

Hardware Case Study: Why Lockitron Has Taken So Long To Ship - Jarred
http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/13/1025132?hn=true

======
mikehmayer
I had a Lockitron and I had to send it back. I rather enjoyed the idea and I
truly believed they would eventually arrive at the right combination of
firmware and software that would allow it to behave the way it was intended.

After owning it for nearly a year and having it only work reliably probably
20% of the time I had one galvanizing experience with it that made me arrive
at the realization that it is fundamentally flawed.

It is a motorized lock connected to WiFi with a back up of a standard key
lock. As it turns out, if the Lockitron runs out of battery mid way through
actuating the lock it will freeze the lock in that position. No amount of
manual force though just the key backup will work.

I spent several hours locked out of my apartment one night requiring emergency
service from my complex management and asking a guy to wake up my neighbor so
they could climb a ladder and break into my apartment via my balcony.

Cameron and the Lockitron staff I interacted with was very good and
understanding at all times- but I just could not trust the Lockitron any more.
Since it was a battery hog and the battery dying midst turn is a critical
problem and there was no notification whatsoever of the battery condition (at
the time) AND I couldn't use the manual back up, I had to return it.

~~~
andrewtbham
one possible way to solve this problem is to not initiate turning the lock if
the battery is too low.

~~~
StavrosK
You'd think they'd be doing that already, really.

------
mrchess
The only reason I bought this initially is because the YC team made a comment
like "we've been using this for a while and it's awesome". It made me believe
they had already done a lot of testing on the product, and that it was in
production use.

After the first year it became clear the Lockitron was just an idea. I have no
idea why the YC team made a testimonial for it as if it were a finished
product.

The second year the e-mail updates were constantly "X is wrong and we are
fixing it. We want to make the best product possible." Blah blah. Yeah,
whatever.

What it comes down to is that Lockitrons entire campaign was misleading, from
their website, to the YouTube videos, to the Kickstarter -- the entire company
is smoke and mirrors. The company is really good at explaining why things are
wrong, but is terrible at actually fixing them. My frustration stems from them
constantly promising things, but missing their deadlines by months, and in
this case, years. Not once, but several times.

I cancelled my order a while ago, the Lockitron brand is destroyed in my mind,
and I have been hesitant to back any hardware projects ever since.

I really wanted to believe.

~~~
JacobAldridge
Question for you for goldenkey below: Do you mean YC or HN?

The YC team, while growing, is still a fairly small collective of amazingly
brilliant people. The HN team is, at the end of the day, largely anonymous
people on the internet. (Albeit the most amazingly brilliant collective of
largely anonymous people on the internet I've ever come across.)

~~~
sbisker
Probably referring to this comment from pg, linked to elsewhere here in the
comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4602821](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4602821)

~~~
mrchess
Yep, this was the comment. It made it sound like the product was in use for a
long time and functioning well.

~~~
maxerickson
It likely was. The video here (linked below the pg comment) shows the more
substantial hardware they had been using:

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/13/lockitron-lets-you-
unlock-y...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/13/lockitron-lets-you-unlock-your-
door-with-your-phone/)

It would be nice if pg had said something closer to "I hope this new product
works as well as the version we are using", but it's difficult to go back and
try to figure out the context he would have been commenting in.

The preorder page from that time does paint the picture of a well developed
product, making declarations about all the things Lockitron does:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20121004125521/https://lockitron...](https://web.archive.org/web/20121004125521/https://lockitron.com/preorder)

------
msandford
It's not that it's an order of magnitude harder to make hardware than
software. It's that you have to know what you're doing. Cobbling something
together with an Arduino and some other one-off parts is one thing,
manufacturing is different.

But it's not that hard to understand; it's the difference between a hacked-
together MVC or early release that might fall over with 10k users versus a
mature platform that can handle 10mm concurrent users with no problems.

Not bringing competent manufacturing capabilities in-house is the same as
supposing that you can run a tech startup strictly using short-term
contractors or people from oDesk. With no real stake in the final outcome,
only in meeting their contracted deliverables, they don't care if the whole
thing succeeds or fails. As long as they get paid for their little part the
bigger picture is irrelevant.

