This is really awesome. Great work.
Show HN: I built this notifying device – electronics, code, design, marketing
31–40 of 58 posts
Re: Show HN: I built this notifying device – electronics, code, design, marketing
#32Interesting. Seems similar—complete with slightly creepy base station—to Sen.se: https://sen.se/store/cookie/#mother (Though it appears Karotz is a separate thing: http://store.karotz.com/en_US/ ) There's also Electric Imp, but it's a bit more of a platform/DIY: https://electricimp.com/
Eww, the Sen.se is kinda out there. Thanks for the links though, I keep thinking there is a winner here somewhere.
Re: Show HN: I built this notifying device – electronics, code, design, marketing
#33You've got precious little runway left on that campaign, which launched in early March. What other promotion have you been doing to get people to buy in to Notifon?
That's the point, I think I launched the campaign too soon. I didn't had a good press coverage on the launch day. One week later, I got answers from Mashable and Techcrunch reporters, they seemed very interested by Notifon, until I sent them the campaign link (with only 3% of the financial goal reached).
Good luck with the rest of it. I like the idea and it's definitely clear you have the tech down.
Re: Show HN: I built this notifying device – electronics, code, design, marketing
#34Good first pass. But the page you link to needs copy-editing. There are a few sentences that don't have agreeing verb tenses. Not much, but it is there.
Re: Show HN: I built this notifying device – electronics, code, design, marketing
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
I expected this to work through either wifi or a very cheap USB dongle. The price point for a base station with one device should be 49.99 and each additional device should retail for 14.99. That's my honest opinion.
Thanks for the reply. This kind of price can be reach using Bluetooth Low Energy. Those chips are really cheap but as you might know, the range is too low.
BLE doesn't sound too bad? 100 meters according to WikiPedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_low_energy#Technical_...
This can of course be far from the effective distance, but since the data being communicated is so small it should be possible to keep sending the data until you can acknowledge that it has been received.
Also, you could look into creating a mesh network between all Notifons, so you could extend their range.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14136218/bluetooth-mesh-n...
Re: Show HN: I built this notifying device – electronics, code, design, marketing
#36This looks really cool. Just a side note, you might want to update your website to use screenshots from iOS 7. The current screenshots look a little dated because they are from iOS 5 or 6.
Re: Show HN: I built this notifying device – electronics, code, design, marketing
#37What do you need to do for FCC compliance? Is it all taken care of because you're using ZigBee?
Re: Show HN: I built this notifying device – electronics, code, design, marketing
#38Been working on overcoming some similar issues for another IoTs project.
The wireless chipsets for IoT are really limiting IoT because there are so many tradeoffs. Zigbee seems to have most of the technical challenges solved yet have such a high cost. Raw rf/radios require custom (error prone ) software stacks but are super cheap, wifi uses TONS of power and BLE is fairly limited in range even if it in theory can get better range... I think as soon as someone solves the chipset for the IoT, its going to be as simple as slapping I2C sensors/actuators and 3d printing mechanical parts for fast innovation.
Re: Show HN: I built this notifying device – electronics, code, design, marketing
#39That you managed to do everything is impressive, especially given the costs involved in production tooling for plastics. I assume you had to build a large quantity of PCBA's as well, to get your per unit cost down to something you could actually make a profit on, which means that was another large check you had to write for components and assembly. Can you give a ball park figure for how much you invested, bringing t…
Thank you. In fact, I haven't yet launch the mass production. I'm running a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo to have at least 400 preorders. As I have done a lot myself, I didn't had to invest so much. The only part that was done outside is the design of the plastic enclosure. I found a good designer in china, it cost me only 700$ for both Node and Hub with 3D printed prototype. In total, I think I spent about 1500…
Would you mind sharing the contact details of the designer & 3d printer with me (email in profile) ? Thanks!
Re: Show HN: I built this notifying device – electronics, code, design, marketing
#40You've made some interesting choices here. Lots of people here are questioning using a gateway, but I think this is a great choice for what you are doing, and required to get decent battery life. However, I think using ZigBee will end up pricing you our of most markets in the long run. Especially if you elected to go with the very pricing Xbee modules from Digi. These are developer friendly, but way to expensive. If you are serious about building this as a product, I would investigate alternative RF solutions, there a lot of good ones out there.
Check out the 6lowpan standard, which is specifically designed for this kind of communication. Dust Networks (http://www.linear.com/products/smartmesh_ip) has a good implementation. The other alternative would be to go with some of the proprietary RF standards, I know this sounds prohibitive at first but will end up saving you money on your BoM in the long run. Check out Atmel's LightWeight Mesh (http://www.atmel.com/tools/lightweight_mesh.aspx) which is based on 802.15.4, the same as Zigbee and BT, so if you want you can even run ZigBee on the same hardware. Linx also makes a great proprietary RF module (https://www.linxtechnologies.com/en/home) which is extremely cheap even at low quantities.
If you are using Xbee (which it seems like you are) then you are likely not using a SoC, so designing in a different radio may still be relatively easy.
PM me if you have any questions, I've been working on this IoT stuff for a while now. Congrats on the crowd funding campaign and best of luck.