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Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

simonberens.com

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Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#41

Post by alright2565 »

atif089 wrote: post #6

For 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+ ?

> claims

That's all there is to it. Take a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CJqAJ2LXw8&t=852.

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#43

Post by riotnrrd »

nicoburns wrote: post #17

Oh boy, I want one of these. This would absolutely perfect for winter depression (I suspect much better than the "SAD lamps" marketed for this purpose which are bright not even close to this bright). But £889 is a lot of money for a lamp!

If you're not afraid of DIY and it looking (much) uglier than these lamps, you can buy extremely bright "cob lights" and make something yourself: https://meaningness.com/sad-light-lumens

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#44

Post by sowbug »

Neywiny wrote: post #11
sberens wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Ah. A lesson from somebody who's built hardware that I'm sure you've now learned: make sure connectors can't plug into eachother unless they're supposed to. Even if they're different connectors, different keying, whatever, sometimes they can still be forced together.

This is good advice for robust design, but I swear, 9 times out of 10, you will be the one who keys it the wrong way during CAD layout.

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#45

Post by sberens »

christkv wrote: post #30
sberens wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 60k lumens now, and it draws 580W off the wall

Whats the expected life for the leds at that power draw level?

LEDs are pretty insane these days - the ones we use have an L90 (time until they hit 90% brightness) of >50,000 hours (17 years if you use it every day 8 hours a day).

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#47

Post by srtw »

sberens wrote: post #39
srtw wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious about the frequency of the diodes and do they pulse simultaneously? Quite often I can perceive flicker in moving objects indoors.

We use constant current reduction dimming so there's zero flicker!

That’s great to hear and a big plus, but I’m actually curious about the undimmed full brightness refresh rate of the LEDs.

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#48

Post by Joel_Mckay »

waerhert wrote: post #34

Great read, thanks for sharing this. I'm also coming from software and have recently started making some hardware for personal use in my free time. The idea of selling it as an actual product has occurred to me, but the thought of dealing with all the logistics quickly makes me reconsider. Congrats on your launch!

Once you get your design polished, than consider partnering with a good Contract Manufacturer to do a trial run. Some will handle the ISO, CE, IC, UL and FCC paperwork for you. Make sure your Patents and Trademarks are locked down in both the manufacturing and marketed countries, or some ambitious folks will try to rip you off later. If your projected volumes attract profit sharing offers, than expect 10% to 14% of wholesale cost as a normal ask.

Tooling up a production line for even a toothbrush is well over $1.5m to get the first unit off the line. Building these factories is a different skill set, and everybody is bad at it at first.

Note hardware has a 1:6 success rate compared with service companies.

Best of luck, =3

Re: Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

#49

Post by nebezb »

dvt wrote: post #36

Miss posts like this on HN, thanks for the great write-up! I tried to launch a hardware thing like 10 years ago[1], but couldn't raise enough money. Fun experience nonetheless. [1] https://www.pcgamer.com/introducing-gameref-the-anti-cheat-h...

This is a great idea. What was your biggest blocker?
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