Spark Labs Raises $4.9M to Help Engineers Make Their Devices Smart
blogs.wsj.com
blogs.wsj.com
It is basically an Arduino dev kit w/ the WiFi module integrated. If you want to use an existing Arduino shield you'd have to buy their Shield Shield which you can plug your spark core into and then plug in the other Arduino shield.
You can take the same CC3000 from TI -- around $11 in low volume -- put it on your board and write your software with their driver.
They basically make a good dev board but for anyone wanting to make anything in a volume beyond 1K they'd use the TI module directly. You don't put a dev board in an end product.
I fail to see how their business is going to scale beyond this.
I am not seeing a cloud "operating system". Maybe I'm missing something??
But most of the magic is the cloud app that each device maker writes that does the heavy lifting, and that's pure web service; i.e. if it's X o'clock send command to turn on the sprinklers, unless it is raining in the user's zip code.
and, uh, cough I just joined Spark as well...
"We use industry-standard components — chosen to be powerful, inexpensive, and widely available — that can be designed directly onto your own circuit board, bringing your Bill of Materials down for volume production."
We tried hard to make sure the components on the Spark Core dev kit are really easy to source and buy in low quantities, so you can build the board yourself if you really want. Large companies often already have their own supply chain, so this makes things much easier for them, but you can also buy in bulk and get great discounts if you're a startup or building in lower volumes. :)
Thanks, David
They can't make money on the hardware, because TI makes the chip and provides the reference design and drivers for free. Spark boards are all OSHW anyways. You'd spend the extra week and integrate the TI part into your device anyways.
Their cloud stack is open source, and is basically a transport. As the device maker you'd still have to write the cloud app that gathers data from different points and sends commands to the end unit.
Beyond the dev kits I'm having a hard time seeing the revenue stream and/or value proposition.
What am I missing? Maybe guys from Spark want to chime in?
If I use Spark to prototype, is there a product they are offering me that I would need to pay for at scale?
I'm from Spark, and I can try to answer! :)
If you're a business or a maker, using the Spark Cloud saves you from having to worry about building your own protocol, dealing with socket programming, spinning up servers, as well as worrying about encryption on microcontrollers, or wearing a pager. Having the source code available means you can keep your private things private by not going over the internet, as well as building things we haven't thought of yet.
Thanks!
David
Couple of questions: - Are you always sticking w/ CC3000 or are there other WiFi modules you intend to support?
My main question, might have gone unnoticed in my long post... Is there a service of yours that I need to pay for to get these features, or do I get the benefits you outlined above by running your firmware and deploying your open source cloud code on my system?
Do you have plans to go closed source in the future?
Our hosted cloud is somewhat different from the open source version, and the differences will grow over time. As an open source company, the question always comes to "how do we make money?" Our open source thesis is to give away basic technology and sell advanced technology. Right now the biggest differences between our hosted cloud and the open source version is scalability; our system is designed to scale horizontally whereas the open source one is a single instance (although it could, of course, be modified). We are still deciding which features that are still in development will be open sourced, and which won't. We've learned from other for-profit open source companies (like MongoDB, for instance), that even after being on the market for years they're still trying to figure out which features to give away and which to sell.
To use your feature rich cloud, would one have to use your spark core board or one can roll own CC3000 based board + your open source firmware but pay you and have it talk to your closed cloud for scale? When is your plan to announce pricing for this feature rich cloud?
All you need is Spark.
if you mean integrating into Arduino shields, then YES, absolutely. the beauty of Spark is that it you can program using Wiring (the same language as arduino), so a lot of the example sketchs and libraries are easily transportable.
So basically, if you love an arduino shield, you can prototype using this (http://www.makershed.com/products/shield-shield) then you port the library over to spark's cloud, and you have a wifi enabled Arduino Shield!
once your prototype is where you want it, you can roll-up a version of that shield with the spark components built on the board. because the reference design of the spark core is open, its actually quite easy (assuming your shield's schematic is available).
and when you are ready for production, getting the cc3000 and stm32 is as easy as throwing a rock down the street in shenzen.
i could not be more excited about leading the investment in spark....and building products at home on the platform.
im not just the investor, im also a member.
- these guys
Even worse, they're all high-quality projects. I can process data from my Spark devices on my Spark cluster and serve the results via Spark.