[zrgiu_]

As a hardware maker on Kickstarter who is about to ship [1], I can sort-of agree with what the article is saying. Yes, one of the most important things is to find THE right partner in China, as that can easily make or break your product.

However, if you're afraid to build your own hardware (or at least drastically modify something pre-existent), you're severely limiting your flexibility and the areas where you can innovate. Maybe it worked well for Koalasafe, which sounds like could have very well be built as just a modified version of OpenWRT with a simple installer. But it certainly wouldn't work for more than half of the other hardware projects out there. Look at the most succesful projects - Pebble, Coolest Cooler, The Micro, Dash - none of these could have gotten where they are without custom firmware.

Going back to KoalaSafe - the $100k they raised may sound like a lot of money, but it's certainly not enough to develop the kind of hardware they are using. It's enough maybe for the software part and some prototypes. You have to set your expectations straight too, and I do believe they did the best anyone could do with that money. Congrats on delivering!

[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1635386542/anymote-home...

[listic]

I remember reading a postmortem about a failed hardware Kickstarter campaign (some photographic accessory: a flash remote?) and they said they contacted a professional manager from the industry who told them he wouldn't even try developing new hardware without a few million in funding, tens of millions being more common. So there, turns out making new hardware is really expensive.

[jkestner]

The project is the Triggertrap Ada. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/triggertrap/triggertrap...

The product could've easily been made on their budget. Their problem was outsourcing much of the development work, so they paid consultants too much money to make something that was overdesigned and way too expensive to make. When you're starting in hardware, you need to immerse yourself in the whole chain to be able to make good decisions. Shame, I liked the guys.

More practical discussion of their missteps: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/kickstart...

[stephen_g]

Wow, pretty bad advice they got... The little company I work for does high end microwave equipment (satellite terminals, RF conversion equipment, 5Gbps ultra-low-latency terrestrial links used for high frequency trading, etc.) and only turns over a few million dollars per year...

I would be surprised if a flash remote cost more than two or three hundred thousand to develop and productise, tool up and do a small production run, but that's assuming you have a team with the right skills. If you're paying contract design houses then I guess it would be a lot more expensive.

[starky]

Yup, it is amazing how quickly a few $10k tools, $3k tooling modifications, and sample shipping costs quickly adds up.

I laugh at most hardware Kickstarters because what they are trying to do is impossible with the funding levels you are going to get, so if it is going to be successful they should already have investors in which case they Kickstarter is just a cheap marketing campaign.

[ild]

Hardware involves certifications (unless you are small-time EBay vendor).

[boundlessdreamz]

I have used your app on HTC One. Liked it but unlocking the phone to use a remote app was more cumbersome than just grabbing the remote.

I like the approach Peel is taking. Show what's currently on TV and click on what you want to watch and it automatically switches the channel to that show. That's a real good use of the smartphone app, since flicking through channels on TV is really inefficient

[zrgiu_]

That's maybe a discussion for another medium, but we're actually updating the app right now with a customizable notification - so you have access to your commands from anywhere (including lockscreen) without any kind of intrusion. Also, we already have a floating remote (facebook chathead-style) that shows on top of the lockscreen. Best of all - you can configure it to show only while you're on the home wifi.

Since they make money only with advertising, Peel is only focused on TV-watching. While we're going to have the same feature soon (tv guide with auto-switching), AnyMote is meant to do let you do much more than just control a TV and Set Top Box. It has all kinds of wifi lights support, receivers, media centers, etc.

[servercobra]

I'd buy like 4 of these or any other IR bluetooth/Wifi adapters if they had an API so I could hook them up to my Echo. "Alexa, turn on South Park" (turns on TV, switches input, changes channel, etc etc).

[Vendan]

Personally, the approach Peel is taking irritates me. Forces me to select a tv antenna/cable profile thing, when that's useless to me. I have no antenna, I have no cable, I just use a roku with netflix. Why does it have to be so complicated when all I need is a power button and volume control?

[steven_pack]

Agree zrgiu - we were able to avoid the hardware design aspect, but the projects you mentioned certainly couldn't - that is their whole point of existing.