are easily 10x cheaper than photography grade LEDs. Also, this guy is probably paying taxes and handling stuff the proper legal way. If you order from Alibaba, chances are you’ll not be paying taxes. Plus if they offer a 5 year warranty, they probably need to keep some money around for repairs.
Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product
#10Author here, happy to answer any questions about the journey!
So just to confirm, the actual cause for the controls not working is still unknown to the reader but the reason the measurements didn't make sense was swapped labels?
The controls weren't working because we had wired them up according to the labels which were wrong (which is also why the measurements didn't make sense to us).