Having misaligned incentives is a fairly straightforward way to have problems.

~~~
dgreensp
Dealing with suppliers and Chinese factories may present a logistical
challenge, but it's still easier and less expensive than doing the
manufacturing yourself.

If you have experience developing a hardware product, I'll defer to your
experience, but what I've seen from being on the periphery of a couple
hardware projects doesn't jive with what you're saying are the lessons learned
from trying to ship a polished hardware product with a small team on a limited
budget.

~~~
bsder
> Dealing with suppliers and Chinese factories may present a logistical
> challenge, but it's still easier and less expensive than doing the
> manufacturing yourself.

Not true for mechanical things.

Injection molding machines are now all electrical and sit in the quarter
million dollar range. CNC machines similarly. A million dollars gets you a
very nice mechanical production line and machine shop that lets you fabricate
precision metal parts _AND_ high volume plastic parts.

Now, your only expenses are salary and production inputs.

I deal with this _every day_. How many tooling charges at $5,000 to $10,000
per charge do you have to take before that machine shop makes sense? Not many.
I've eaten that charge 22 times in the last 3 years. I'm starting to
accumulate the machine shop...

~~~
msandford
I am doing what you're talking about but with old, used equipment. You can get
old injection molding machines for less than $50k each, maybe much much less.
It's the same for used CNCs. If you know a little bit you can tell if it's
still in good shape or if it needs work.

I will put together a decent production line for much less than a million,
probably much less than $100k in capital equipment. At that point the rent and
air conditioning start to become substantial (Texas, so it's HOT).

Every time I read someone saying "software is eating the world!" and all the
smart people rushing into software I always have a little chuckle. I really
love it. It means that anything that's not software has a dearth of smart folk
and that puts me at a huge competitive advantage.

~~~
bsder
I don't find many all-electric injection molding machines used, yet.

Otherwise, yes, lots of used stuff is available.

~~~
msandford
Yeah I don't care about the specific technology. Hydraulic is fine by me
because my needs are relatively speaking low volume. One piece a minute is
plenty for the foreseeable future and that isn't challenging in the slightest.

I'm also partial to having a couple of machines instead of just one because of
the reliability. If I spend $250k upfront (which I don't have) I get one
machine that's going to be extremely reliable but if it does break I'm losing
you know $500 an hour or whatever it is.

If I spend $20k on one machine and $30k on another and $50k on a third I end
up with no single point of failure. Yeah they will break more but I'll
(probably) never be stuck with no ability to make parts. It's easier capex too
since revenue from the first finances the second and revenue from those two
finance the third.

What kind of stuff do you do? I don't interact with many people on here who
have mechanical aptitude. Obviously products of some kind. Can you talk about
it? I'm intrigued.

~~~
bsder
Mostly small volume electronics devices. Generally with decent margins
($500+). So, large NRE expenditures absolutely kill me at the same time that
I'm willing to pay quite high per-unit costs.

And my problem is _always_ the mechanical side--and has been since 2000.

In a former life, I'm an electrical engineer. However, I've had to deal with
thermal and packaging back at a big company I worked for. I eventually got so
tired of all the NRE problems that I went to the community college and took
their CNC milling and CAD classes to see where the problems were (don't get me
started on _that_ \--the classes were excellent but the whole idea of an error
prone person rather than a computer converting my 3D Solidworks to a 2D
MasterCAM CAD surface appalled me). I also had clamp problems--the
manufacturer suddenly couldn't hold the clamp in round (we're talking visibly
egg-shaped--almost 160mils on an 8inch diameter clamp). Being originally from
Western Pennsylvania, this drove me _CRAZY_. This is the kind of stuff that
men used to do in their _garage_ for crying out loud. Local machinists could
hand this kind of stuff back to you the same day back in the 70's.

The thing that drove it all home was touring Sullins Connector Corp (whom I
recommend _HIGHLY_ ). They had their own machine shop and injection molding
machines. Their average run on the machines is about 150! They are constantly
swapping molds. That was good, but wasn't the big thing.

