Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

simonberens.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 427 posts

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

#161

Post by Bratmon »

dyauspitr wrote: post #158
cwal37 wrote: post #52

> As someone who generally stays out of politics, I didn’t know much about the incoming administration’s stance towards tariffs, though I don’t think anyone could have predicted such drastic hikes. I have an appreciation for very bright lamps, and the project is neat, but that stuck out to me. I'm always fascinated by people who both feel comfortable ignoring maybe the single most impactful society-determining appara…

All the main retailers like Walmart, Costco, Home Depot/Lowes etc. should band together and pull out the tariff costs as a separate payment line on the bill like sales tax. They shouldn’t include it in the bill and pull it out to be paid at time of sale.

The Trump administration has made it very clear on multiple occasions that any company that does that will find that every law that affects them and has some amount of administrative discretion will suddenly be interpreted maximally against them.

https://www.morningbrew.com/stories/2025/04/30/amazon-wont-b...

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

#162

Post by dghlsakjg »

bjt wrote: post #160
munificent wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump in 1987 in a full page ad in the New York Times: "It's time for us to end our vast deficits by making Japan, and others who can afford it, pay. Our world protection is worth hundreds of billions of dollars to these countries, and their stake in their protection is far greater than ours. ... Tax these wealthy nations, not America. End our huge deficits, reduce our taxes, and let America's economy grow unencumber…

Too harsh. Trump was president once before, and didn't impose 150% tariffs on anybody. You don't have to be a fucking moron to assume he'll behave similarly in his second presidency. Trump says a LOT of things that he doesn't end up doing.

He imposed quite a few high tariffs the first time, too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariffs_in_the_first_Trump_adm...

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

#163

Post by syncsynchalt »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #76
mmh0000 wrote: post #58

This is super interesting, and I'd actually be quite interested in buying a 60K-Lumen lamp... but not at $1200. Years ago, there was an HN article "You Need More Lumens"[1], which in turn led me down a rabbit hole. I ended up purchasing: 4 standard table lamps from Target, 28 2000-lumen Cree LEDs bulbs[2] and, 4 7-way splitters[3]. The end result is somewhere around 56,000 lumens. And I LOVE it. Makes me much happier…

Curious if LEDs can really match the black-body that is our sun (and therefore incandescents). I would get/build such a thing for my mental health, but I worry the LED illumination will be counter-productive.

Look for the CRI rating of bulbs that you buy. It's a measurement of how close to a blackbody spectrum the bulb is putting out, the highest fidelity being 100. Note that this is not the temperature measurement, and you can have e.g. 2700K or 5000K bulbs with high CRI.

Newer LED phosphors are typically 90+ CRI, and I commonly find 93 CRI bulbs available off the shelf.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index

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

#164

Post by fn-mote »

nemomarx wrote: post #154
EarlKing wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost was not the only issue addressed by OP.

Other than the back and forth / lead time issues on checking issues, what do you think a local manufacturer shop in the US would do better? If the takeaway was needing to specify stuff in the design phase earlier that's kind of a universal manufacturing lesson I think.

> what do you think a local manufacturer shop in the US would do better?

The post documents issues like some assembly workers stuffing so much wire into the post that not enough protruded to make a connection. I will hope that in the US the workers are paid enough that they notice/care that the result can be connected. Or the managers.

Do you want documented experiences of Chinese manufacturing repeatedly attempting to cut corners? Like substituting inferior goods to increase their profit margin even after the initial product line is running smoothly.

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

#165

Post by andershaig »

I have one of these - it's awesome, I love it and I think it's an incredible success for a first hardware product. My takeaway from reading this is that caring about building a great product made a huge difference in how your first 500 units landed. Now the next batch gets to come with all those learnings.

I'm sure there will be more challenges as well but as long as you keep focusing on the experience you're delivering, I'm sure you'll continue to get past them

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

#166

Post by landryraccoon »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #111
landryraccoon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one civilization is taking revenge on another I don’t think they would show that much nuance. For one thing, wouldn’t everyone claim they were against their old polis? How would the invaders have any idea who was an idiote? I just don’t believe it’s at all easy to avoid the fate of your nation , and I especially doubt that the politically ignorant have a better chance of avoiding that fate than the well informed.

