Comment by conesus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by conesus | Hacker News Reader

Hey HN, I run NewsBlur and am launching my hardware project Turn Touch today. Launched last year as a Kickstarter campaign, it is now available for immediate shipping.

Turn Touch is a beautiful wooden smart home remote and pedestal. It’s designed to fit both your home and your hand. Use it to instantly control Hue lights, smart devices, Mac and iOS apps, and more. Turn Touch connects to most smart devices in your home that speak WiFi, including Sonos speakers and Belkin Wemo smart plugs. Turn Touch works with your Mac, iPhone, or iPad to control apps like iTunes, Spotify, and Keynote.

Here’s a few more reasons to buy it:

* Extraordinary design — This isn't yet another plastic remote. Turn Touch is carved from solid wood and worked to a show-stopping, textured finish.

* Well connected — Turn Touch is always on, always connected, and always ready to take your breath away. Once you connect your Turn Touch via Bluetooth it stays connected and always available, even without the Turn Touch app actively running. And there's no delay, when you press a button the result is instant.

* Built to last — Not only will Turn Touch stand up to drops and shock, its entire circuit board can be inexpensively replaced with newer, future wireless tech. You won't have to buy a new remote every time Apple comes out with a new phone. And instead of flimsy plastic clasps, a set of 8 strong magnets invisibly hold the remote together.

Plus it’s entirely open source. And good open source projects benefit from good documentation. Here is a five part series on how Turn Touch was built: https://medium.com/@samuelclay/everything-you-need-to-build-...

Where on the website does it say how it actually works? Because "the it works" page, well, doesn't. It seems it connects to a phone via bluetooth? But also uses Wifi? How does it actually connect to any devices? Does it even do that? Or is it just a bluetooth remote for your phone, and the phone then does the real work? If I put this thing next to my bed, and I use it to control my lights, and I left my phone downstairs - will it work?

The remote connects to your iphone, iPad, or Mac. The phone/computer uses wifi or the net to talk to your devices. You can also use IFTTT to control hundreds of devices that aren't natively supported by Turn Touch.

I have a Turn Touch in a pedestal next to my bed and it controls all of the lights in my home.

Huh? It needs my phone to be present to turn on the lights? What if my wife wants to turn on the lights? Why does it need to talk to a phone? Wouldn't a zigbee device compatible with the hue bridge make more sense?

In that case you'd be better off connecting it to a communal iPad or to a Mac that lives at home.

Ooh you may want to make it (much, much) clearer that this won't work without an Apple device.

How many wireless standards are there?

about 18 so far (according to wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11

Maybe a good idea for a future add-on to this product: sell a stand-alone hub (something like a Raspberry Pi) that could replace the need for an iOS or MacOS device. You could still use an iOS (or Android) app to configure the hub.

It'd add a bit to the price, but clearly not everyone has a spare Apple device sitting around, that is always-on.

There are dozens of this sort of 'home automation hub' on the market already; some of the based on Raspberry Pi, or on COTS hardware, or dedicated devices.

This is pretty neat, but I was hoping for something not mobile app dependent. Like a ZigBee or Z-Wave connected device. (My automation software currently runs Insteon only, though I've got the hardware to add ZigBee and Z-Wave and will someday get around to it.)

I don't have an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, so I pretty much immediately ended up outside of your market.

I love the idea of the wall dock for it, that I assume is magnetic.

Does it work with non-Apple Bluetooth devices? The language on the "how it works" page seems surprisingly specific to Apple.

Also, does it connect with Sengled hubs?

It's Apple only for now. Once that market shows it's worthwhile I'll expand into Android. As for Sengled hubs, if there's IFTTT support or custom URL support, then it's in there.

Thanks for the response. Personally, I would be more interested in connecting through a Raspberry Pi 3, which has Bluetooth on board, rather than a mobile device.

You should make sure to mention this on the Indigo forums (http://www.perceptiveautomation.com/userforum/index.php) given that it looks like an Apple-centric smarthome device.

FWIW, the wood thing does not really seem like a selling point, and also most likely drives the price up more than a plastic case would.

I like the concept of it though and plan to research the APIs a bit more and then will likely order a couple.

You're absolutely right that wood is driving up the price. But if this does well enough in wood then I'll launch a plastic version in a year or two for $49.

You seem neat and open, personally, I wouldn't put a future price here unless you expect to really hit it. I've already got that in my head. :)

I'm with you on that but I've had that price in my head for a long, long time. The sub $50 point is what I'm aiming for and having thought enough about the plastic version after having made the wood version, I also have a good handle on what it'll cost me.

Please don’t ever make a plastic one.

An aluminum one would be interesting though.

agreed. metal could be cool. I'd still buy the wood myself (if i buy it at all) but i can imagine metal would make some people really happy even if it was more expensive (witness the apple watch)

Anecdatum, I wouldn’t even consider this if it wasn’t wood.

I'm in the same boat. People's homes vary a lot, and any single wood is going to clash badly with at a large percentage of homes.

White (plastic or painted metal) is something that could probably blend in to almost any space.

(It also shows misplaced priorities, in my opinion, when the homepage mentions the Janka hardness of the wood. I don't care how hard the button is because I'm just pressing it with my finger...)

What happens when your fingernail goes into the wood? Mahogany and Rosewood are both hard enough that these remotes will never show any wear unless you abuse them on concrete.

I guess I don't think about that problem because all of the buttons and switches in my life already solve that issue by being made of plastic or metal.

That also just reminded me of another big downside to wood: all the dogs I've ever owned have been really interested in chewing on wooden objects left around the house, even if they were otherwise perfectly respectful of everything else. I've lost quite a few shoe-polish brushes over the years.

Yep, you're completely right. I've already replaced a poor remote that was chewed up by a user's dog. Luckily I give free replacements if the user can provide a photo.

Sounds like you and the GP aren’t in the same boat - they want wood, you don’t...

You're right. I misread the comment. My mistake!

Curious. Why? Do you have no other plastic items or remotes in your house? Are wood accessories so core to you?

It’s just that this device is completely pointless to me. So I’d only be interested if it was an attractive curio.

Ah, the timing makes much more sense now. I was looking at the "YC S12" descriptor and wondering, "what's been going on the past 6 years for this to be shipping today?" This looks great by the way, well done.

Congratulations on shipping the product. I must say that it is a beautiful little thing. Good luck moving forward.

I really like how this looks and I bought one to try out. I wish it were standalone and Z-wave (or similar protocol) with Wink (or similar) support. I hate having a different app for every device.

Is S12 correct? Edit: ah, Newsblur was S12, that's somewhat confusing

I was wondering the same, and became even more confused when I couldn't find Turn Touch on the S12 batch list [0]. This founder first started NewsBlur, which can be found on the S12 batch list, and they are now launching their hardware project Turn Touch. Turn Touch has been a year or so in the making, a much nicer timeline that 6+.

[0] http://www.ycombinator.com/companies/?batch=s2012

Same company, new product. Plus the remote integrates with NewsBlur. I tend to only build productivity tools that use aggregation to get work done.

Five years now. I was researching how to build buttons the day Google announced the Reader sunset (March 13, 2013). That pushed me back a bit as I had to get NewsBlur in shape. It’s a solo project so it took a while to prototype and launch but now here we are.

That’s why I wrote the open source documentation. It’s what I would have wanted when I started this project.

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