I needed a custom connector. Described roughly what I wanted and gave them
some drawings. Figured we'd talk about it some more and get a quote. About a
week and a half later--I get 5 connectors in the mail made out of high temp
plastic with gold contacts. They had looked in their future runs, found one
with the correct opening and pin spacing, injected a couple of extra, milled
the dimensions down by hand, populated the pins and bent them by hand so it
was right angle, and sent them to me _FOR FREE_. And then quoted me for both
the hand work (only a little more than a Molex connector that wasn't really
right) on the smaller volume, as well as a changeover point when they would
cut me a mold.

That's when I realized that US companies can compete. Most of them just suck.
It's also when I realized that product companies need machine shops even if
they are idle 99% of the time. The 1% is what gets you the business. This is a
hard sell to the executives and beancounters. Fortunately, the CEO I'm
currently working with has been brainwashed. He _personally_ had to add holes
to a bunch of plastic cases--and discovered that his milling machine saved him
$5,000.

Although, to be fair, I have this same problem at the electrical engineering
side on a different level--VLSI design. There are lots of design I can do on a
chip, but I can't afford the NRE to build one.

~~~
msandford
I see the same kinds of things myself. It takes execs with vision and talented
people in the shop. But if someone's got it, man is it nice to work with them.

------
raverbashing
Jeez

People (especially on kickstarter) think that if they have a pretty 3D drawing
of the thing the hardware is going to be a breeze. Oh and they're going to use
Arduino for it

Funny. Not.

I think Arduino made people think "everybody can work with hardware now
wohoo!!" Oh but they don't know Ohm's law.

"We quickly learned that there was no concept of “off the shelf” when
manufacturing in China."

Well, of course there is. Unless the existing parts don't fit your project.
Then you'll need a lot of parts specd for your need. Tip: don't do that.

You'll already have to do the case, circuit board and maybe power source, this
is enough trouble. Add in mechanics and you're in for a tough ride.

I've seen hardware bugs in reference implementations from people that
should've known better. Manufacturing reliability is always lower than you
think it is.

~~~
bravo22
Agree 100%.

Another common approach to further mitigate manufacturing reliability issues
is to contract a single vendor to make and assemble the mechanical unit.
Basically everything from input shaft to output shaft goes into a box. You put
the motor in and build a contraption to measure the output torque, etc.

You only pay them for units that actually pass the test. The failed units are
their problem. Look at the price they'll quote you for this and you'll know
how reliable they really think their process is.

------
mrchess
This article is just like all the e-mail updates they send. Long winded
excuses with no results. "X is broken, we are trying to fix it so that we live
up to our high standard. We are excited to see what is next and will ship
soon."

They have been singing the same song for 2+ years.

Personally I could care less about their delays. My beef with the company is
that EVERY update they lead on customers, saying "We're almost there!". No,
you're not.

