ASk HN: Anyone working on hardware for his/her startup? | Hacker News Reader

ASk HN: Anyone working on hardware for his/her startup?

21 pointsrokhayakebe29 comments

99.99 percent of startups mentioned here are working on software products . I am sure there are a few of us who are creating hardwares. Could you please come fwd if you do not mind and share your concept, challenges etc...?

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My first startup was a hardware company. I don't recommend it, unless your problem can't be solved any other way. The vast majority of hardware is a commodity, and if it isn't today, it will be in a year or two when Chinese manufacturers get it figured out.

Someone else mentioned medical devices, and I definitely think that's a great area. But most folks I meet who want to do hardware are going after the consumer market, which is a hard business to enter as a startup.

I heard about some ex-soviet scientists who developed a little control box to prevent backflow in big pipes (like at refineries.) They were able to sell $10 worth of hardware for something like $150,000 because of the money it would save refineries.

Of course, what made it really valuable was the software in the box.

Bluetooth enabled wearable thermometer. Chip design, convenience, measurement, programming for devices are some of the challenges.

Anyone else in medical diagnostics?

A favorite startup of mine is bodybugg (http://www.bodybugg.com/). They measure the flux of body heat and determine a person's caloric output. I built some MEMS devices once and was juiced about building a body calorimeter. Too bad I had my idea something like three years after bodybugg went to market :)

I didn't know that was possible. Is there a page that says how it works? I don't want to watch their video.

I don't know for sure. My best guess is they have a calorimeter, a device which measures the irradiance on a surface. The Bodybugg companies then does a series of calibrations to convert the irradiance into the power the body outputs. The power used per (second?) is integrated up over the course of a day, and converted into calories.

Essentially, it's a fancy thermometer.

Never heard of such a device. You really do learn something new everyday!

Yeah, a friend of mine is.

He's built a video game console kit. hardware is complete, software mostly done, teaching material still to come. What it aims to do is take you through the steps required to build a game console, from how to get a signal on the screen, how video memory and sound etc work right up to building games.

That sounds pretty cool - is there a url for it?

Not yet. I'm trying to get him to get a blog up and running as I think a number of people here would find what he's doing pretty interesting.

Ok I'll get a blog going with some screenshots/MPEGS and audio examples. If you guys are interested.

that would be great.

Yeee!! Interesting stuff! Get the blog up and running soo!

Ok give me till monday and I will have a Blog running with regular updates.

Ok Here it is Guys will post a video of stuff running over the new couple of days and some of the first pics of me generating the first Video from the PIC Chip using a bunch of resistors.

http://www.videogamekits.com/CD/Blog/

That is incredible from one pIC Chip. Thanks for the link.

Have just uploaded and MPEG to the blog at

http://www.videogamekits.com/CD/Blog/

Are there blogs (ala TechCrunch) that cover hardware startups? It will be interesting to follow them regularly.

Not sure if it's quite what you mean, but have you seen: http://www.core77.com

It's mostly about industrial design. There's often some cool stuff on there.

thanks for the link. It looks indeed cool. I am going to add it to my feed subscriptions.

I want to build a better set top box because everything I have seen is either tied to some service (apple, tivo, netflix), is not polished enough for mass market (too many features in Linux MCE), or is too expensive > $500.

But alas I have no hardware skills so I will have to wait till someone else does it. :-)

I'm actually trying to do that too. Also trying to create internet content delivery and record viewing habits and statistics for a metrics/recommendation engine.

It's not really at a startup stage, but I'm trying to, with some friends and burning man people, see if I can build/design an extremely lightweight and cheap parabolic trough out of carbon fiber and mylar, for electric and mechanical power generation. I'm iterating through to see if wind is a blocking issue.

I also had some designs for a powered wheel with two degrees of freedom, without a caster, to remove some of the angular momentum problems that classic approaches face.

No, but there are still a lot of opportunities out there which require hardware.

One idea struck me the other day: why not use your iPhone (or Android phone) as a home phone handset, when you're home and in Wifi range? That would require a specialized base station (perhaps running a stripped-down Asterisk) that recognized when your phone was in range, and would "ring" it on demand, let you pick up your home phone any time, etc.

We are working on some devices for the home of the future operated through the Internet. I know a hardware guy so we are diversifying our product offerings.

Somewhat similarly, my last startup (i-conserve.com) was developing a wireless sensor network to automate energy conservation.

I would be if I were smart enough.

Given the fact that the consumption of video and audio will only increase I would like to see a remote control specially made for that purpose. It should not be hard. Maybe it will be an improved mouse. I looked around, but could not find anything that would satisfy my need. I may go on and get a prototype built.

We bought one of these:

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/keyboards/keyboard/devices...

Rocks pretty good for media. Can't play serious games with it, though. (My girlfriend manages to use it for Portal.)

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