
Kickstarter vaporware of the day, Lifx edition - justincormack
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/09/18/kickstarter-vaporware-of-the-day-lifx-edition/
======
shadowmint
The problem here is that Kickstarter is complicity allowing this sort of scam-
project* to run.

They're not stupid. They know this is happening, and they're _hoping_ that
it'll all magically sort itself out; that people will be smart enough _not_ to
believe in the $50-you-get-a-lamborghini pledges.

I mean, it's a great scam right? If you're a con artist, you make your money
in one of two ways;

1) Steal someones money and make them too embarrassed to do anything about it
(classic porn on the credit card)

2) Steal a little bit of money from a lot of people, all of whom can't be
bothered to do anything about it. <\--- Kickstarter.

Realistically, this is going to continue until someone sues Kickstarter for
being complicit in mail fraud. That'll be a sad day, but you can already see
it coming on the horizon.

* Actual project may not be a scam, but honestly there's not a huge difference between a poorly organised project that takes everyones money, tries to make something and fails, and an actual scam. If you're selling something, you're a merchant. There are laws around that.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
I do not think Kickstarter projects can be viewed under legal framework of
merchants and consumer protection.

A project much more like an investment prospectus than it is a sales offering.

So I would be interested in knowing if the SEC has already had a look at the
Kickstarter legal setup, and if not, it may well be the next step (ie not
suing Kickstarter, but refering them to SEC)

The laws around prospectus and offerings are setup very explicitly to avoid
your situaton 2) - so I would be very surprised if kickstarter projects are
not somehow explicitly avoiding those regulations - or if they are in fact
compliant

~~~
AJ007
The worst case for kickstarter is that they fall under both consumer
protection laws and investment regulations.

There is no question that they fall under consumer protection laws, products
are being advertised and offered, and anyone can "buy" them. I'm sure the FTC
already has an open investigation or investigations.

If you create a kickstarter project, pull in $1m+, spend it all legitimately
and fail to deliver the project, you could end up being named in a civil suit.
In the future there will be people who lose their houses over this. Just
because you made the project in 2011 doesn't mean you won't get sued in 2014.

If you create a kickstarter project, pull in $1m+, spend it all
illegitimately, on personal expenses, expect to go to jail. I predict this
will happen to at least 1 person.

The larger question to me is what liability kickstarter themselves have.
Whatever that amount ends up being, I think they can absorb it as a cost of
doing business, as long as it remains on the civil side of the law.

I like kickstarter. So far I've stuck to using it for pen and paper RPGs,
something I know can be delivered on. I think the core concept around
kickstarter is going to radically change the world of consumer products. Its
just too new to have much of a reputation system yet (but its coming.) May be
kickstarter isn't the facebook/google of pre-funding projects. If they look
like they are going to take a big hit, be ready to step up.

As someone who designs business projects the whole thing sounds like a
personal nightmare to me. I know first hand how the simplest of projects on
paper can take 5-10x longer than estimated to complete. Add in bells and
whistles to make it look attractive to a bunch of people, ouch. Easier said
than done applies very much here.

------
coffeeaddicted
One of the first thing I do in Hacker News or Reddit when seeing sensational
headlines (cancer can be cured!) is checking the posts to find out what's
wrong with the claim. In most cases it's the highest voted comment. I think
Kickstarter would profit from a similar moderation system. Posts where users
can add flags like "will work" "won't work" and some voting system so you can
easily see the highest voted comment(s) with one of those flags. Or
alternatively a normal forum to allow real discussions about projects would
also be a major improvement. Although there needs to be a careful decision
then who can cleanup spam as you wouldn't want project moderators to allow
removing all critics without any consequences.

The currently used comment system there is just horribly insufficient - it's
basically impossible to have any real discussion there.

------
mtgx
The best thing Kickstarter could do to stop people from being disappointed by
getting a much worse product that they were expecting when they thought they
"paid for it", is to not allow the people behind the project to say stuff like
"for $99 you can get the product, too".

Basically, they shouldn't mention on their page at all that they will be
getting the product. So whether you're donating $1 or $100 or $1000, it's just
that - a _donation_ to the cause. You're not "buying" anything. That should
make things a lot more clear, although I expect the project donations to drop,
but probably better than for Kickstarter to get its reputation ruined forever
because most projects "don't deliver" the products people were "expecting",
when they thought they bought it or "pre-ordered" it.

~~~
Xylakant
But that's not what Kickstarter is about. Kickstarter is not a donation page,
why would I donate to someone who's trying to start an enterprise or a
product? I could imagine donating to an artist, but that's about it. Nobody
donated for my company either.

So Kickstarter is a "It would be awesome if this product came to existence and
I'm willing to buy the alpha version even if it doesn't exist yet and may
never exist" kind of thing. It's the pledge that I buy one of those, unseen
and unproven because it would be cool if I had one of those. You just need to
be aware of the risk and you won't feel screwed over as badly. And don't go
for kickstarters that just look too good.

It's a hard to solve problem, but I think the only thing that kickstarter can
actually do is to better communicate the risk.

~~~
azundo
I think Kickstarter could add a maximum cap in addition to the minimum funding
requirements as some function of the minimum. This would minimize
Kickstarter's risk of over-subscribed products (but would obviously make them
less money in many cases) and push further sales into the regular retail
world. This would keep Kickstarter closer to what I believe its true intention
is - get products and art off the ground, not sell your first $10 million.

I the long term I also think this is better for the campaigns - a lot of
hardware projects seem to struggle shipping if they get a significantly higher
number of orders than predicted. I'm sure in the moment it's exciting to see
how many orders you can pull in, but painful in the long run when it is
difficult to deliver on your promise, especially if you're planning on
building a long-term sustainable business.

~~~
mistercow
That's actually a really important change that they need to make. If you are
trying to raise $5,000 to make 200 widgets by hand, and suddenly your project
takes off and you get $500,000 in pledges, then as much as everyone would like
to say "that's a great problem to have!", well, it's not.