I cancelled my order after the 4th delay.

~~~
mikeash
They're _terrible_ with providing updates. I'm amazed. My dashboard still says
that my unit is anticipated to ship in May 2014, and this is _far_ from the
first time they've gone past the shipping estimate without a word to me.

How hard is it to write some code that checks for shipping estimates that are
about to become false, updates them, and notifies the people in question?

------
akehrer
This is what technical debt looks like on the hardware side, missed deadlines
and quality issues. Kudos to Cameron and the Lockitron folks for sharing their
experience.

I think bravo22 already covered some of the choices they made up front that
got them in to trouble. It appears they didn't have the knowledge or
experience to put a good plan together when they suddenly had to scale from
1000 or so units to multiple thousands. Here are a few (more) reasons:

1\. Unaware of the environment. bravo22 already touched on the existing
deadbolt standard and current products on the shelf. Whether they knew about
these or not, it sounds like they chose to go in to production with their
prototype (buggy) design instead of sourcing or modifying an existing
solution.

2\. Lack of specific knowledge. They expressed difficulty meshing the
electronic and mechanical parts of their system. There are plenty of engineers
that have electro-mechanical design experience that they could have leaned on,
either hired on to do the redesign or to guide them in the right direction for
things like gear-train torque calcs, material selection and fabrication
methods (think redesigning a part for injection molding), power consumption
calcs, part count reduction... Much of this may only be a Google search away,
but if they don't have enough knowledge to know how to apply it correctly then
that leaves them at the mercy of either fate or their suppliers.

3\. Documentation. "While there is some truth to this, making hardware at
scale is still incredibly difficult — if not for the actual physical
manufacturing itself but for the compounding complexity of suppliers, tooling
and testing." You need good documentation. Part drawings with realistic
tolerances that produce parts that make functional assemblies. Work
instructions that spell out things like order of operations, screw torque
specifications, inline QC checks, etc. The documentation is often your
contract with the supplier and if it's poor or not well thought out then the
product quality suffers.

These guys are going through an awesome trial by fire. They have a well
funded, very public, product that they are trying to turn out and they should
be commended for sticking with it for that last two years, and for being
willing to talk about their challenges. Just like any other start-up, succeed
or fail, they're going to be a better position when they do it again.

------
bravo22
Here are some other reasons:

1- WiFi drains battery fast, therefore advertising instant WiFi unlocking was
foolish, if not purposefully misleading from the beginning. (Look through
their posts on HN when Lockitron was first announced and you'll see that they
admit that instant WiFi unlocking isn't feasible yet that's not the impression
they gave the backers)

2- Determining intent (i.e. I want to unlock the door) through proximity is a
fool's errand. You'll have an impossible time trying to get user's position
right without multiple receivers and have to resort to wonky logic they use
today which won't work for a vast number of people: if user A unlocks the door
then ignore his phone until he exist... hmm what if user A enters with user B,
or user A leaves though the car in the garage but wants come back through the
door?

3- BUILD A PROPER PROTOTYPE. It means critical functionality being there, like
unlocking via BLE and unlocking via WiFi. Does it work reliably? No? Fix it.
Don't promise anything! Don't put up a video until you have a proper
prototype.

Heck, you don't even need mechanicals. Light up an LED to indicate unlocking
for all anyone cares. If it doesn't work here in your lab, it won't work out
there. There is no magic fairy dust that reduces power consumption or makes
something work at scale when it doesn't work in your lab.

4- Knowing how to use an Arduino doesn't make you a product developer, just as
knowing Javascript doesn't mean you can deploy a backend that supports 1M
users and you only get to deploy it once. Pay an experienced EE or consulting
company for 20, 30, 40 hours of work to review your design, plan, and
feasibility.

Done right Lockitron is about ~$25-$30 in parts + PCBA cost -- not considering
mold amortization.

5- Cameron enumerates a number of mechanical and electrical problems. The fact
is you can get a number of low cost electrical locks from China today that
have reliable turning mechanisms. It has been done. Those factories will
gladly OEM an entire lock for you -- or in this case just sell you the parts
or the whole assembled mechanism. Tear apart a Kwikset keypad lock and see how
few gears it has. Their main problem seems to be that they started with the
wrong/inefficient mechanical design and tried to make everything fit that.

There are lots of existing, inexpensive, gearboxes you can buy that would give
you the torque you need. At worst you'd have to get a custom designed output
gear. Even then there are many Chinese vendors who make gears. I've bought
from them before. They have a large catalogue, and if you want something they
don't have NRE is about $1200 + 4 week delivery.

6- "The resulting power and torque requirements of our gear box required a
number of changes on our circuit board that would have been nearly impossible
to predict from our prototype units". This could have been avoided by buying
the ANSI/BHMA deadbolt standard which specifies maximum torque required for
the thumbturn. Add 25% safety margin and you should be good with virtually all
locks sold in north america as they are ANSI/BHMA compliant.

~~~
girvo
As per #1, is WiFi really that bad? Because Geofencing is used quite
extensively in the iOS ecosystem and doesn't seem to affect my battery that
much at all... although I'm likely just missing what the feature was
advertised as, possibly its something different.

~~~
bravo22
You recharge your phone's battery. :)

Best WiFi today will consume about ~2mA when in standby. They are using
ElectricImp which is a little worse.

People often look at "sleep" current of a WiFi module and think "oh boy I can
run this for 2 years at like 100 micro amps". That is true if the WiFi module
is _turned off_ ; useful if you are waking up, taking a reading, pushing data
to the cloud, and then going back to sleep. But for a door you need to be
listening on the network for an incoming packet all the time. How else would
you know that the user wants you to open the door right now?

Alkaline AA batteries _AT BEST_ have ~2600mAh of capacity. They run at 1.5V.
You have 2600 x 1.5v = 3900 mWh of energy in each.

A Wifi module consuming ~3mA and 3.3V runs through that power at around 3900 /
(3.3 * 3) = ~394 hours or about 16 days. 4 AA batteries and you'll get about
64 days or little over 2 months of usage.

Of course you'll get FAR LESS because:

A) You have to convert battery voltage to 3.3V and you'll get about 85%
efficiency for a high current (300mA peak) needed for a WiFi device

B) You burn more energy when you actually send packets

C) You need quite a bit of power from those 4 AAs to actually turn the lock so
you can't do the math assuming all your power is available for WiFi.

