Designing, manufacturing, and selling an LED 'social battery' pin badge | Hacker News Reader

Designing, manufacturing, and selling an LED 'social battery' pin badge

davidcapper.dev

50 pointsthip30 comments

This is nice, and well done getting all the way to production!

As you point out in one of your posts, the meaning conveyed by the same battery level differs between extroverts and introverts.

For me, low social battery would mean "please leave me alone", whereas for others it would mean "please talk to me".

I wonder how that could be conveyed, of if there is another analogy other than battery level? Maybe a "talk to me traffic light"?!

I do like the traffic light idea. It's hard with the battery constraints of a wearable, but e-ink and a larger display might help give even more nuance.

I previously worked on a similar project focused on office interruptions, where you could display short statuses on an e-ink display on your desk - here's my teammate's writeup: https://www.timmychiu.com/dash . We didn't really get the chance to test it in the field, since COVID-19 hit that semester...

Should come in different colored LEDs: green for extravert, red for introvert, and maybe yellow for normal/average?

Also: 10% 20% 60% 80% 100% ?

I could never understand what “social batteries” ever mean. If you are low on “social”, that seems… bad? Does it mean I should approach to talk and cheer/charge you up with some “social”? I guess if I can see you then you could be in public on purpose. However, why is it red? Red is generally not a friendly color…

People with lacking social skills (hi) are probably least likely to understand such a mixed signal.

To anyone planning to make another one of those: be clear and call it simply “sociability”. Then it’s quite obvious, red means stay away and green means I can talk. That said, it’d eliminate the fun “my social battery is out of battery” failure mode…

I've only heard the term used by introverts, neurodivergent folk, etc to describe limited capacity/stamina for being in social situations before they become fatigued and overwhelmed.

IME people use it to refer to their capacity to cope with people, small talk, etc. equivalently 'stamina'.

“Low on stamina” actually makes sense.

I have multiple chronic pain and health issues that can make extended social situations hard for me. Often it sneaks up on me.

"low social battery"/"spoons" doesn't mean you should avoid them or try and fix anything. What you should do is take it as a signal to not take offense and be patient if they need to leave suddenly, get distracted, or have difficulty. You can be welcoming while still making them some space to be tired or in pain.

My experience is that people who are lacking "social skills" aren't actually lacking social skills, they are lacking "social instincts". For people who have them, those social instincts work great 80% of the time, and most people just let them fail 20% of the time instead of applying critical thought to the situation (taking offense where none is meant or just miscommunicating).

Bluntly put, this tool is likely not meant for your consumption and your "lack of social skills" probably makes it much less necessary. You have to use critical thought every time you are in social interaction, so a reminder to do so is just signal noise to you.

Took a while to get it but I can see your final point. Still must note that it makes applying critical thought harder and can lead to opposite results. I guess it would work with people with whom it is established beforehand what the battery is supposed to mean.

The first point, thanks for the insight. Depending on the type of pain it can be the opposite for me, sometimes I find it easier to distract myself from it by talking to others. I am normally not inclined to talk IRL, but being badly ill and weak turns me into a more pleasant person apparently.

Totally the same on distracting myself from pain by talking to others pattern! It is a big part of why I put myself in social situations despite being in pain.

At the end of the day, it is all crappy 1st order approximations of ideal behavior. That is the best humans can do. So we should try and make sure the "error" on those gets spread around/rotated in time rather than consistently excluding anybody.

I know that I have a social battery. Basically, I get warn down on conversations and social interactions. Typically, this manifests in two ways:

* I'm more prone to day dream/wander away from the conversation.

* I'm going to struggle to actively keep a conversation going.

I don't think I could ever wear a pin like this, but for me low social battery would indicate "I'm less likely to be highly engaged in a conversation". Could be the most interesting conversation in the world, but I'd simply be unable to engage at a high level.

A battery accumulates something desirable, right?

I think I got it finally. What you describe is aloneness battery. First you have a lot of it, then it drains and you need to recharge. It is the opposite of “social battery”, but does not roll off the tongue.

“Social battery” means you have a lot of social interaction as optimal state, then it drains and you need to replenish.

> A battery accumulates something desirable, right?