This point is counterintuitive but here it is: Assuming that there are
relatively rigid time constraints, you might be able to make a profit at 200
units, and a profit at 200,000 units, but not at 20,000 units. This is because
there are thresholds where you suddenly have to invest in infrastructure, and
setting up infrastructure _fast_ is particularly expensive.

If you're raising capital to produce your widgets, you can lay out a business
plan and predict with reasonable certainty that you need to sell X widgets
before you can break even. You present that to investors and they decide if
they think you can sell X widgets.

On Kickstarter, you are implying a fantasy claim of arbitrary linear
production scaling that says "I need $25/widget and I will make however many
everyone wants!" And hell, that doesn't even work for selling _commodities_.

So what the model _should_ be for people starting a business selling a tech
product is that they say "We're developing a prototype, and if you pledge $X
you can get a prototype". Then limit that to a small production run and raise
enough money so everyone can involved can quit their job. Now they have time
to look for investors, and a great proof of concept that the idea is
marketable.

~~~
Xylakant
Well, that's actually possible. You can limit the number of backers for any
pledge level. So you can have a maximum of 50 supporters backing you to
receive a "foo" and another number of "bars" for a different price.

So the usual place where you see an unlimited number of backers is for digital
products. See the Amanda Palmer or the Planetary Annihilation: They had limits
on any backing that required a physical or personalized goods, but unlimited
pledges for digital-only pledges - and there the assumption of "the more I
sell, the more I gain" holds true.

------
runako
I don't know if the Lifx guys in particular are naive, deceptive, or six-sigma
outliers.

But I'm actually surprised that projects like Lifx are able to get any funding
at all. A cursory thought in the direction of the project would reveal that
the pitch is essentially a) others with tons of experience have invested lots
of hard money in this space b) to no real success so far but c) we have the
answer and only need a hundred grand to make it large. And d) actually, we
don't even need $100k, it's more like $25k plus materials, so as you can see
this project is really 99% done now.

This is classic hucksterism; you will see it at any business meetup in any
town. Somebody has built a better mousetrap in his garage, leaping over
giants, and only needs $25k/$50k/$100k to get to market. The key is they never
need large sums of money, only relatively small sums to get to market; a
larger sum would indicate that the project is not 99% done, which I assure you
it is.

The obvious question: if you have built a better mousetrap and only need $100k
to take over a major industry like lighting, why not go max out your credit
cards and just build it? Or show a prototype to anyone over 50 who might be
able to connect you with an angel investor? Occam's answer: because you
haven't a clue how to make it work.

Again, I don't know if the Lifx guys are hucksters. But their pitch follows a
classic huckster pitch to the letter.

~~~
lifeformed
Well, I don't think people turn to Kickstarter funding solely for the money.
It's a pretty decent way to do some cheap marketing, too. If you can get
$100,000 from a bank, or $100,000 from 1,000 people in your target market, it
makes sense to do the latter.

I have no idea if this is or isn't the case with Lifx, but I always viewed
Kickstarter as a funding/marketing package.

------
antr
After backing two projects (MySaver cables and Elevation Dock), I've given up
on Kickstarter:

== MySaver ==

\- Project was delayed for over 5 months.

\- When I got the product it wasn't the colour I had requested.

\- When I contacted the project leader he told me that they didn't have any
more products of that colour, so he chose the one he thought convenient.

\- False statements: "The MySaver is the only cable protector that we know of
and we fully-assemble it on a OEM quality replacement dock connector to USB
cable". I can't insist how false this statement is. The cables I received
where assembled using some kind of industrial glue gun - by no means "OEM
quality" - and they are now falling apart.

\- Contacted Kickstarter about this issue and said that "if the project gets
fully funded it must be a legit business/product"

== Elevation Dock ==

\- Backed in February 2012, still waiting for the product.

\- I will be changing my iPhone 3GS to iPhone 5, but guess what? It's a
different dock connector. Yes, partly my fault, but its been 8 months since
funding closed and 9 months since everybody knew this project was already 100%
funded.

== Conclusion ==

Many projects (primarily hardware) are very poorly managed. Project leaders,
instead of being rational from a production capacity/constraint point of view,
they simply want to "beat all records", and be at the top of the Kickstart
funding list. This is just bad entrepreneurship and management skills. These
guys are risking production, product quality and customer satisfaction over a
"vanity" metric: How much is the maximum I can raise?

I've given up, I'm not backing any more projects, I'm not going to be anyone's
guinea pig. I'd rather wait for the products to be available in stores at a
higher retail price, where I can see their "quality" finish. I'll judge then.

~~~
forrestthewoods
I have many friends who backed and received their Elevation Docks. It's
anything but vaporware. They asked for 75,000 and got 1,464,000. Scaling up
that much and that fast is incredibly difficult and can't be done overnight.
The system seems fine to me.

~~~
smackfu
Products should really consider capping their number of backers, rather than
just saying "as many as people want!" and possibly losing money on every one.

~~~
bduerst
The purpose is to capture as much capital in early sales as possible. Caps
would defeat this purpose.

~~~
antr
_"Caps would defeat this purpose."_

What purpose? The purpose of delivering an obsolete product by the time it
reaches customers months after?

~~~
bduerst
Capturing as much capital as possible.

~~~
antr
I totally disagree, sounds like you work in Wall Street. Your argument defeats
the purpose of a minimum total pledged, and is pure internet speculation.

Companies and individuals go to Kickstarter to create great products - that
can't be financed in no other way (bank debt, VC capital, etc.).