~~~
swamp40
>> _Best WiFi today will consume about ~2mA when in standby._

So, what's the 2mA module?

~~~
bravo22
A number of Qalcomm Atheros chips like AR4100P. Gainspan's GS1011 and their
newer GS2000. Pretty much anyone supporting PS-POLL should get around that
range.

Electric Imp gets close to that but they are over it a bit I believe.

~~~
swamp40
Thanks! What's your opinion on which ARM Cortex uC uses the least amount of
power?

------
ChuckMcM
[Random question for dang, why the 'hn=true' cgi arg? Isn't the referrer field
sufficient?]

This was a great article. One of the things that is sorely under estimated by
folks is that that "pipeline" from parts to product requires several dozen
specially trained people to function well. As a small organization you have to
train each group from start to finish to get to the point where the end
product can ship. When I worked for Tut systems the manufacturing process was
amazing, and where a software process is designed with testing to insure
modules work, a hardware process is filled with processes that quickly
identify problems before they get assembled into the product.

Very rewarding though, and very doable, you just have to budget the time to do
it and go in knowing you are training up a pipeline. There is no "magic"
manufacturer that can take your idea and make it.

~~~
dang
> Random question for dang, why the 'hn=true' cgi arg?

The submitter added it to get around the dupe detector. The article was
previously posted
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8028073](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8028073)).
Since the previous post had no discussion, and wasn't killed by flags or by a
moderator, the repost is ok.

------
DanBC
> This also meant protracted lead times as well as the potential for vendor
> lock-in for our most specialized parts.

Those are your parts; the designs are owned by you. You are always free to ask
around for other manfs to make them.

> Even what seemed to be commodity components like switches, screws and motors
> would be made to spec.

This makes the product sound terrible. I really doubt they need to make screws
or switches.

~~~
StillBored
_This makes the product sound terrible. I really doubt they need to make
screws or switches._

I thought the same thing. It reminded me of the genie garage door openers at
my rental property. The end limit switches are were obviously designed in
house and are basically two strips of some copper alloy spring material that
come into contact as the door passes.

The problem is that a garage is a dirty/corrosive environment. On a yearly
basis I have to sand the contacts. All this to save a few pennies vs just
buying a standard micro switch!

I can't determine if its was incompetence, cost cutting, or just planned
obsolescence.

Of course, I just posted a few things on another board about how I think the
lack of software licensing leads to the lack of "software standards" where
everyone and their brother is basically doing the equivalent of building their
own screws, with their own thread pitches and head patterns or using whatever
happens to be "cool" this month.

------
w1ntermute
I've never understood why keypad locks haven't been more widely adopted in the
West - they're very common in South Korea (and probably many other Asian
countries). Lockitron seems like a solution in search of a problem.

~~~
maratd
> I've never understood why keypad locks haven't been more widely adopted in
> the West

They have been adopted widely. In businesses. It's mostly a perception issue,
where such locks are perceived as a product for a business.

That said, it's a lot more convenient to walk up to a door and have it unlock
automatically because it detects your phone ... than to stand there and enter
a code.

~~~
w1ntermute
In my experience, they are not common in many businesses either.

As for the convenience factor, it might be more convenient, but I don't think
it's _a lot_ more convenient to have Lockitron instead of a conventional
keypad lock. Unless Lockitron can also automatically open/close the door for
you, I just don't see the difference as being that great.

