Hacker News Reader

Comment by ashish01 | Hacker News Reader

Then how did Nest do it?

They hired the brilliant Bould[0] design for ID and partnered with a Tier-1 Taiwanese ODM for manufacturing[1]. This takes a bit of money, connections and being able to demonstrate you will have volume.

What the article doesn't mention is that you can manufacture in Apple's wake. After Apple started purchasing 4" touch panels and LCD displays for iPhones, and then larger displays for the iPad, the capacity increased and prices went down. Same with all the CNC machines purchased for the iPhone 4 frame - they are no longer being used to manufacture Apple devices, but they are being used to manufacture other devices.

Second part is that modern manufacturing tech means you can have lean hardware startups. As much as cheap hosting, software as a service, etc. have made software app development cheaper manufacturing tech has made hardware manufacturing cheaper. You can now get rolling with complete custom hardware in thousands of units (as opposed to millions) with 6-figures in capital.

The key is knowing one of the small number of people who understand design, materials, the capabilities at the ODM's, the right people at these companies, supply chain etc. and have them design the product to fit the current manufacturing capacity without requiring customization. It is easy to hire an industrial designer sitting ten thousand kilometers away from Shenzhen who can CAD something nice, but knowing that manufacturing that fancy designed device would cost extra millions in tooling and setup is where the real skill is. Good ID people can design great products and in a way where they can be manufactured easily and with a smaller investment. If you don't have one of these people on your team, your either going to get something that is very ordinary looking (think Chinese knockoff) or you'll attempt something ambitious, run out of money and fail.

What Nest did is use clever ID to create a product that looked unique without over-stretching the manufacturing requirements. They didn't go anywhere near the scale Apple does.

[0] http://www.bould.com/

[1] not certain which, but it is 3-4 possible companies.

I'm skeptical that Apple did anything to the price of CNC machining.

I'd like to see some evidence that they have sunsetted any of their CNC capacity, as well. They're still making the iPhone 5s, and as far as I'm aware aren't the new iPhones, as well as the iPad and Mac lines, all still using CNC milled enclosures? I think all that's been phased out is the diamond-chamfered edges.

Nest doesn't do most of these things.

> White plastic

No.

> CNC machining at scale

I'd be shocked if they CNC machined any piece of the nest. There's no need.

> Laser drilled holes

Nope.

> Molded plastic packaging

I guess they did this. They probably had the experience and money to pull this off.

> No ejector pin marks

Not relevant because there is no exposed plastic.

> 4-color, double-walled, matte boxes + HD foam inserts

Nope.

They were rich former Apple staff that created a luxury item (it was 10x the price of other thermostats) and still were smart enough to not require CNC or matched white plastics or even a fancy box.

They came from Apple and had money.

And their products are absurdly expensive (for the market). You don't notice for the thermostat, but their smoke detectors are $100 when the carbon monoxide smoke detector it is replacing is $20.

A Nest thermostat is quite expensive if think about it. An average Honeywell thermostat is maybe $50 while a Nest is $250. Also the cylindrical design of the Nest is a little easier to manufacture.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com