Traintrackr – Live LED transit maps | Hacker News Reader

Traintrackr – Live LED transit maps

traintrackr.co.uk

91 pointsbschne28 comments

They could make a California fire tracker version. Seems like it would have a decent amount of constant activity to display.

Or a display of earthquakes, again of California, or a larger global view. I'm always amazed by the amount of shaking listed by USGS.

They just announced a new large format product, starting with California. Initially it'll show rain but soon they will support many data layers as well as pushing data via API. I bought one in the hopes of displaying fire data.

Shit, you just need a blank piece of paper to show rain in California. No LEDs necessary.

Mostly true but it drizzles a bit on the coast and there are thunderstorms with rain in the mountains so would be kinda interesting. Winter would have more activity.

where do they get the data from?

http://iscaliforniaonfire.com/

http://usgs.gov

http://weather.com

it's not really too hard to find data on the internet

They presented at Geomob a few months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzHA0Y9Urdc

Great thing to follow if you are into all things maps and geo.

I wonder how they settled on the price point, what testing was done, etc.

It seems to me that it’s a beautiful product that’s got high margins and is priced so far above the “screw it, I’ll buy one!” threshold that I wonder if they’re leaving a lot of cashflow on the table. Alternatively, perhaps almost everyone who would have paid $99 will also pay $199 and I’m totally off.

They don't say where they are making them (mainly China or ex-China) but a device like that with discrete components is going to cost basically what they charge. An amateur could make one with a considerably smaller bill-of-materials, but then you are paying $0.00 for their time.

This is how discrete electronics vs ICs is like a model rocket vs a moon rocket. The methods that are used to assemble panels for TVs and phones are astronomically more economical than laying out a hundred or so LEDs on a circuit board.

I’m not sure I understand. The board is clearly using ICs and those LEDs are surely placed by a pick-n-place. Maybe the power connector is manually soldered (but probably not). It looks like a board with single sided placements (at least the few I looked at).

Sure, they don’t have the volume to get to large-scale mass production, but these are almost surely machine assembled.

A 4K TV has 30 million addressable lights (3 per pixel) that are produced by a printing process of some kind that scales far beyond what a pick-and-place machine could do affordably!

This is cool, but definitely asks for a steep price. I can appreciate why it is as high as that, but for something that doesn't offer much practical value I personally wouldn't buy it.

I'm actually currently working on replicating the TFL departure boards[1] and creating a generic LED Matrix display that can show departures as well as other things (BTC price, Deliveroo status, and whatever else anyone can imagine. I plan to offer an API). The price point that I will need to go for worries me, but when you're putting these things together by hand there is no way they can be sold for less than £100.

1 - https://i2-prod.mylondon.news/incoming/article17723571.ece/A...

That sounds like an exciting idea – all the best with it!

In case you're not aware, UKTroniX are selling something similar:

https://uktronix.co.uk/product-category/px-boards%ef%bf%bc/

Yeah, I'm aware of these. I actually considered purchasing one but the high price is what got me to create my own :)

Something like Tidbyt?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tidbyt/retro-display

Thanks for the link! Didn't see this one and indeed it looks like very much what I have in mind, my current prototype is very similar (even using wood for the enclosure).

Will be tough to compete (since they have an actual team and manufacturing in Shenzhen), but hey, there are many different kinds of phones out there, there can be multiple retro displays too :)

Definitely can be!

We're also starting to realize that competition to own the hardware might not be the best for anyone. There's definitely room for many different kinds of zero-interaction displays.

Instead, I'm thinking about what it would look like for 3rd-party devices to run Tidbyt OS and be able to run our apps and connect to our services. We've done a lot of work to make it a great experience for users and it's silly for everyone to have to reinvent everything from scratch.

UK rain tracker = all LEDs on all the time ;)

It's never that predictable. A defective flickering florescent tube would be a closer approximation.

California rain tracker - no LEDs needed

I have one for the San Francisco BART system and I love the product. It was easy to set up and has stayed up for multiple months. It is beautiful and a nice reminder of the weekend (way fewer trains).

Ditto, I have the BART one and its fantastic!

Double ditto, I have the NYC Subway board and it is beautiful. There sure are a lot of subway trains running at once, you would think mine would arrive more frequently.

Kinda annoying that it asks me if I want to view the "US site" but still shows the London Underground and UK graphics even though they have NY, MA, CA, BART and other gfx appropriate for US.

They still list prices in pounds.

If they're not going to personalize it, why claim there is a "US Site?"

The redirect after the prompt to go to the US site seems to not work. If you manually change with the flag icon at the top, it redirects you to https://www.traintrackr.io/ which shows US centric products and prices.

Hmm not sure what's up, I'm seeing USD prices and US-centric products when I click the flag icon and select the US one. Must be kinda weird for an American user to open a commerce site where they're not treated as first-class citizens :)

These look really cool, would definitely be interested in a Seattle bus map (we only have the one train unfortunately).

I love their products Im about to buy one, it would be great to see what other ones they come up with.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com