In any case, I think the real business opportunity lies in figuring out how to
market keypad locks to a broader audience.

~~~
danielweber
In American business over the past decade, I've experienced an order of
magnitude more RFID-detector door locks than keypad door locks. Get your
badge/wallet/purse/backpack within a few inches of the detector and you are
in.

~~~
vonmoltke
That is definitely the trend, because it allows security to give each
authorized person a unique access credential, which in turn allows access to
be selectively granted or revoked. When I worked in secure environments keypad
locks were a pain in the ass, because every time someone's access to an area
was revoked the code had to be changed.

~~~
danielweber
(You _could_ give everyone their own code. 4 digits still allows a few dozen
people their own number while still leaving most of the search space open.)

~~~
vonmoltke
Yeah, but that requires giving the locks brains, at which point you might was
well just embed an RFID tag in everyone's badge. We had some areas that
required both a badge swipe and a PIN.

------
uxtapose
I'm curious if Lockitron is still in use at the YC offices, 649 days later:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4602821](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4602821)

------
etsept
> When Lockitron’s crowdfunding campaign rocketed beyond all expectations, one
> of our close advisors from the software world asked us why we couldn’t
> iterate Lockitron in batches. “Ship 1,000 units, pause, and learn from what
> users wanted in the hardware, then build another 1,000.” With limited
> resources, this simply isn’t possible; each Lockitron prototype was a
> $3,000-5,000 investment.

I feel like I'm not understanding this passage.

Is he saying iterating in batches of 1,000 is impossible because it would add
$3-5 cost to a product that they sell for $179?

~~~
bravo22
I think that's what he is saying but I disagree with his numbers. For 10 units
machining plastic costs a lot of money. But you wouldn't do that for 1000
prototypes. You would use something like vacuum casting to make the housings
and the gears are made from blanks and machined. It might cost you at WORST
~$300 (likely a lot less) for the 1,000 units.

------
XorNot
Seeing as how the Doorbot (which is much simpler) is a colossal disaster (my
family bought one, against my general advice) I'm really not surprised.

Though in that case it's very much because their software platform utterly
sucks - given how the Lockitron works I'm amazed they have anything at all.

~~~
zapt02
Thinking of getting a Doorbot right now. What's wrong with it? Looks really
convenient from the promotional video.

~~~
XorNot
Terrible video - it only supports 802.11b (so it'll drag the rest of your
wireless down potentially too). Wi-fi range seemed short. The Android client
has been broken since we got it (and never fixed) - you get no notifications
on it.

No local LAN support - everything tries to go over the internet, and their
servers are unreliable. Lag time of something like 30 minutes is not uncommon.

Doesn't integrate with a lot of existing doorbell/intercom systems (ostensibly
it'll work with AC ones, it didn't work with mine which is admittedly some
type of DC - but simple enough, short to ring and all that).

It is all round a terrible product which was launched in an unusable state,
with really poor design decisions.

~~~
bravo22
What's your new doorbell system? Is there a brand name?

How's the battery life on door bot?

~~~
XorNot
As it stood we couldn't use the Doorbot with our doorbell system at all (it
was installed ~2005, some no-name chinese brand). Hooking it up led to the
Doorbot constantly ringing it. EDIT: Actually I'm misremembering - it did hook
up just fine, but pressing the button on the Doorbot led to it rining the
doorbell continuously for some reason.

No real idea about battery life - its been sitting on a bench somewhere for
the past year or so, since we gave up when we realized it was going to be
either the Doorbot or the doorbell which actually rang, and found the
notifications on phones were unreliable. We also realized that at home, you
usually don't have your phone on you or even necessarily nearby - hence the
doorbell.

The one nice thing about the Doorbot was they were trying to solve the battery
issue by letting you draw power of the doorbell circuit - but since ours isn't
AC (or has to low of a "ring" current) we couldn't use that.

~~~
bravo22
Gotcha. Thanks for the info.

------
xorcist
It would be interesting to know what the VC pitch for this product was. It's
absolutely a cool product, but there are some hard problems to solve there, so
it's a mystery to me why one would on top of that start on the difficult
consumer market.

