Important Safety Notice from WakeMate • Hacker News Board

Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

#101

Post by a5seo » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 3:04 AM UTC

dorianj wrote: post #98

kenjackson wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't think they were deflecting or blaming their source. Sounds like they were just saying that they did the proper due diligence, but there is still a problem. Apple did the same thing when they were giving tours of their radio-frequency test lab. It's a way of saying, "Yes, there's a problem, but it wasn't sheer negligence."

They obviously didn't do the proper due diligence. They did what was legally required, but they did not do what was necessary to avoid to avoid the business nightmare they're in now.

Seriously, how novel is a USB power brick? It's not like the thing was designed from scratch for the first time for them... It looks identical to the one you get with iPhones/iPads.

I would have assumed, as they probably did, that it is a very plain vanilla component and not belabored it. The art of shipping is to know when to take certain risks related to he product.

Overthinking a mass-produced commodity power brick isn't a smart use of time.

Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

#102

Post by jrockway » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 3:11 AM UTC

jackowayed wrote: post #80

jhferris3 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that they refunded most (all?) pre-order money?

They did. And even before they did, it was just $1 or $5 depending on when you preordered.

Interesting. The bitterness makes no sense to me. Hardware hacking is hard. Hackers are overly optimistic with deadlines. So WakeMate "is late"? So what?

Personally, I'm pretty happy with the Zeo, but I really respect the difficulty of task that the Wakemate folks took on. There is a little more intrinsic difficulty than making a website.

Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

#103

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 4:22 AM UTC

bugsy wrote: post #83

user24 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

darn those pesky environmental laws. edit: oh wait! We'll just dump it in Asia instead! Yay!

Exactly, and then it flows down the rivers into the Pacific ocean and swirls around to the US or sinks and poisons the fish that are caught and sold to US. Hm. (For those dislike any and all criticism of, well, China, a possible solution would be to require that trade partners implement and enforce similar levels of environmental regulations on manufacturing so that international trade is not just "exporting pollutio…

> a possible solution would be to require that trade partners implement and enforce similar levels of environmental regulations on manufacturing so that international trade is not just "exporting pollution".

I'd love that, but you do realize that it would stop 'outsourcing' pretty much dead in its tracks. (not a bad thing by itself).

This will also immediately be reflected in the sticker price of the goods.

Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

#104

Post by bmastenbrook » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 5:09 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #46

Dear electronics companies. I am willing to pay more money if you build your products in the US / Europe / Japan and actually do QA. (Actually, I have nothing against making stuff in China. But it seems that people outsource to China only to save money, and you get what you pay for. In this case, your house nearly burning down because someone wanted to save a fraction of a penny on capacitors, or something.) Example:…

"I am willing to pay more money if you build your products in the US / Europe / Japan"

No, you aren't. Well, you might be; I don't know what your means are, but you probably aren't.

Here's the problem: it's not just the extra 20% in cost of the product. Once you raise the product's price, fewer people will buy it. Hardware is a game of economies of scale. When you fall off the volume curve, the price goes up exponentially. Soon enough your 20% additional cost starts looking like 200% additional cost.

Furthermore, there are precious few companies doing high volume electronics manufacturing in the US. There's no guarantee that the quality you get is going to be any better than what you can find for less in China. That's not to say that you can't find something unbelievably crappy in China, but even good services in China cost much less than they do here in the US. It's not like you can buy better capacitors in here than you can in China. The ones you can get in China have the advantage of actually being available too, whereas buying even passives in the US can result in ridiculous lead times of 6 months or more.

Yes, you bought a Soekris router and you're very happy with it. I'm glad for you. It's also a completely different class of product. There's no lesson that can be drawn from the comparison between a Soekris board and a WRT54GL.

Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

#105

Post by bmastenbrook » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 5:12 AM UTC

prodigal_erik wrote: post #94

bugsy wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is basically correct, although the difference in cost wasn't all environmental obviously, there was also the advantage of using a labor pool with few rights compared to the US, poor health care, and other factors. On top of unit costs there is cost to stock in store, cost of the store's profit, etc. Let me ask you this, would you be willing to pay $10,000 for a computer Made in USA? Is the computer you are…

I don't think a vendor could convince me they didn't merely mark up a $1000 slave labor computer. In Collapse , Diamond wrote about sham "sustainable forestry" certifications from that self-regulated industry; I can't believe that wouldn't happen here as well. Even with orders of magnitude more money involved, Wall St. couldn't find honest appraisers, so what chance do we have?

