On: I stayed in a hotel with Android lightswitches and it was as bad as you'd think

[SiVal]

I was thinking the point would be that one reason for the low price is that the manufacturer wants your design so they can use it to build a competing product at their other factory down the road--a joint venture with the local Party boss. You'll never know, but even if you figure it out, what do you imagine you can do about it? Maybe get a court to block the product in the US (causing them a week's delay while they change labels and distributors), but if you're looking for cheap Chinese manufacturing, you won't usually have the resources for any worldwide legal battle against these guys.

And if the design you are paying them to take from you is for some IoT product, the local Party boss can even make bonus points with his superiors by offering them a chance to backdoor it.

I'll bet the cheap tablets in that hotel for tech conference attendees, the tablets with the ethernet and WiFi listening circuitry, could collect a lot of great technology for their makers, and I'll bet they were made in China.