Belgian startup DPTechnics releases OpenWRT module | Hacker News Reader

Belgian startup DPTechnics releases OpenWRT module

dptechnics.com

75 pointsColinWright23 comments

A very similar product by Lithuanian company: http://shop.8devices.com/carambola2

It does not come with built-in antenna though, so an external antenna is required.

Any other differences? They seems to be much closer to me, so I'm thinking about buying this one. Any tips/suggestions on that?

I haven't worked with DPT before, but I have used original Carambola in one product. The engineers of 8devices were helpful in the forums, and generally, I liked working with them. They are located close to me (well, not in the same country, but close enough).

There was a technical issue with the first Carambola though- we experienced problems with USB connectivity when using WiFi AP at full power. The fix was to decrease power of WiFi antenna.

Nice! I have about half a dozen projects that could use this.

A question to no company in particular, though this seems to be a good place to ask.

Why are you not taking backorders? I have noticed, across multiple startups and other electronics companies, that the pattern seems to be:

1) Produce $QUANTITY items in the first production run 2) Sell out in $RIDICULOUSLY_SHORT_TIME 3) Order $QUANTITY * $MULTIPLE while telling potential customers, "We ordered more from the manufacturer, check back later!"

The last step turns getting an item into a sort of lottery. If you take backorders, though, you get a defined backlog to work through. Your customers will definitely get what they want (eventually). Plus, you know what $MULTIPLE should be going forward because you have a defined set of work for the future. I spent the first four years of my career as an EE with an aerospace company, and for us having a backlog was a good thing (as long as we could meet our contractual obligations, of course). Few, if any, hardware startups seem to be embracing this concept.

Hello, I am Daan Pape from dptechnics. We do not accept backorders because we do not want to accept money before we can set an absolute delivery date. Only when the next batch comes in we will accept the next orders. Honesty and customer satisfaction is very important to us.

I appreciate the reply and understand the position. Appreciate it, in fact, since if you have significant variability in your production times you should not be taking money for product you don't have yet.

That said, taking money is not necessary for taking backorders. You could do something like what ay mentioned and just collect interest. I was thinking more of what Raytheon, Boeing, and similar companies do, wherein selling the product and transferring the money are separate transactions that may be spaced in time, in their case sometimes in years. You take orders and earmark production for those customers, but you don't take their money until you have the completed stock in-house.

You can collect the estimate of the units wanted + email address. This way you could both capture the HN's momentum and keep in touch later. I'd love to hear from you again when you have stock :-) (and I am in .be as well :-)

Hello, this is Daan Pape again. Thank you for your comment and idea. We have now implemented a 'back in stock' notification system for subscribers.

Thanks for not messing around by creating imaginary order queues that allow you to accept more cash. Don't listen to some of these users, they thirst for 'disruption.'

Fyi, DX carries a similar module with a few gpio pins, 2x uart, 2x ethernet, and wi-fi. It has 4mb flash and 16mb of ram, and runs openwrt. $15 incl. shipping

module: http://dx.com/p/hi-link-hlk-rm04-serial-port-ethernet-wi-fi-...

convenient breakout ($30): http://dx.com/p/vrm04-multifunction-uart-serial-port-to-ethe...

DX sold me a 2 amp USB charger that fried my raspberry pi upon first use. I won't take that chance again.

That's pretty nice and using that SoC is very convinient. I got a wr703n for $23 and installed OpenWRT on it (http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr703n) to play around with GPIOs. It comes with 5V 1A USB power supply and case, so price wise it's still better than the DPTechnics module. I also got a $15 HI-LINK HLK-RM04, although installing OpenWRT is trickier (http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/hilink/hlk-rm04).

Have you seen this - a "daughterboard" and IO expander for the WR702n: http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/tplink-wr703n-expander-p-16...

(Full disclosure: designed by a friend assisted by a group of people at my local hackerspace…)

> It comes with 5V 1A USB power supply and case, so price wise it's still better than the DPTechnics module

I think the value of this DPT module is that it has all the GPIO brought out conveniently to the outside pins

I love these cheap linux modules that keep on springing up. I was just wondering whether DPTechnics actually designed and built this themselves or just ordered a bunch in from China - it looks identical to this module I found on Alibaba:

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/705656079/3g_gps_wifi_modu...

0.36W €30 dual ethernet - cool.

I think I've just found something to go upstream of my main home router (using the router's USB socket for power). The main home router can become a basic switch/wireless access point.

You could also use something like this as a portable personal firewall/VPN router running off the laptop's USB ports for power.

I was too slow this time though!

Really great to see more devices in this space, especially with that combination of interfaces.

I'd love for something in this price bracket with NFC support, so that then you could send configuration data to the device via NFC. Still not convinced I've seen a nice way to handle device setup for this internet-of-things world we're supposed to be headed to.

Awesome. These guys are located 20 km away from me! Glad to see something interesting come out of our small country.

Indeed, nice to see our small country on HN. Ordered 2 of those..

Great to see some HN love for a Belgian company! We're also part of the Belgian Mafia ;) Let's keep it up!

Same here. Would totally love a tour of their offices.

30 euro ex shipping with 6 in stock.

only 1 remaining, out of stock soon :D

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