

Tōd: Bluetooth 4.0 beacons that activate automatic alerts  - kondro
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rowdyrobot/tod-connect-real-world-actions-to-mobile-devices-a

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18pfsmt
It looks like you can get them for $30/piece, if you buy 5 (i.e. $150, total).
Perhaps these folks could go into their BOM costs, and show that the seeming-
premium is for forward compatibility going w/ BT 4.0. It seems like whoever is
selling the 4.0 ASIC (Broadcom, CSR, etc), is recouping their initial costs as
fast as possible.

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kondro
But, supposedly, they are losing money on even $32/unit (see the comments)
with someone else willing to make up the difference in pricing.

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todHQ
kondro, first off thanks for the love in the Hacker News Channel on
yCombinator.

The price points we started with for Kickstarter were based around
manufacturer and delivery of 1500 tōd Smart Beacons and finalization of our
architecture. The design is built around the Bluegiga BLE112a which retails
for $26 alone.

We would love to eventually get the tōd Smart Beacons to sub $10 price range,
or even come up with ways for the beacons to be free. However even at $40
(current retail price) they are still drastically cheaper than other options
currently on the market with none of the flexibility that tōd has to offer.

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kondro
These seem to have a number of interesting possibilites, especially if the
price-point can get to below $10.