More capital (pledges) result in more orders, more inventory, higher working
capital and a production/logistics nightmare. None of the hardware
projects/companies I've seen to date on Kickstarter have the required
infrastructure to handle "as much capital as possible" or as many orders as
possible.

~~~
bduerst
These businesses come to Kickstarter for the purpose of getting as much
capital as possible to seed their projects.

Just because it is not implicitly stated doesn't mean that the business owners
do not have that motive. Just because some business owners cannot scale
effectively does not change their original motive. Just because you would
personally run the businesses or the website different does not change the
motive.

I'm not going to waste any more time having a speculative "internet argument"
with you on this.

------
smoyer
I think the problem is pretty clear ... Kickstarter optimizes reach so that
the teams that are best at marketing win ... A team that's brilliant with
engineering and design but can't produce slick photos and catchy videos
doesn't stand a chance.

I tend to think that kickstarter is a fad and that if it survives at all, it
will be in a much reduced and much more controlled form. How long will it be
before the authorities decide they're complicit in a fraud?

EDIT: The ScanBox project looks like something I could make for $5 in parts
_and_ have fun doing over in an hour or so.

~~~
alexchamberlain
Do we know if the ScanBoxes have shipped?

Edit: The shipping date is October 12[1].

[1]: [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/scanbox-
turn-y...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/scanbox-turn-your-
smartphone-into-a-portable-scann/posts)

~~~
pothibo
What scares me is that they are starting a new kickstarter project when they
didn't even finish the first one. I was backing this project but just ask for
refund.

This actually makes me wonder: If one would want to scam Kickstarters, one
could just create new project and PR their way into millions of dollars
without having to deliver a single thing.

~~~
regularfry
I can well believe that the scanbox is at a stage where there's simply not
that much left for the guys to do except wait for the manufacturing to turn
around. Why _not_ start another project if they've got the time for it?

~~~
pothibo
Shipping isn't a small task, and since it will only begins in a month, it's a
fair assumption to think that they still have much to do.

If the shipping was 50% done, I would agree but this isn't the case here

~~~
regularfry
Well, yes. That's the point. In a month's time, they might be snowed, but
until then, they're kicking their heels. If they get the timing right, they
can be dealing with the shipping for scanbox while waiting for Lifx to get
funded.

------
netcan
Some old fella I knew who was a young professional as woman joined the ranks
in the 60s & 70s had this useful saying: "toilet excuses" which was the whole
laundry list of nonsense reasons why women couldn't be building inspectors or
firemen or whatnot. "Every building site would need another toilet block and
the costs would be tremendous, all to allow one dipshit 21 year old to work
for 1 year, get pregnant then leave."

There is something about Kickstarter that makes HN irritable, hoping for
failure. I'm not sure what it is exactly and its out of character. I'd like to
give the benefit of the doubt but I can smell toilet excuses.

I'm sure that kickstarter has issues and maybe its not a big thing in the long
term. But, its a nice idea. It seems to be working. Why is this mob so cranky?

~~~
jdlshore
I agree. Something about Kickstarter seems to inspire a lot of negativity here
on HN. Perhaps because it's an alternative to the VC funding model that's such
a part of the HN identity?

Personally, I love Kickstarter. I've funded a project with it myself. It's has
great potential for an individual or small team with "1000 true fans" to make
a living, and I think we'll see a lot of success stories come out of it.

And some notable failures, of course. But I don't see that as an indictment of
the Kickstarter model. Personally, I wouldn't back Lifx. It's expensive, I'm
skeptical of its ability to ship, and I don't need color-changing light bulbs.
But if someone wants to spend $70 to take a flyer on something cool, more
power to them.

~~~
netcan
I agree. Occasional failures don't discredit the whole thing. Fraud might, but
failure doesn't.

------
Alexx
I spent some time a few months ago researching integrated smart technologies
like this. (I've commented before on similar topics)[1]

I very skeptical it's possible to deliver these at those price points.

Just consider as a hacker the master bulb;

They gloss over how you actually connect it to your home wifi network; it
either has to interface with your laptop or phone via a cable for the initial
setup, or it has to be able to create it's own wireless network you can hook
onto, to then in turn tell it which is your home network, so it can hook onto
that, and then relay to all other bulbs. That's a hell of a lot of technology
to pack inside a groundbreaking lightbulb that's going to be running at high
temperatures, at a $70 price point.

The 'smart bulb' stuff aside, a decent plain white LED bulb sets you back
around $30. Have you ever tried those colour-change LED light sets you get for
garden decking or under the kitchen units? Even those cost more per unit that
this, and they light they put out is harsh and well bellow 10 watts; hence why
they're just used for ambient highlights.

In my opinion the companies best positioned to deliver these kind of
technologies are the likes of NEST[2]. They already have a constantly powered,
integrated master device, it has a zigbee chip (which makes much more sense
than wifi), an API, large processing power, and lots of data on the household.
All they need to do is update their firmware (which they can do automatically
already) and publish an API. Then any licensed 3rd party vendor from China can
now deliver 'slave bulbs' using whatever technology and price points they
desire. A ground up solution proposed here is short sighted, and realistically
in the long run more expensive.

[1]<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3558304>

[2]<http://www.nest.com/>

~~~
maxerickson
Insteon is shipping $30 smart bulbs. They integrate with insteon's control
stuff though, so the cost of using 1 of them is a minimum of ~$70-$80 (that's
a bulb plus ~$45 for a simple switch pad).

They don't seem to have much interest in pushing for wide adoption (at least,
they seem to want to sell $400 controllers, not $50 controllers).

------
raverbashing
Wifi on a lamp? Really?

This _screams_ "We have no idea what we are doing"

(And those buying into the project certainly don't know a lot about it as
well)

This is like saying "We are building an electric car... with shiny paint",
whereas the real problem is "building an electric car!"

They probably tried to fit a RaspberryPi inside first

~~~
huhtenberg
They could've OEM'd the lamp, for example, from Phillips. And a tiny-factor
WiFi gadgets is hardly a rocket science, products like EyeFi has been around
for several years. There's really nothing in the project that _screams_ what
you say it does.

[0] <http://www.eye.fi>

~~~
raverbashing
I reread their product description and I still stand by my opinion

And even the article says (and they agree it's an OEM lamp):

"The Lifx is priced at $49 per bulb, which means that you’re basically buying
a basic WeMo switch and getting the LED bulb — and all the technology merging
the two into one bulb-sized piece of hardware — for free. It just doesn’t seem
likely."

They can prove me wrong, sure, by shipping the product.