It wouldn't be self-regulated; there are already laws about declaration of origin on products. The "Made in China" stickers on devices aren't there because the manufacturer is giving the vendor a discount for advertising the Chinese origin. They're there because customs can seize and destroy mislabeled products.

Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

#106

Post by yuhong » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 6:08 AM UTC

bugsy wrote: post #84

davidk0101 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you were basically saving $180 in exchange for a more polluted planet. Great exchange if I ever saw one.

Yes, that is basically correct, although the difference in cost wasn't all environmental obviously, there was also the advantage of using a labor pool with few rights compared to the US, poor health care, and other factors. On top of unit costs there is cost to stock in store, cost of the store's profit, etc. Let me ask you this, would you be willing to pay $10,000 for a computer Made in USA? Is the computer you are…

Yep, I know. I wonder what would the global income equality be like if it cost the same to make a component in China as in the USA? Would it really be 10x the cost?

Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

#107

Post by yuhong » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 6:33 AM UTC

9oliYQjP wrote: post #37

acgourley wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone working on a hardware startup I feel like I can only create a competitive price by sourcing and assembling overseas, and yet it seems like once you do that every turn is fraught with peril and counterfeit. It would be awesome to hear more advice or stories, if you have them.

This is par for the course. I have friends who have had to manage manufacturing processes in China. You have to be very specific, to the point of utter paranoia, in the instructions that you provide. Wherever, and I mean absolutely wherever a corner can be cut, it will be cut at this level. One friend had to get rubber household cleaning gloves made in China. He worked for a retailer and this would be for their store…

"Eventually my friend went and inspected the factory on a business trip only to find so many ethically questionable practices that he eventually decided to switch to another job." Why was that necessary? Has they tried to get them to switch to another source?

Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

#108

Post by btipling » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 7:55 AM UTC

Honestly though, can you imagine recovering from a video of your product smoldering and smoking, a product that people attach to their arms while sleeping?

After having seen that video that's all I'm ever going to think about when someone mentions the product. And can you imagine recommending it now to anyone? How do you think WakeMate has spread? Probably word of mouth, which if that channel hasn't closed forever will now come with a big bold asterisk.

I wish you guys the best. It's going to be hard work to not only improve your product, deal with the financials but recover consumer trust. A good idea might be some new awesome, but some what gimmicky feature, that will wow everyone.

Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

#109

Post by jackowayed » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 7:56 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #102

jackowayed wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did. And even before they did, it was just $1 or $5 depending on when you preordered.

Interesting. The bitterness makes no sense to me. Hardware hacking is hard. Hackers are overly optimistic with deadlines. So WakeMate "is late"? So what? Personally, I'm pretty happy with the Zeo, but I really respect the difficulty of task that the Wakemate folks took on. There is a little more intrinsic difficulty than making a website.

I was a little disappointed about how they strung us along. First the ship date was "Q1 2010". Then in January they said that that wasn't going to happen. A few months later they said that they shipped to super-early preorderers and:

"The next batch of units will ship no later July 30th, 2010. Based on your pre-order date (01/19/2010), you should expect your WakeMate no later than 07/30/2010, but probably significantly sooner."

Coincidentally, that was April 1st.

Then in August they said we'd be getting them in September.

In the end, it took overnight shipping to get them to some people by Christmas.

I understand and accepted that it would be ready when it was ready, but I can definitely see how hearing "Soon" for a year would disappoint people.

Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

#110

Post by mgrouchy » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 12:53 PM UTC

cma wrote: post #96

mrerrormessage wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps they could take more responsibility, but they certainly aren't worse than Apple. Remember how Apple was very hush-hush about the exploding/fire-catching Macbook batteries? That seems a more apples-to-apples comparison to a product that was sourced upstream. Notice how Apple didn't do a full recall, they just hoped people wouldn't notice. Points to wakemate for a courageous recall on one report!

Somehow, a superheated device velcroed to your arm going off while you sleep in bed seems a little more serious than a phone getting poor reception.

It will be pretty weird to try to sleep with the wake mate plugged in while it was on your arm(and very uncomfortable). Also he is talking about MacBook batteries catching fire, not antennagate, read the comment again.