(As a consumer myself, my immediate reaction is that a battery operated
deadbolt for my door is far, far down the list of gadgets I lust for. It's so
far down the list it's not even on the list. The ability for a third party
company to operate my door lock is even on the list of things I'd pay to
avoid. I just imagine there to be a nest of insurance liabilities there and I
wouldn't want to touch something where that wasn't worked out first.)

At best if this product really worked out, you'd have a small company selling
thousands (not hundreds of thousands) of units to consumers with all the
support liabilities that entails. Not something that usually thrills
investors.

Normally you would see such a company start out with high margin stuff where
installations are built on a case basis anyway.

To make it more concrete, here's an example:

Step one: Decide that the app is your core product. Start working with an
existing electronic doorlock system.

Step two: Sell to offices. Maybe hotels. A flashy app could very well be
enough to tip potential sales in your direction. Develop functionality where
the app gives you an edge (could be integration with AD, useful revocation,
whatever).

Step three: Either get acquired by a giant in the business ("profit") or
spread out to alarm systems. Those are ugly and hard to use. Use this leverage
to get a foot in the notoriously difficult consumer market and grow from
there.

The underlying ideas here are that existing players in this space are
notoriously bad at software, and that you should stick to use cases where
electric locks or sensors are already in place and play off that.

But perhaps this niche is already taken by Nest and that's why they went for
this particular consumer niche? I don't know but it would sure be interesting
to read a future post mortem analysis, if things turn out that way.

------
trimtab
Low power WiFi can be done. I've installed sensors that run xmit WiFi and run
on a pair of C cells for years. But a large concern with Lockitron is their
dependence on Electric Imp. Because when Electric Imp fails, Lockitron loses
access to all their customer's locks.

------
dkarl
I'm very frustrated by the house door keyless entry systems on the market,
having just ordered a Kevo despite being underwhelmed and a little bit
concerned by the Amazon reviews. It blows my mind (in a bad way) to see eager
buyers waiting for neophytes to get acquainted with the business of hardware
while the keyless entry system for my car has worked perfectly for five years
now. It seems like it would go so much better for consumers if a company in
the automobile industry would spin off a unit to tackle the problem. They have
people with all the right experience, not just with the manufacturing
challenges described in the article but with ergonomics, testing for
durability, and security.

I'm sure there's an economic or business reason why it's unfolding the way it
is, but that doesn't reduce my frustration. So many things feel backward about
it. Starting with a cheap, bolt-on almost-solution? That doesn't seem right
for a part of your home that you interact with every day. Using consumers as
beta testers? That feels wrong for a security device that controls access to
your home and everything you own. Developing a home keyless entry system
without exploiting the human capital developed on successful keyless entry
systems for cars? Definitely the hard way. It seems like the right way for a
home keyless entry system to be developed would be for a company with lots of
resources and relevant experience to develop a reliable, durable, convenient
solution and then work on bringing the cost down from a thousand bucks to
something reasonable. Instead, we have little companies trying to scrape by
selling not-quite-there products at early adopter prices. (I paid over $200
for the Kevo despite Amazon reviews reporting, among other things, accidental
engagement of the deadbolt while the door is swinging shut.)

I don't hold any of this against Lockitron. They're taking the route they are
out of necessity, and I'm grateful for it, because without them and other
upstarts, the market wouldn't be moving forward at all. At this point I feel
conflicted, because I'd hate to see their work rewarded by getting blown out
of the water by a bigger, better-funded competitor, but on the other hand,
that seems like the fastest way for me to get a product I really like.

(As a final note/aside, determining intent to unlock the door is an unsolvable
problem with traditional door hardware. Usability is going to suck until all
the lock/latch/knob hardware is redesigned for keyless entry. Everything until
then is just intermediate steps until home hardware catches up to the standard
set by automobiles.)

------
jacquesm
Maybe they should have read up on wakemate?

Hardware _seems_ so simple. But it really isn't.