~~~
Dylan16807
Yeah? So? The article is being disingenuous by picking a bulky and very high-
priced wifi product.

~~~
raverbashing
Because surely a smaller and more complex device is going to cost less than a
WeMo, sure

It is not overpriced if you factor the cost of electronic control of the lamp

~~~
Dylan16807
Did you not see the earlier link of a full computer with wifi crammed into an
SD card for less price? WeMo is not a good cheap benchmark. Heck, I could
dissect a router and glue on a relay in a smaller package for under fifty.

~~~
raverbashing
The EyeFi? Yes, I saw it. Cheapest one is 39.99, let's take $5 for the 'SD'
part, so it's $35

"Heck, I could dissect a router and glue on a relay in a smaller package for
under fifty"

Cheapest WeMo is $50 so you're almost there already

You can try to have a homemade solution for less, sure but you'll have a small
price advantage and maybe not follow all standards relating to switches
(isolation, etc, it will work, though). Not counting the software work.

Now, for their lamp they would need 3 power channels, instead of one 'on-off'
control, which is certainly more expensive and complex.

~~~
Dylan16807
You're not going to take off anything for the overelaborate processor and the
fact that it's smaller than we need for the light? And by under fifty I didn't
mean barely. Here, look, miniature wifi for 8 dollars retail
[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833180...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833180092)
The wifi component of this is not the expensive part. LEDs, LED power supply,
and heatsink are going to be most of the price.

This is not a fifty dollar wifi device with a free light. This is a thirty
dollar light with a ten dollar wifi device slipped in.

------
sequoia
I wish someone from kickstarter would answer this question once and for all:

Is it a donation or is it a purchase?

This question comes up constantly (
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4506601> e.g.) when kickstarter projects
are featured here, TFA is actually about this topic more-or-less specifically.
At the risk of sounding cynical: I think it's in kickstarter's financial to
_not_ answer this question- they're better off with the confusion & everyone
seeing the fee-paid/donation as they want it. That way it's a payment for a
product when you have your wallet out- it's a "donation" when the project
fails and you are left with nothing. :)

~~~
bduerst
It's a donation, and you get a "prize" for donating a certain amount.

------
robomartin
I've backed a number of technology as well as art projects on Kickstarter. So
far all have delivered. Only one was a disappointment. Not because they did
not deliver as promised but rather because the product really wasn't as good
of an idea as I thought it would be. No big deal.

Perhaps my results with tech have been good because I am an engineer with lots
of experience designing and manufacturing hardware/software products. I have
seen projects on Kickstarter that have me question whether or not the person
fully understands what it takes to take a project from concept or prototype to
a finished product. Needless to say, I don't back such projects.

The article gives a sense that making hardware products is hard and expensive.
The author is most-definitely correct. A product like this light bulb could
easily burn-up above US $100K in regulatory testing (UL, FCC, CE, TUV, etc.).
This is particularly true if the designer isn't well versed in this area.

The article looses a little authority in my eyes when the author says things
like:

> The heat sink is crucial, especially if you want to put lots of wifi
> electronics into the bulb.

Which is complete and utter nonsense. WiFi has nothing to do with the
requirement for a massive heatsink. If it did, you iPhone would be a huge
block of aluminum with fins. No, the heatsink is required because 80% (or
more) of the energy going into an LED is converted into heat, not light. This
data is from a few years ago, but I suspect it hasn't gotten much better than
that. Most of the power you shove into an LED converts to heat that you have
to manage, hence the large heat-sink.

I did a project a while ago that managed more than one thousand one Watt LEDs
in a very small space. I was personally responsible for the design of the
electronics, mechanics, optics and thermal management. Thermal management
alone took about six months of FEA simulations and validation through
prototypes before converging on a solution. I had to design the thermal
management system to handle over one thousand Watts. It was safer to assume
that all input energy (and more) was converted into heat in order to have some
operating margin for derating the cooling system.

I went on reading the article and thinking that, while I agreed that multi-
disciplinary hardware projects are hard, this guy was being a little mean-
spirited. After all, he was right in that this project required having an
understanding of electronic design, mechanical design, thermal management,
optical design and the myriad of manufacturing and regulatory disciplines that
come with bringing something like this to market.

The author's incorrect statement about the reason for having a heatsink
created a negative reaction in my mind that carried over as I continued
reading the article. I knew I was biased. I tried to ignore that and continued
reading. Then I came to the point in the article where he told us that the
project originator was also behind another project that amounted to not much
more than some folded carboard. A project that was supposed to ship in July
and, as of four hours ago, hasn't started shipping yet. That was enough to
change my mindset. I was, at that point, aligned with the author in sharing
his skepticism. If this guy (or guys) can't deliver a cardboard box in nearly
three months I can't see any hope of delivering a complex product such as the
LED light bulb in six.

Keep in mind that I have always been a believer that small motivated teams can
run circles around large companies with lots of money and people. Projects
like this don't cost ten million dollars at a large company because that's
what it costs to design the product. They cost that much because such
organizations burn a lot more cash per unit of time than a small team. They
have a lot more people, resources and infrastructure to support. A large R&D
organization could burn a million dollars a day whether they stand still or
are working on something. In sharp contrast to that, a small focused team
working out of a garage or a modest environment could do the same or very
similar work for hundreds or thousands of dollars per day, depending on the
nature of the project.

This to say that I am not skeptical of their probability for success because
the project is difficult. My skepticism comes simply from the fact that
they/he have another fully funded project on Kickstarter, one that my teenage
kid could probably --with some some help from dad-- execute on in a month, and
they have not delivered yet. It's like proposing that you can build a house
when you haven't even demonstrated that you can build a tent.

The question here is more one of execution rather than anything else. I'll
estimate that if you are really frugal and have to design this from scratch
you are looking at a cost of about $500K. This means real design for
manufacturing, thermal design, testing, testing, testing (did I say "testing")
--which includes environmental testing-- tooling, certifications, procurement,
etc.

That means that, at the current funding level of $780K for a little more than
13,000 light bulbs, they have about $20 per bulb left over to manufacture,
test, package and ship. Ouch.

Even if my design cost estimate is off by 100% and they can get this ready for
manufacturing for $250K, that means that you only have about $40 per bulb to
manufacture, test, package and ship. I am not sure that's enough unless you
commit to manufacturing tens of thousands of these per month. One thing is for
sure, nobody is making a dime on this one.

Remember, business costs and overhead don't stop at manufacturing. There's far
more below the tip of that iceberg.

EDIT: I could say a lot more about the nature of bringing such products to
market. Here's an important point that I felt warranted an edit: A product
like this can burn down your house. It is imperative that its design take no
shortcuts. Testing before release must be extensive and thorough. This could
take dozens of iterations until a solid and reliable design is converged upon.
This, again, takes money and expertise.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Did you have any opinion on the guy's previous kickstarter which has slipped 6
months and consisted of a cardboard box?

Yes that is a bit uncharitable to call this:
[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/scanbox-
turn-y...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/scanbox-turn-your-
smartphone-into-a-portable-scann) a foldable cardboard box, but it is a whole
lot simpler than putting together a light bulb that out performs every other
bulb in the market for less money.

So when someone who knows how tough putting something like this together is,
sees folks buying into it, they twitch. Seems like the author of this piece
twitched pretty hard.

