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Comment by Dunedan | Hacker News Reader

> Sidekick is a new hardware device […]

So your "new hardware device" is a Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 (2019) with a stand, isn't it?

What's your motivation to offer hardware instead of selling the Android app separately as well, so customers could use it without the hassle of getting hardware shipped?

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All of our current customers wanted to try the experience without actually having to purchase and own a new expensive device. We really wanted to lower the barrier for anyone who wanted to give us a chance.

We also handle all shipping/return costs -- we're trying to minimize any burden on the customers.

What happens when an employee has one stolen? or coffee spilled on it?

How many free tablets can I get for $25/mo? What do you do when you realize someone has spilled coffee on 3 tablets, and now their credit card isn't rebilling and they aren't responding to email?

You can dream up all of these scenarios. But if you have a healthy business then a small number of people scamming you for Galaxy Tab's doesn't kill it.

Well, of course, that's the case for big corpo; but being a small startup with _limited_ budget, I think the bill can scale up pretty quickly.

Hopefully not, though, I truly like the product.

The margins are pretty fat ($25/mo for hardware that costs $200) and unless they have a particular knack for finding petty thieves I expect that they will lose fewer than 1% of their tablets to fraud.

hasn't been a problem yet, but definitely something we're thinking about!

I guess the same reason why companies lease hardware like laptops for their employees.

Yes except the leasing cost is not $150% of the cost of the laptop per year.

I was really split on mentioning this but I picked up Camo after reading it mentioned on HN somewhere:

https://reincubate.com/camo/

It’s yearly subscription software but doing the app route you mentioned. Grabbed a little iPhone camera mount clip for like 10 bucks and it’s really something.

Thanks for the link. Isn’t this using your main computer still and the same as using a comp webcam in terms of availability?

A guess? Hardware startups mean money to investors. ;)

Do they though? I thought investors heavily favor software because of infinite scaling.

Or tiktok clones.

Haha yeah a $200 tablet for $300 a year!!! Bargain. I’d rather just use afterpay if I was that poor.

Crazy how bad at math you’d have to be to think this was a deal.

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