------
kjackson2012
TLDR: we didn't know what we were doing when we started, and we learned a lot
along the way. Unfortunately this came at the expense of our customers.

~~~
joosters
The way that they describe how they learned must irritate backers as well.

"We soon learned" ... "It quickly became apparent" ... if this learning
process was quick, how come you discovered none of it until _after_ you took
everyone's money?

------
dm2
Rather than WiFi built into the device, why not using something like ZigBee
(what the Nest Protect uses to talk between devices) to connect to a small
WiFi enabled plug that fits into an electrical outlet?

Would this work?

If the battery life is still a problem then I wouldn't have a problem with
having a detachable module for the Nest that can be removed once a week and
manually recharged.

------
post_break
I have a danalock and it's been rock solid. Undercut the lockitron on price,
and it shipped. I've been using it for 6 months and so far the only hiccup was
bluetooth compatibility until my phone got an update. I'm surprised there
isn't a "Nest" for portable locks. It seems so simple. Turn a tumbler, that's
it. It's not rocket science. The danalock isn't perfect, and there's an added
cost for Z-wave but I think it's one of the best options out there for someone
not wanting to replace their entire lock. (apartment or renters)

------
kamilah381
It's good to see hardware startups be open about the challenges of being a
hardware startup.

------
HardwareLover
The difficulty of making connected hardware products and the failure of
crowdfunded hardware projects/products are not new. The controversy
surrounding crowdfunded hardware tend to come and go, and different
allegations--from fraud to failure of products--take center stage each time.

Generally, these allegations come about because of the shipping/delivery
delays, and there are a whole bunch of factors that contribute to the delays,
such as unrealistic expectations on the part of the inventor -- what the
startup hopes to deliver in a product (eg. 10 high specification features
packed into a keychain sized device) versus what current technologies and
materials can actually do (eg. 5 high spec features in a palm-sized device).

Another factor is the sophistication of a product. In general (from
conversations with project managers who worked at Asian OEMs/ODMs), the
typical time taken to develop and build a product (of similar quality to
iProducts) takes at least 12-18 months. Unless your product can be whiteboxed
(or a similar product has been done before), this is the typical minimum time-
frame required to build consumer electronics. And if your product falls under
a new category (eg. key-sized food scanners), then more time will be required
to research, develop and find the right technologies/materials to build the
product. The product is not impossible to build, but just requires more time
to make it happen.

Of course, the inventor can turn to any factory in Shenzhen to manufacture the
product (which may agree to a shorter manufacturing time-frame in order to get
your business), but what you get eventually is a product that doesn't work
well after investing a large sum of money
([http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/07/how-one-
kickstarter-p...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/07/how-one-kickstarter-
project-squandered-3-5-million/)).

The reason why hardware takes a long time to make and bring to market is
because, unlike software, after the molding is done, the product needs to
undergo many iterations, testing, certifications, blah blah blah... Also,
before a product is shipped, at least over 30 key decisions typically need to
be made and over 400 tasks need to be completed in sequence at different
stages--and missing a task may result in weeks-long delay.

For software developers looking to make hardware and have no previous
hardware-making experience, suggest you involve someone familiar with the
manufacturing process and pitfalls right from the start (eg. product concept
stage). The person could be an in-house or external expert, and by involving
the person early, you can ensure that your design/specs/expectations are
feasible --> in turn giving a realistic manufacturing time-frame.

If you need to get an estimation of the time needed for your hardware product
development, check out this SaaS navigation tool:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/jlim/2014/07/08/the-new-
hwtrek-g...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/jlim/2014/07/08/the-new-hwtrek-
guides-hardware-projects-from-idea-to-production-in-asia/).

------
debt
As a backer myself: this reads like someone who quite literally no idea what
they were doing or getting into in the first place and likely doing it for all
the wrong reasons. How did they not know the difference between building a
single prototype by hand and manufacturing thousands of units? It sucks to
think these people have now devoted a few years of their lives, likely
stressful years at that, to general incompetence. You got your kickstarter
funded now you're saying "sorry it's just hard" to ship the requested units?
All so some people can remotely lock something. The case study should
highlight how it happened that y'all missed the points above in the first
place and put emphasis ob why someone does a Kickstarter to begin with.

~~~
gkoberger
They underestimated how hard it would be, however I don't think it was
incompetence. They knew it would be hard, and it was even harder than they
assumed -- like any startup (hardware or software) ends up being.

It's easy to have opinions when you aren't the one building it.

~~~
bravo22
I agree. I'd say it was overconfidence more than incompetence; coupled with a
slightly unhealthy dose of overpromising/misleading on key features.