~~~
robomartin
I don't think you read my entire post. I mention the folded cardboard project
as a key indicator of just how unlikely it might be for this lightbulb to get
off the ground. My immediate reaction is that Kickstarter ought to put the
lightbulb project on hold until, at the very least, the other project sees
completion.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Your right, I totally missed that bit. And I agree strongly that the execution
risk here incredible. I'll add them to the Ouya and Pebble guys of people
who've bitten off way more than they expected.

~~~
thechut
Say what you will about Ouya but I believe that Pebble will deliver. Allerta
isn't a fly by night maker team. They are real company and have already made a
smart watch product, the inPulse smart watch. I ordered one when they offered
their special pricing here on HN and was pretty happy with it. Sure it has
it's short comings but it seems like a good start and I feel that Pebble will
deliver.

~~~
kamaal
I am also reminded or Light Table.

With an ecosystem like kick starter somethings are going to work and some
aren't.

Also don't forget projects in other areas like designing, furniture, games
etc.

~~~
ChuckMcM
To be completely clear here, there will be Kickstarter successes, people who
raise hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars and deliver
brilliantly. If only one in 10 post funding million dollar projects blows up,
_that one_ will dominate the story people hear about Kickstarter. Three of
four of those, especially if a couple of their big failures turn out to be
fairly obviously scammy, and that will be the end of this grand experiment.

~~~
thechut
Couldn't agree more. I think this actually already occurring. I have funded 13
projects since January, 2012 and in the 9 months since I have funded those I
have only received 2 of them. This already makes me hesitant to fund more
projects. I think that the slow production cycle and constant push backs will
cause people to fall off from funding lots of projects.

------
EwanToo
Kickstarter could significantly improve things by imposing a cap on the amount
of money taken above the original request.

This is similar to what Groupon have had to do, because it was killing their
reputation. People are estimating "Well, we could make about 500 of these",
then receiving orders (and the money) for 50,000 of them. Suddenly the
predicted ship dates go out 2 or 3 times as long, and people get upset.

~~~
forgottenpaswrd
"'Kickstarter could significantly improve things by imposing a cap on the
amount of money taken above the original request."

That is your opinion, in my opinion this would be bad for KS.

I don't know why some grow ups people need someone else to put limits on the
money the can spend on something, like they are dependent children who need to
be controlled what they do with their own money.

Or worse, they want to tell other people what they can spend. They are
totalitarian in the inside.

~~~
powera
Well, perhaps most people want to use a website that gives some sort of sense
that a large portion of their projects aren't over-hyped vaporware.

------
mixmax
Hardware development is hard, but if it's doable. Even on a budget.

A Ten years ago I started a hardware company that developed an advertising
sign based on LED's. It was basically a motor with a stick of RGB LED's
attached like a propeller. When you spun the stick and modulated the LED's
just right you could paint full color disc shaped picture seemingly in free
air. An FPGA would control and modulate the LED's (at the time it was the only
affordable thing that could modulate a LED 400.000 times a second) The whole
thing was online via an OEM phone module and would automatically update with
ads, weather, etc. from a server where customers could buy campaigns online.
Campaigns could of course be customised wo that you could get your ad only on
the displays you wanted. I was in charge of getting this whole bandoogle from
an idea to a product, and while it was hard I managed develop and bring it to
market for around $200.000. Remember this was ten years ago where you had to
tap directly into the a carriers network and hack around just to get an IP
address, and five years before the iphone.

The point of the story is that sometimes small nimble companies that are set
on doing something actually succeed. I'm not saying that these guys have
solved all the problems, indeed it sounds from the article that there are some
huge obstacles. I'm just saying that you should never underestimate the power
of a small team whose only goal in life is to make something happen.

------
marklittlewood
Is it just me or is there something very odd about the video presentation?
Phil Bosua uses just about every trick in the NLP book to persuade and cajole.
Even though the project is almost certainly impossible to deliver, I ended up
_wanting_ to believe it and thinking that if I did contribute, I would be
making something amazing happen. I almost felt like I was being hypnotised.

If they can deliver what they say with $100,000 then the fact that they now
have 10x that probably means you don;t need to contribute to see the benefit.

Mea culpa.

------
djt
People buy an emotion, not a product.

Some of my friends know these guys and by the sound of it this is a case of a
"overnight sensation" that has been years in the making.

------
jlgreco
There is an interesting typo in the article:

    
    
        The bulb on the light is quite lovely
    

Obviously meant to be "right", but I had to read that sentence 3 times before
I read it correctly and not as "left". Seems my brain was expecting "left" or
"right" and saw "left" since they start with the same letter, instead of
seeing "right", the much closer word.

Sorry to be offtopic, thought that was kind of interesting.

