

ASk HN: Anyone working on hardware for his/her startup? - rokhayakebe

99.99 percent of startups mentioned here are working on software products . I am sure there are a few of us who are creating hardwares. Could you please come fwd if you do not mind and share your concept, challenges etc...?
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SwellJoe
My first startup was a hardware company. I don't recommend it, unless your
problem can't be solved any other way. The vast majority of hardware is a
commodity, and if it isn't today, it will be in a year or two when Chinese
manufacturers get it figured out.

Someone else mentioned medical devices, and I definitely think that's a great
area. But most folks I meet who want to do hardware are going after the
consumer market, which is a _hard_ business to enter as a startup.

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stcredzero
I heard about some ex-soviet scientists who developed a little control box to
prevent backflow in big pipes (like at refineries.) They were able to sell $10
worth of hardware for something like $150,000 because of the money it would
save refineries.

Of course, what made it really valuable was the software in the box.

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dhbradshaw
Bluetooth enabled wearable thermometer. Chip design, convenience, measurement,
programming for devices are some of the challenges.

Anyone else in medical diagnostics?

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npk
A favorite startup of mine is bodybugg (<http://www.bodybugg.com/>). They
measure the flux of body heat and determine a person's caloric output. I built
some MEMS devices once and was juiced about building a body calorimeter. Too
bad I had my idea something like three years after bodybugg went to market :)

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tocomment
I didn't know that was possible. Is there a page that says how it works? I
don't want to watch their video.

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npk
I don't know for sure. My best guess is they have a calorimeter, a device
which measures the irradiance on a surface. The Bodybugg companies then does a
series of calibrations to convert the irradiance into the power the body
outputs. The power used per (second?) is integrated up over the course of a
day, and converted into calories.

Essentially, it's a fancy thermometer.

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bprater
Never heard of such a device. You really do learn something new everyday!

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cubicle67
Yeah, a friend of mine is.

He's built a video game console kit. hardware is complete, software mostly
done, teaching material still to come. What it aims to do is take you through
the steps required to build a game console, from how to get a signal on the
screen, how video memory and sound etc work right up to building games.

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breily
That sounds pretty cool - is there a url for it?

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cubicle67
Not yet. I'm trying to get him to get a blog up and running as I think a
number of people here would find what he's doing pretty interesting.

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RetroGamer
Ok I'll get a blog going with some screenshots/MPEGS and audio examples. If
you guys are interested.

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cstejerean
that would be great.

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Jax
Yeee!! Interesting stuff! Get the blog up and running soo!

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RetroGamer
Ok give me till monday and I will have a Blog running with regular updates.

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RetroGamer
Ok Here it is Guys will post a video of stuff running over the new couple of
days and some of the first pics of me generating the first Video from the PIC
Chip using a bunch of resistors.

<http://www.videogamekits.com/CD/Blog/>

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LiveWire
That is incredible from one pIC Chip. Thanks for the link.

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RetroGamer
Have just uploaded and MPEG to the blog at

<http://www.videogamekits.com/CD/Blog/>

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toni
Are there blogs (ala TechCrunch) that cover hardware startups? It will be
interesting to follow them regularly.

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dhotson
Not sure if it's quite what you mean, but have you seen:
<http://www.core77.com>

It's mostly about industrial design. There's often some cool stuff on there.

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toni
thanks for the link. It looks indeed cool. I am going to add it to my feed
subscriptions.

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noel_gomez
I want to build a better set top box because everything I have seen is either
tied to some service (apple, tivo, netflix), is not polished enough for mass
market (too many features in Linux MCE), or is too expensive > $500.

But alas I have no hardware skills so I will have to wait till someone else
does it. :-)

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babul
I'm actually trying to do that too. Also trying to create internet content
delivery and record viewing habits and statistics for a metrics/recommendation
engine.

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DaniFong
It's not really at a startup stage, but I'm trying to, with some friends and
burning man people, see if I can build/design an extremely lightweight and
cheap parabolic trough out of carbon fiber and mylar, for electric and
mechanical power generation. I'm iterating through to see if wind is a
blocking issue.

I also had some designs for a powered wheel with two degrees of freedom,
without a caster, to remove some of the angular momentum problems that classic
approaches face.

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cpr
No, but there are still a lot of opportunities out there which require
hardware.

One idea struck me the other day: why not use your iPhone (or Android phone)
as a home phone handset, when you're home and in Wifi range? That would
require a specialized base station (perhaps running a stripped-down Asterisk)
that recognized when your phone was in range, and would "ring" it on demand,
let you pick up your home phone any time, etc.

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augustus
We are working on some devices for the home of the future operated through the
Internet. I know a hardware guy so we are diversifying our product offerings.

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ph0rque
Somewhat similarly, my last startup (i-conserve.com) was developing a wireless
sensor network to automate energy conservation.

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mattmaroon
I would be if I were smart enough.

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rokhayakebe
Given the fact that the consumption of video and audio will only increase I
would like to see a remote control specially made for that purpose. It should
not be hard. Maybe it will be an improved mouse. I looked around, but could
not find anything that would satisfy my need. I may go on and get a prototype
built.

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SwellJoe
We bought one of these:

[http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/keyboards/keyboard/devices...](http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/keyboards/keyboard/devices/3848&cl=us,en)

Rocks pretty good for media. Can't play serious games with it, though. (My
girlfriend manages to use it for Portal.)

