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Congrats on shipping! I would be very interested to know more details about what you learned from your experience with selecting a manufacturing partner. A form

• steven_pack 11y ago
  Thanks! The vetting was a process of of evaluation really. From initially being responsive, to shipping us demo units promptly, providing assistance when we had problems etc. When it came down to actually placing the order, we felt they'd already put in enough effort that it was genuine business relationship. Wrt getting ripped off, we were advised very early on: "If you make anything in China, it will be copied". It's for that reason our software on the box is a very thin layer. The smarts are in the cloud and on the smartphone apps.
• stephen_g 11y ago
  It may not be practical for everyone, but we make sure not to use turnkey manufacturers. For example, one factory might populate and reflow boards and then assemble it into a case, but they don't have the board or case designs - we have them manufactured by other suppliers and supply them and all the components. That way no one factory can just start manufacturing our products because they don't have enough information. Yes, they can reverse-engineer but it's harder with four or more layer circuit boards and they don't have the full BOM information. This is also a good strategy for not getting counterfeit parts (that may not work) on your boards - you can use the suppliers and brokers you trust instead of whoever your factory decides to buy from.