------
jdminhbg
> so far there’s zero evidence that it’s a good way of providing startup
> capital for would-be businesses

This drives me nuts. There may be insufficient evidence to say that
Kickstarter is "a good way of providing startup capital...", but there's not
zero evidence. If you're trying to come off as the measured, realistic
alternative, flailing hyperbole doesn't help.

~~~
TillE
It's also a statement that's qualified in an absurd way: "would-be
businesses".

Even then, there are at least a few very successful videogame projects that
fit the bill, Al Lowe's Leisure Suit Larry and Jane Jensen's Pinkerton Road
being the most prominent.

I think it's worth looking at Kickstarter for different industries in very
very different ways. For hardware manufacturing (which seems to be the only
thing discussed on HN), it's a huge risk. For just about everything else, it's
well-established and fairly predictable.

------
rbellio
I generally agree with everything in the article, but there was a statement
that caught me up, "I can’t believe that Lifx has managed to solve the
enormous problems that many huge companies have spent hundreds of millions of
dollars trying — and generally failing — to fix."

I don't believe that large companies with hundreds of millions of dollars are
always the right people to find the solution. Isn't this something we tackle a
lot of the time? Being the small fish in the big pond? I do think that we
should be wary of the snakewater salesmen of the world, but don't discount
someone just because they don't have a large, bureaucratic organization
backing them.

That being said, it would be really nice for some sort of rating system to be
put into place. Force these inventors to generate brand loyalty even if it is
to them as a person.

------
tbull007
I know three of the LiFX guys personally - they're all well connected and
respected in the Melbourne startup scene.

Are they naive to the challenges of deploying a hardware project? At least
some of them are, but the lead engineer has been in this field for a long
time. Are they trying to defraud anyone? Absolutely not.

I hadn't heard of this project until I read this article, but knowing the team
involved there's just no way these guys are putting their reputation on the
line over something they don't personally believe can be done.

Must have missed the memo where the Hacker News community collectively decided
to stop seeking funding and shooting for the stars. Reading the tone of these
comments, we should now only tackle the problems that we... sorry, you the
commentator... 100% know can be solved.

~~~
vosper
If they're "naive to the challenges" (even some of them) then the chances of
success are even lower than for companies who have vast expertise in this
area. That they're trying to do it on a shoestring makes it even less likely
to succeed - people are right to be critical.

Also, I think the major difference between funding in the usual HN startup
sense and funding via Kickstarter is that startup funding is almost always
classical investment whereby you get a share in the company and the rewards of
their hopeful success - but Kickstart funding could well be money for nothing.

------
pierrend
OK they may not ship it. If I give money to them it is because I would like to
have this kind of light at home one day. Best scenario: they ship it! Worse
scenario: the world will have more experience trying to build these things.

~~~
dmbass
In the video, the guy literally says "For $69 dollars, you are essentially
pre-ordering a LIFX smartbulb." (4:11) That's one of the major misconceptions
people have about Kickstarter and these guys are playing right into it.

------
timpeterson
99 Kickstarter Problems but getting the product isn't one: Problem #1: NOT
getting the product. Problems #2-#99) 98 emails updating you on the product
you will never receive.

------
ck2
Kickstarter needs to have a rule that the rewards cannot be the item being
proposed.

This will perfectly enforce the realization that it's INVESTMENT with risk and
not a purchase of the item.

------
jwatte
You can buy a full Android 4.0 tablet for $35. It has Wifi, backlight, screen,
CPU, battery and case. The BOM for this lamp is totally doable for a dozen
dollars. It's productization that's the challenge. Sometimes, a smart scrappy
start-up can hit it right. The heat sink may be a concern for WiFi in the
sense that a grounded metal enclosure is a concern for an antenna. Or maybe
they turn the heat sink into an antenna? (Hmm, should I go patent that now?
:-)

------
armored_mammal
Meh. I haven't had any major fails with the Kickstarters I've supported,
though outside of the Ouya I don't think I've supported any hardware ones.

Some of the hardware ones I thought were the neat and obviously producible
(like weird light fixtures/shades) in a short a time frame also either had
stupid reward tiers, or, I guess, just weren't interesting to anyone else.

All that said, I don't really get the people who expect stuff in 6 months for
hardware-based Kickstarters. Do you have any ideas about the product
development lifecycle? Going from prototype to manufacturing can take quite a
while, especially if you need to visit factories in China or some such.

When I back something that's more complex than 'I'll draw a picture' or 'I'll
sing a song' I assume it might take a couple years, and that's been borne out
at least once, though that level of expectation has also allowed me to be
pleasantly surprised.

Despite the above, I'm not saying I think these LED lights are on the level -
it seems like a very very poor idea to start a new project without finishing
the first. But I also don't think they're as impossible to make as everyone is
saying, though offhand I'd also think it'd make more sense to control the
lamps with Bluetooth than with wifi.

But if I have this right, and they get the bulbs from someone else in bulk and
just pop on a really cheap controller/wireless interface, it seems like the
price works out, especially if they aren't worrying about making them
'secure.'

As for 'certifications' and such, I really don't expect they'll even get them,
let alone know that they might need them or that they exist.

------
JumpCrisscross
Felix Salmon is a noted writer in the financial world; it seems like the
context is being missed.

A few years ago the U.S. investment universe could have been stylised as two
mutually exclusive sets: regulated securities available to everyone, e.g.
exchange traded stocks, and loosely regulated products for sophisticated
investors, e.g. hedge funds. Common to both sets is that the agent, e.g.
public company CEO or hedge fund manager, has a _fiduciary obligation_ to act
in the best interests of the principal, i.e. the investor. The JOBS Act
muddied the line between sophisticated and unsophisticated investors but
maintained what constitutes an investor protected by their fiduciary rights
and what constitutes someone giving money away. Enter Kickstarter.

Kickstarter says its campaigns are donations and not investments. This is
crucial as it keeps them from having to comply with securities regulations,
which have a higher bar for fraud than consumer or donor regulation. For
example, failing to deliver a promised product would be grounds for scrutiny
into whether the company acted in "best interests" of its fiduciaries -
presently, a Kickstarter campaign has loose to no fiduciary obligation to its
donors. Felix Salmon argues that Kickstarter campaigns are closer to
investments than not and so should be fiducially obligated to their
donors/investors.

The greater debate is about who should be protected by fiduciary rights, who
should be allowed to participate in what kind of investment, and how we trade
off inclusion in capital gains against the risk of fraud and public
disillusionment in the capital markets. Whether WiFi circuitry can reliably
survive 85 degrees Celsius is a side, albeit still interesting, concern.

------
drats
>so far there’s zero evidence that it’s a good way of providing startup
capital for would-be businesses

Flagged immediately for this statement. Troll journalism.

