Hacker News Reader

Comment by penkia | Hacker News Reader

hi, project creator penk here, thanks for the comment, "we don't know" is the honest answer we can give at this moment, since we hadn't ordered any parts.

For your reference the first batch (10pcs) EVT boards is about ~90USD a piece: https://i.imgur.com/anUASlT.jpg

View on HN

"we don't know" is not as good as "we don't know, but it won't be less than the material cost, which is currently X" would go a long way towards taking the people you want to get excited about this product seriously. We understand how "things cost money" works, but going "we don't know, figure it out yourself" is not a nice thing to tell people who are actually interested in what you're making =)

Even updating it to say "it will likely be in the $100-$200 range due to material cost and production fees" is fine: that's a _huge_ range, and still better than "we don't know, figure it out yourself".

Fair point, will update accordingly. I hesitate to say anything because we are getting mixed signals from Chinese manufacturers....

It is great that you release this info early, including the “we don’t know”, as someone who does know may show up and help.

Would you be willing to work with US based companies for hardware?

It is impossible to find cheap US-based PCB manufacturing, the ones who compete on price all left for China years ago. What's left services the high-end/custom/defense/1-day-turnaround market.

Great update, thank you!

Beyond that, material costs are X assuming a 10k initial production run.

I find it refreshing and frightening that target price is not known when attempting to build a commercial grade electronics.

Is component selection conducted without any price consideration?

Component prices will usually be a very important factor when choosing which components to use.

However, when you go into production and order parts from distributors, you will usually get special deals which can lower the price of your product. Problems can also appear if one of your single source components is out of stock, then you will have to wait (probably a long time) for it to get back in stock, choose an alternative (probably more expensive) component, or buy it on the gray market.

Edit: grammar and spelling

What does the grey market for components even look like? I can't think that anybody is bothering to steal individual components, so are we talking possibly-counterfeit parts?

The grey market doesn't mean stolen - it just means unauthorized distributors. Companies building a product will end up with excess parts -- either they bought too many to satisfy minimum purchases, or changed the design, or cancelled the product. They sell these parts to brokers, who then resell them. The way to avoid this is to limit sole-source suppliers and make sure there are backup plans (parts that fit with same footprint, etc.)

>What does the grey market for components even look like? I can't think that anybody is bothering to steal individual components, so are we talking possibly-counterfeit parts?

So somewhat related, check out Strange Parts on YouTube. His past couple of few videos involve him building a Samsung Galaxy from components in Shenzhen and then having it x-rayed by a place that (as one of their functions) identifies counterfeit parts.

In the video with the x-ray they talk about reclaimed and counterfeit parts and you can see differences between what was supposed to be a real camera module and an actual real camera module in one of the x-rays.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO8DQrSp5yEP937qNqTooOw

Even if you can only fill in the blanks of this sentence, that would be really helpful:

"I'd be surprised if the retail price ends up being less than $___ or more than $___"

Another point w/ looking at a pricing that's in flux: if prices are changing markedly over time, and you're tracking those, showing the plot provides information.

As in: is the trend downwards (my expectation), upwards (would be a surprise), or perhaps varying (market showing major shifts). And by how much.

A comparable concept is the bug burn-down charts the Debian project has produced over the past decade or two, which hugely assist with getting some sense of when "when it's ready" might be.

And sure, wrap the information in all the "this is not a price committment" language you care to.

Usually products are priced not based on the direct costs to produce them, but based on the value they provide to the end-user.

What is the target price range you expect people to pay for such product, above which it wouldn't be worth producing?

As an open source project (we're not a company) we'll try our best, hope it won't affect by the trade tariff? :P

For price range I would say kano computer kit touch or raspad tablet are all good products and provide good reference.

> raspad tablet

Maybe the totally wrong place to ask, but that display looks great. Any ideas where to get one of those?

Those products appear to be priced around 250-280 USD. Would it be safe to say your product might be priced around 200-400 USD? I realize an exact price is premature and future tariffs could impact the price.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com