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Senic (YC S13) builds a laser distance meter for smartphones

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Re: Senic (YC S13) builds a laser distance meter for smartphones

#21

Post by Retric »

stephengillie wrote: post #19

Laser distance meters have been available to contractors for years. The major difference Senic adds, over Ryobi, Bosch & Fluke, is bluetooth & cloud syncing. I have always wondered how these devices actually calculate distances. I have experimented with Arduino & Parallax, and I've seen how the resolution of an ultrasonic distance sensor is directly affected by the processor speed -- the processor is merely counting…

You don't need a full processor for time of flight just a few transistors which can cheaply operate at ~10GHz. Speed of light / 10ghz = 3cm, but your talking round trip timings so ~1.5 cm is possible.

Multiple frequency phase-shift or Interferometry allows you to do even better.

Re: Senic (YC S13) builds a laser distance meter for smartphones

#22

Post by twald »

sethberg wrote: post #18
jansen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, all companies receive the same funding (as in base amount + x per founder up to 3)

I'd love to hear about a hardware team's experience in the YC program. Senic, how's it going?

Three months is a really short time for a hardware company which forced us to postpone sleeping until after Demo Day :) Money wise, it was kind of tough considering the cost for prototyping, 3d printing, flights from Germany etc. But I would say it gets you where you need to be if you're resourceful enough.

Re: Senic (YC S13) builds a laser distance meter for smartphones

#23

Post by stephengillie »

Retric wrote: post #21
stephengillie wrote: post #19

Laser distance meters have been available to contractors for years. The major difference Senic adds, over Ryobi, Bosch & Fluke, is bluetooth & cloud syncing. I have always wondered how these devices actually calculate distances. I have experimented with Arduino & Parallax, and I've seen how the resolution of an ultrasonic distance sensor is directly affected by the processor speed -- the processor is merely counting…

You don't need a full processor for time of flight just a few transistors which can cheaply operate at ~10GHz. Speed of light / 10ghz = 3cm, but your talking round trip timings so ~1.5 cm is possible. Multiple frequency phase-shift or Interferometry allows you to do even better.

Very good point -- you'd have these fast, expensive transistors (however they are packaged or not packaged) cache their data, then transfer it back to a slower, cheaper, main microprocessor, which would be doing the rest of the device's work.

Do you know where these 10 GHz transistors can be found?

Re: Senic (YC S13) builds a laser distance meter for smartphones

#24

Post by abthomson »

stephengillie wrote: post #19

Laser distance meters have been available to contractors for years. The major difference Senic adds, over Ryobi, Bosch & Fluke, is bluetooth & cloud syncing. I have always wondered how these devices actually calculate distances. I have experimented with Arduino & Parallax, and I've seen how the resolution of an ultrasonic distance sensor is directly affected by the processor speed -- the processor is merely counting…

For shorter distances, time-of-flight is not typically used. There's surprisingly little documentation about how these things work online though.

From http://ptd.leica-geosystems.com/en/Measuring-Techniques_4939...

"The laser diode emits light pulses with a defined wavelength and pulse repetition frequency. Due to the runtime difference between the internal reference path and the external measurement path, the light pulses, reflected on a target and received from the Leica DISTO™, have experienced a phase shift in relation to the light pulses received through the internal reference path. That phase difference between those two signals is proportional to the distance between instrument and target."

Re: Senic (YC S13) builds a laser distance meter for smartphones

#25

Post by twald »

DEinspanjer wrote: post #15

This project is interesting, and I preordered one because the last time I had to transcribe measurements of a room into modeling software, I was quite frustrated at the time and complexity of the task. One thing I'm not happy about is that I did not see any information about software currently in compatibility testing or plans to support specific software. I won't be satisfied if the device is delivered and I can't a…

Thanks for pre-ordering one of the devices. We come from the measurement Industry and were struggling with the same problems. We designed Senic to be the most flexible device it could be. We will give out a few apps for iOS and Android that relieve the biggest pain for people (mostly in the building industry) but will keep developing more applications (new apps, integration into existing software, Linux support etc.) If you have any suggestions or questions, please write us. We want to learn as much as possible and make it the best product on the market.

Re: Senic (YC S13) builds a laser distance meter for smartphones

#26

Post by [deleted] »

DEinspanjer wrote: post #15

This project is interesting, and I preordered one because the last time I had to transcribe measurements of a room into modeling software, I was quite frustrated at the time and complexity of the task. One thing I'm not happy about is that I did not see any information about software currently in compatibility testing or plans to support specific software. I won't be satisfied if the device is delivered and I can't a…

[deleted]

Re: Senic (YC S13) builds a laser distance meter for smartphones

#27

Post by twald »

tocomment wrote: post #14

It would be cool if it could give you the GPS coordinates of the point your measuring. That should be easy since the phone already has a GPS and a compass right?

yes, that's one of the things that our old customers were missing. Combining there measurements with geo-location, time, other sensors etc.

Re: Senic (YC S13) builds a laser distance meter for smartphones

#28

Post by jacquesm »

Retric wrote: post #21
stephengillie wrote: post #19

Laser distance meters have been available to contractors for years. The major difference Senic adds, over Ryobi, Bosch & Fluke, is bluetooth & cloud syncing. I have always wondered how these devices actually calculate distances. I have experimented with Arduino & Parallax, and I've seen how the resolution of an ultrasonic distance sensor is directly affected by the processor speed -- the processor is merely counting…

You don't need a full processor for time of flight just a few transistors which can cheaply operate at ~10GHz. Speed of light / 10ghz = 3cm, but your talking round trip timings so ~1.5 cm is possible. Multiple frequency phase-shift or Interferometry allows you to do even better.

It gets much more precise than that, it's the phase that matters not the time. Laser interferometers routinely measure microns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry

If they're not going for that kind of precision and range they could simply use ultrasound instead of a laser.

Range on this thing is impressive and precision is too: accurate up to 0.075 ", though they don't specify at what range that precision is still attainable. Typically with increased range on cheap devices you'll get an increase in absolute error so a percentage of the absolute distance would be expected. Maybe that's due to this being a laser device.

Interesting application of tech, a bluetooth enabled range finder could really be useful, especially for realtors that have to measure up a whole bunch of houses on a typical day and that need to keep track of what they measured.

Even more useful if the app would record audio along with the measurements made for later transcription.

Re: Senic (YC S13) builds a laser distance meter for smartphones

#29

Post by anateus »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #4

Useful product, although I'm dismayed its not a device that can build a point cloud of the whole room yet (and use said point cloud for rendering on a mobile device, as well as high-resolution measurements). Look what tech innovation has done to my expectations of products :( Room scanning point cloud with Kinect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhg3_ZgRK68 Boiler Room Point Cloud: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1l0X…

What you're looking for is Matterport: http://matterport.com/ (another YC company)

Re: Senic (YC S13) builds a laser distance meter for smartphones

#30

Post by chriskelley »

yan wrote: post #16

I'm going to preface this by saying this meter looks great and I realize that it's much easier to critique than encourage. Overall, I think it's an interesting implementation, but I felt the tone of the video did not match the nature of the product. The video feels produced towards something with more breadth and importance than essentially a contractor tool. Not that I'm downplaying what Senic built, but the present…

But that's advertising in a nutshell right? They're not using disinformation, they're simply setting a tone for how they wan't their company to be viewed. Coca-Cola makes sugar water, Kleenex makes tissue. But you don't push many units by downplaying your product.

I think the video does a great job of making them seem to take their product seriously. If enough people walk away with a similar impression, it will allow the company to expand within the market and be taken seriously in their new endeavors as well.

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