~~~
cristianpascu
Yeah, my feeling exactly. Whenever I hear/read "there's _absolutely_ / _zero_
no evidence", it smell either ignorance or malevolence.

------
DanBC
They're using multicolour LEDs. That's weird. Most people don't want blue or
green lights. That's a niche market for accent lighting. Most people want a
_nice_ bright light for lamps and spotlights.

Spending money on getting that nice warm colour would be money well spent.

Also, the video mentions photographers. I'm not sure, but I'd have thought
that multiplexed LEDs would be a horrible idea for some photography.

~~~
WildCat69
The color changing aspect of this bulb is a cool idea, but in reality would
end up as a just something neat show off. On the other hand, if they can also
accurately mimic the warmth and brightness of an incandescent using this
approach, I'd buy it.

------
tvon
> _So my feeling is that both Kickstarter and the tech blogosphere should
> start being a lot more skeptical about the claims made in Kickstarter
> videos, where anybody can say pretty much anything._

Isn't the problem more along the lines of "amateur investors making amateur
investments"? Is it Kickstarter's fault if people believe the "pretty much
anything" that can be said in a video?

~~~
saraid216
No, in this case it's actually the tech news journalists' fault for believing
pretty much anything that can be said in a video. I didn't see anything asking
Kickstarter to shape up; the call to action was for the reporters.

And he's right. This article should have been written by, say, GigaOm. I'd
want a Wired article to go into more technical depth than this one does. I'd
guess that, if I found the articles that pointed to the Kickstarter, they
don't.

------
pbreit
Felix Salmon is an a-hole and a moron. First of all, if you're going to title
the missive "...of the day" there should be more than one example per quarter
and such example should actually be vapor. Beyond that, Salmon gets almost
everything wrong about small teams building products and Kickstarter in
general. Small teams can have huge advantages over big companies specifically
because they don't need to build hug quantities fo product. And Kickstarter
has a fairly well-known reputation for products from manufacturers who don't
have all the answers before they are asking for money.

------
meiji
I'm not sure why this is any sort of surprise. Ever since Kickstarter began
there have been lots of great ideas, lots of awful ideas. Some of the great
ideas have been clearly way too ambitious for small teams but people happily
donate money. Given this isn't an investment and what you're doing is giving
someone money to follow their dream, to my mind it's almost irrelevant if at
the end you don't get your $30 lightbulb. You've lived vicariously through the
Lifehacker in question and got to see something go to market or crash and
burn.

------
rabidsnail
I think a web-of-trust-style reputation system would work well here, since
"votes" cost money.

The reputation of a buyer is the mean of the reputations of the projects
they've backed (times some confidence metric).

The reputation of a project six months after it started is 1 if they kept
their promises (as measured by confirmation emails sent to the backers) and -1
otherwise.

The reputation of a project before six months is the mean of (the mean of the
reputations of its backers (again times some confidence)) and the reputation
of the person who started the project.

------
braum
that's what I thought when I watched the video and looked at the prices they
wanted and the expected ship date. I've already been burned by two
kickstarters for $300+.

~~~
simias
May I ask which projects those were? Do we have any idea of the proportion of
projects that get funded without any kind of result?

I know that technically you make a donation, but some of those "projects" feel
like borderline scam. Can't the donors or even kickstarter themselves turn
back on the project owners if they receive a huge amount of money and fail to
deliver anything? Especially when they say they have working prototypes in the
introduction video.

I'm really convinced that the average kickstarter donor sees their donation as
a pre-order more than an "investment". I'm sure many of those who donated to a
project that failed to deliver felt like they've been scammed, and that may
hurt kickstarter in the long run.

~~~
braum
here is the one I consider dead and the backer is just hoping everyone will
forget. I posted it last week on HN.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4523753>

The 2nd one I'm still hoping the backers will come through or at least refund
the backers. So I'll hold that one for now.

I have backed 16 projects and the first was TikTok Nano watch band which
funded Dec 2010. Out of the 16 only 2 have me very concerned.

I just backed two more projects one for $1,299 which is a 3D Printer and the
other $99 for 3D printer software. I will continue to back things but I look
carefully at their estimated ship date. It must be within 60 days, and I will
dispute any charge from a project that doesn't deliver within that window.

~~~
simias
I remember there was a website that indexed the kickstarter projects that
didn't get funded. Maybe there should be one for the projects that were funded
but didn't deliver.

That might get kickstarter's attention as well.

~~~
braum
Do you know the URL for that website that is tracking failed KS projects?

------
jws
Felix Salmon's screed is poorly informed about LED bulbs and the current state
of the art in wifi.

First let's go over the current marketplace:

• There are very nice 60 watt equivalent bulbs available for <$25 in quantity
one.[1] Without looking directly at the bulb you will not tell them from
incandescent. Single color, using phosphors to shift blue LEDs down to nicer
frequencies.

• At quantities >500 LED bulbs which look like the illustration on the
kickstarter page are under $10. [2] This gives a rough estimate of cost of
materials assembled.

• A thumbnail sized microcontroller module with wifi is <$30 in quantity
one.[3]

It certainly looks like there is room for a $50 that includes a light and a
wifi enabled microcontroller. The cost model gets easier though. Each customer
only needs one master bulb with the wifi, the rest only have the cheaper
802.15.4 mesh radios.

