Need opinions about a product...

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Snipeye
 
Posts: 198
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2010 10:03 am

Need opinions about a product...

Post by Snipeye »

So, here's the product I'm working on right now:

http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16441

It's not complete, long way from it in fact, but I'm hoping to sell it once I finish. What I want to know is what you guys think of it: Do you think it would sell? Are there improvements I could make (additional features, etc?) that might help it to sell better?

Last, where should I advertise? This will be my first product, and several posts suggest that an entire website for just 1 product looks a little fishy. Nobody would have heard of me before, and nobody would have heard reviews of the product, etc. I was thinking eBay, but that's not exactly suited to my needs... Is there a chance I could partner (to some extent) with MAKE to help sell my product?

Thanks!

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mitpatterson
 
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Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2010 11:45 pm

Re: Need opinions about a product...

Post by mitpatterson »

not sure bout the make thing, you'll have to wait to see what PT(phil from make) aka adabot on AAE, says, but you could try http://www.etsy.com/ you can sell handmade/homemade stuff there, i've seen others mention having good success there before the guy here who sells pre-assembeled mintyboost says he sold quite a few there

Snipeye
 
Posts: 198
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2010 10:03 am

Re: Need opinions about a product...

Post by Snipeye »

Thanks - I'll look further in to etsy, but I think that at least while starting off, it looks like a lot of the selling will be done to people near me, to avoid dealing with shipping, etc.

However, I still need opinions from any and everybody. Is this something you would buy? Do you think this is a sell-able product?

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mitpatterson
 
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Re: Need opinions about a product...

Post by mitpatterson »

i see in your other thread that you are going to etch a board, the idea seems sound, not sure how much of a mass appeal it has, cause i just know a my house i can use ir without a problem, so not sure about others, but i would love to see your finished prototype, cased up or at least solder up and stuff

Snipeye
 
Posts: 198
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2010 10:03 am

Re: Need opinions about a product...

Post by Snipeye »

I plan on selling the etched PCB... I'll go professionally-manufactured PCB if it sells.

Anyway, while I'm at it, I have another product that I'm also working on:

Altoids-Sour tin speaker (for mp3 player), powered by 3 AA's. Still haven't prototyped yet, but does it sound like something sell-able?

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mitpatterson
 
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Re: Need opinions about a product...

Post by mitpatterson »

as long as it sounds half way decent i would probaly buy it, only bad thing is there is a lot of compition for external speakers, but here are the 3 key things that make or break it for me:

1. sound quality
2. Price
3. Battery Life

Snipeye
 
Posts: 198
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2010 10:03 am

Re: Need opinions about a product...

Post by Snipeye »

Sound quality should actually be pretty good: I've found a nice chip that requires few external components. I've yet to figure out battery life...

The only big deal is that the chip is SMT, so it's gunna be an interesting assembly... on the plus side, it requires like, 3 external components.

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chuckm
 
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Re: Need opinions about a product...

Post by chuckm »

Snipeye wrote:So, here's the product I'm working on right now:

http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16441

It's not complete, long way from it in fact, but I'm hoping to sell it once I finish. What I want to know is what you guys think of it: Do you think it would sell? Are there improvements I could make (additional features, etc?) that might help it to sell better?
Hi Snipeye,

Since you're not an engineer, nor have you spent a lot of time learning about electronics, I'm guessing its a bit premature to start speculating about how much money you can make selling things you've designed.

That being said, your product idea is actually made by lots of people, they are called "learning" remotes where you point the remote you want to emulate at them, press the button you want to map to what it learns, and then press the button on the remote that does that. Sometimes you have to do it two or three times but then you have cloned the signal which can now be sent by two remotes. Often that feature is one of a number of features in a 'universal' remote.

So its not hopelessly depressing though, you can document your experience and write an article for Make or another hobby magazine which, if you are an engaging writer and have a flare for the dramatic you could easily make enough money from the sale of the article to build another project and write about that one.

If building things like this is a passion I strongly suggest you find a community college at least and get the fundamentals, that would be Calculus 1 and 2, Electronic Circuits, and probably the electro magnetics component of a physics class. (That was sophmore physics at USC but there is no 'standard' for what is taught in what years). If you take the time to get the fundamentals down you will be more successful at building things that won't require a lot of support, will work reliably in a variety of conditions, and will survive things like changing out components due to parts shortages or tolerance errors.

--Chuck

Snipeye
 
Posts: 198
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2010 10:03 am

Re: Need opinions about a product...

Post by Snipeye »

Thank you for your input!

Overall, though, I'm not sure that you understand my product: It isn't a universal remote or a learning remote, but simply a range-booster. There are a lot of low-end remotes that are currently on the market - my brother has a POS remote for his expensive DSLR Cannon Rebel Xsi Camera, and it has a range of maximum 10 feet! There are also low-end iHome remotes, etc. This is meant to increase the range of them, not be an entirely separate remote for them.

However, I had not thought of selling an article to a hobby magazine - that is a wonderful idea! I'll look into it and see what can happen there.

I still believe that I will at least try to sell the product (and at the very least do some market research), simply because IR repeaters or things like that seem to cost stupid amounts of $ where this costs roughly $5, and it's a fun DIY project. We'll see what happens there.

Thank you for your suggestions on classes, etc - I'll definitely look into them.

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chuckm
 
Posts: 159
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Re: Need opinions about a product...

Post by chuckm »

My favorite example of this was a guy who used a circuit like this to control a laser pen pointer. He liked to change the channel on people's TVs in the apartment building across the street from where he lived. The red dot was suspicious until he took the laser out of a CD ROM drive and used that instead of the original laser in the pen pointer. It was harder to point but also harder to spot. It had serious range :-)

--Chuck

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