I did say higher chance, not guaranteed to avoid it. The counter extermination was only 5% of Athens total population, or so historians say, so it seems like a lot of nuance was shown.

> The counter extermination was only 5% of Athens total population, or so historians say, so it seems like a lot of nuance was shown.

That fact alone doesn't demonstrate nuance. It's possible that 5% of the population was innocent and treated as scapegoats, or chosen randomly, or that anyone high profile regardless of guilt was chosen to die.

Unless there's data on who was actually innocent or guilty, the mere fact that extermination was selective doesn't mean it was in any way accurate.

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

#167

Post by [deleted] »

fn-mote wrote: post #164
nemomarx wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than the back and forth / lead time issues on checking issues, what do you think a local manufacturer shop in the US would do better? If the takeaway was needing to specify stuff in the design phase earlier that's kind of a universal manufacturing lesson I think.

> what do you think a local manufacturer shop in the US would do better? The post documents issues like some assembly workers stuffing so much wire into the post that not enough protruded to make a connection. I will hope that in the US the workers are paid enough that they notice/care that the result can be connected. Or the managers. Do you want documented experiences of Chinese manufacturing repeatedly attempting…

[deleted]

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

#168

Post by hollerith »

syncsynchalt wrote: post #163
JKCalhoun wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious if LEDs can really match the black-body that is our sun (and therefore incandescents). I would get/build such a thing for my mental health, but I worry the LED illumination will be counter-productive.

Look for the CRI rating of bulbs that you buy. It's a measurement of how close to a blackbody spectrum the bulb is putting out, the highest fidelity being 100. Note that this is not the temperature measurement, and you can have e.g. 2700K or 5000K bulbs with high CRI. Newer LED phosphors are typically 90+ CRI, and I commonly find 93 CRI bulbs available off the shelf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_inde…

Sunlight diverges significantly from a black-body spectrum because the atmosphere absorbs so many wavelengths.

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

#169

Post by ahnick »

unclad5968 wrote: post #131
cwal37 wrote: post #52

> As someone who generally stays out of politics, I didn’t know much about the incoming administration’s stance towards tariffs, though I don’t think anyone could have predicted such drastic hikes. I have an appreciation for very bright lamps, and the project is neat, but that stuck out to me. I'm always fascinated by people who both feel comfortable ignoring maybe the single most impactful society-determining appara…

> Everything is downstream of politics whether people want to recognize that or not I'd argue it's the other way around. Politics is downstream of everything else. In other words, it's easier to predict the politics of tomorrow based on the culture today than it is to predict the culture of tomorrow based on the politics of today. I'd go as far as to argue that political details are almost irrelevant except in the mo…

Exactly. How many times have we seen politics adapt to the new realities of the day? Everything is really downstream of technology.

A few examples:

- The Printing Press

- The Steam Engine

- Factories

- The Internal Combustion Engine

- The Internet

- "Smart" Phones

- Social Networks

- Bitcoin (the orange site loves this one)

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

#170

Post by beachy »

fn-mote wrote: post #164
nemomarx wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than the back and forth / lead time issues on checking issues, what do you think a local manufacturer shop in the US would do better? If the takeaway was needing to specify stuff in the design phase earlier that's kind of a universal manufacturing lesson I think.

> what do you think a local manufacturer shop in the US would do better? The post documents issues like some assembly workers stuffing so much wire into the post that not enough protruded to make a connection. I will hope that in the US the workers are paid enough that they notice/care that the result can be connected. Or the managers. Do you want documented experiences of Chinese manufacturing repeatedly attempting…

The example - the cable not extending far enough from the post to make a connection - was explained in the article as something he failed to specify properly. Not a failure of the manufacturing partner.

For this not to be a problem a worker would have to notice it and put two and two together, then investigate further and then persuade their supervisor to raise it with the customer and get a change made to the spec.

While enjoying your faith in the rigour and attention to detail of the US assembly line worker, I think this example tells exactly the story the article says it does - that you have to specify everything.

Post reply on HN