Before we look at the article anymore, lets consider what is different about
the Lifx than the $10 bulb above.

• More efficient. It needs to be a bit brighter to meet the Lifx specs. This
adds cost to the LEDs to run more current within the thermal limits.

• Tri color. It is going to need at least three LED colors. Ideally the sum of
them is going to be a pleasing white so you get a usable color at full
brightness. The other colors are achieved by running some of the LEDs at lower
duty cycle. Notice they chose a bulb with a diffuser. That keeps you from
getting blotchy spot light effects.

• More power switching FETs. Their total power handling will be the same, but
it will be a higher component count.

• A microcontroller and radio added to the circuit board.

• Software, a couple weeks for the bulb innards.

For that they get to roughly quintuple the sale price. Sounds doable to me.

Most of the article is just an "On no! The sky is falling!" piece on
Kickstarter feeling like a store. He uses some other company that took a run
at the "just like incandescent" market and apparently got beaten by Philips.
For some reason, he has a side-by-side set of photos which the Lifx
illustration bulb and possibly the ugliest LED bulb I've ever seen. (Said ugly
bulb is proclaimed indistinguishable from incandescent when inside a lamp
shade, so it has a use case. Just don't let anyone see it naked.)

As the article progresses it just gets embarrassing. He declares it impossible
because other smart people haven't done it and confidently predicts every
negative lightbulb attribute he can think of will afflict the bulb. He throws
out some ridiculous straw men for the product and imagines a huge barrier for
configuration of a UI free wifi device (hint: solved long ago by many
products, e.g. Apple's Airport Express) and that somehow the 0.05 watts from
the wifi will overheat the bulb which is dissipating ~10 watts already.

At least it was run as "Opinion" instead of "Fact".

Here's my opinion on Lifx: The masterbulb concept is a mistake. Too confusing.
Have a controller that plugs in the wall. Keeps the confusion down but also
keeps people from switching off the master bulb or having to have a battery in
it. They may need to give a bit on the total brightness to keep the heat under
control. If they try to grow to something large, they will probably be killed
by a patent lawsuit. If they make it far enough to make a nice PAR20 version
(diffusion is much harder), I will happily buy 30 of them.

EOM

[1] [http://www.homedepot.com/Electrical-Light-Bulbs-LED-Light-
Bu...](http://www.homedepot.com/Electrical-Light-Bulbs-LED-Light-
Bulbs/Philips/h_d1/N-5yc1vZbm79Z15b/R-203406583/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&storeId=10051#.UFiG1EI8D8s)

[2] [http://www.alibaba.com/product-
gs/601830276/led_light_bulb_e...](http://www.alibaba.com/product-
gs/601830276/led_light_bulb_e27.html?s=p) For ballpark reference only. Never
trust the specs.

[3] <https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11395>

~~~
ChuckMcM
I think this is an excellent post. But perhaps not for the reasons jws thinks
it is :-).

Look at that Phillips bulb, isn't it neat? When they won the L-prize for a
bulb that could do 60W equivalent for 10W input, some of the coverage said
that they had spent just over $28M developing that one bulb. They didn't open
source anything they discovered in that process about making LED light bulbs.
And granted LEDs have improved in the last 3 years since the Department of
Energy ran its $10M 'kickstarter' campaign, the bulb linked is a 12W for 60W
equivalent, and its only one color.

So one has to wonder, if it _seems_ easy but the only one company was even
able to complete and entry for the L-prize, what did they know that I don't?

I wonder if it is a form of suspended disbelief, if its far enough away from
your direct expertise but seems practical and one really loves the concept,
one can invest a level of belief into someone saying they can do what you
want.

The one that will be interesting will be a Kickstarter to bring an herbal
supplement to market that stops aging. I'm sure its coming, or a perpetual
motion machine, maybe a project to get the Rossi cold-fusion machine into
production. They keep saying if they have a million dollars they can build a
functioning power plant.

[1] [http://energy.gov/articles/department-energy-announces-
phili...](http://energy.gov/articles/department-energy-announces-philips-
lighting-north-america-winner-l-prize-competition)

------
cfesta9
I created something like this over the past year. I should have started a
kickstarter! :) I do have questions on how lifx will execute this light bulb.
Very interesting stuff. Check out the Arduino/Wireless LED lamp here
[http://charlesfesta.com/post/31814601314/say-hello-to-the-
jo...](http://charlesfesta.com/post/31814601314/say-hello-to-the-john-hancock-
building-living-room)

------
jamesaguilar
Here's a kickstarter that did very well (launched, great game):
[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/64409699/ftl-faster-
than...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/64409699/ftl-faster-than-light)

Personally I'm not worried about kickstarter being generally vaporware,
although in some instances it will be.

------
driverdan
I'm really surprised there haven't been any class action law suits against
Kickstarter projects and/or Kickstarter. For most projects Kickstarter isn't a
feel-good donation system, it's a way of pre-purchasing a product. If you
promise to provide an item for someone's money and don't deliver you've broken
the law.

------
fmax30
Seems as though the only thing one needs to earn money on the internet is to
make a video with good cameras and be good at Computer generated 3D models of
products that will never be completed. I too think that the kickstarter should
stop project starters from giving out material things.

------
ajaimk
First off, their goals are possible in the fact they are not hoping to build
an energy efficient LED bulb but a wifi controllable one.

Also it is a little too early to be calling this VaporWare. Give them a chance
to prove themselves.

------
drumdance
He's completely discounting the value of building a direct relationship to the
customer that Kickstarter allows. For many startups that's at least as hard as
the technology.

------
bufferout
The LiFX lead engineer had started answering questions here:
<http://tech.lifx.co/>

------
james33
Every great achievement was once considered impossible.

------
davidpayne11
_These people aren’t just being seduced by a clever sales pitch: they’re being
shepherded there by lots of very high-profile blogs, such as Wired and
TechCrunch and Mashable and GigaOm._

Its funny that reuters is writing this, because, they were shepherding a lot
of people on an inferior product too, The iPhone 5.