That an interesting way of looking at a battery. I've never thought of it that way.

In my opinion, batteries provide power/energy to something else. In that sense, "social batteries" provide the energy to have social interactions. When those deplete, social interactions run out.

The return of The Shat https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jpmoore/shats-william-s...

> I got the same email the next morning and soon after that I got another email saying that due to having too many policy violations I would be unable to achieve ‘star seller badges’, and that any further violations would result in my account being permanently suspended.

Ah, classic Etsy move. They really went downhill, all I can see in my cosplay bubble on Twitter/Mastodon is complaints.

I would be very curious to discover what the actual issue with Etsy was. Not sure if that will ever be discovered, but if anybody from Etsy is here / reading this would love to hear your insight on what might have been the hiccup!

Yeah I'd love to know. Although a part of me is glad that I wasn't able to follow the path of least resistance here. It was frustrating and dissapointing to be rejected with barely any explanation, but ultimately I've learned more by having to sell these by myself (and I get to keep a much bigger cut of the sales than I would have on Etsy!)

I would like one that was just red and green. By default: red.

Then I can shift it to green which automatically starts a countdown to shift to red after 15 minutes.

It would be even better with the countdown being visual with a bar of lights that starts up "full" and then decreases by one light until the time has expired.

Must have the feature to extend the conversation should that ever be a desire. You can find good conversations with luck.

Most desired for me would be automatic detection of conversation and start the countdown.

This looks fun! How do you get on with shipping outside the UK? Is there any trickiness with taxes, customs etc that you need to deal with?

I haven't had any problems with it yet and I've sent enough abroad now that someone would have complained by now if there were issues (I hope!). I'm just using the basic Royal Mail international postage option which is DDU (delivery duty unpaid - something else I learned through doing this!) so tax is the responsibility of the buyer.

Customs is the part I found most stressful trying to work out. I have to attach a declaration which has an HS code[0] on it. Working out the 'correct' code was a bit of a guessing game. I've gone with '853120' which is for 'Indicator panels incorporating liquid crystal devices (LCD) or light-emitting diodes (LED)' and that seems to do the job!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonized_System

Having said that, I may pay to send a couple of international orders tracked just so I can see how long it takes and if there are any hold-ups I should be aware of.

This looks like a fun project! You know what I need? A social energy monitor that tells me how much I have left. I’m always caught by surprise when it’s too late.

It would be like a radioactivity monitor, perhaps inferring exposure based on voices and location, and warn me when it’s time to seek decontamination and cover. ;)

Hah, I did consider sticking a microphone on these and making them steadily tick down as people talk to you but I decided that might come across as being a bit passive aggressive... (although I have been told that pressing the button to reduce the level mid-conversation is a very effective way of getting people to leave you alone!)

I agree. If I had this hypothetical device I’d want it to be hidden. This could probably be a smartwatch app. But making a custom device is more fun!

Could use nearby/changing bluetooth devices as a measure of how crowded/busy a place is. A place with a low number of strong signals could recharge the battery if you stayed there for a minimum amount of time.

Turn yourself into the Tamogotchi

I don’t think your link to https://hortus.dev/products/social-battery works on your page.

Ah whoops… fixed now, thanks for pointing that out!

This is really cool. Would love to hear how you get on re sales and fb advertising. What other channels might work for this? Fb marketplace? Amazon?

I've had the store up since around the start of December and I've averaged a little over one sale per day since then. The bulk of these have come from the facebook ads and whilst the cost of these isn't great, I'm selling enough that I am making a profit still. I'm also trying to compete with all the results for regular enamel badges on Google by paying a small amount to promote my link. I've got some traffic but no sales yet via that channel - although I only started this week so it's early days. Over the course of the year I'm hoping to grow some consistent organic traffic and sales so that I can rely less on paid ads.

Something that took me by surprise is how much fun it is seeing people interact with my content on facebook. A lot of people are just comenting and tagging their friends because they think it's a funny idea. Whilst I am kind of paying for the ego boost it's really nice seeing people enjoying my project even though they don't necessarily follow through and buy one.

Awesome, best of luck. I could see this in gadget mags esp around xmas, they often look for lower cost items to contrast the £500 phones and £1k laptops ;)

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