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I like this project. However, I wish that under the FAQ for "What's the target price?" they had a better answer than "We'll know better in DVT stage, meanwhile
by jasoneckert 7y ago
I like this project. However, I wish that under the FAQ for "What's the target price?" they had a better answer than "We'll know better in DVT stage, meanwhile please find the bill of materials in design files for detail." Who is going to Google each of the 89 components listed in the bill of materials to get a rough guess (since it doesn't list price info)?
- penkia 7y agohi, project creator penk here, thanks for the comment, "we don't know" is the honest answer we can give at this moment, since we hadn't ordered any parts. For your reference the first batch (10pcs) EVT boards is about ~90USD a piece: https://i.imgur.com/anUASlT.jpg https://i.imgur.com/anUASlT.jpg
- krn 7y agoUsually products are priced not based on the direct costs to produce them, but based on the value they provide to the end-user. What is the target price range you expect people to pay for such product, above which it wouldn't be worth producing?
- penkia 7y agoAs an open source project (we're not a company) we'll try our best, hope it won't affect by the trade tariff? :P For price range I would say kano computer kit touch or raspad tablet are all good products and provide good reference.
- martin_a 7y ago> raspad tablet Maybe the totally wrong place to ask, but that display looks great. Any ideas where to get one of those?
- cpburns2009 7y agoThose products appear to be priced around 250-280 USD. Would it be safe to say your product might be priced around 200-400 USD? I realize an exact price is premature and future tariffs could impact the price.
- yitchelle 7y agoI find it refreshing and frightening that target price is not known when attempting to build a commercial grade electronics. Is component selection conducted without any price consideration?
- pjc5e 7y agoComponent prices will usually be a very important factor when choosing which components to use. However, when you go into production and order parts from distributors, you will usually get special deals which can lower the price of your product. Problems can also appear if one of your single source components is out of stock, then you will have to wait (probably a long time) for it to get back in stock, choose an alternative (probably more expensive) component, or buy it on the gray market. Edit: grammar and spelling
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y agoWhat does the grey market for components even look like? I can't think that anybody is bothering to steal individual components, so are we talking possibly-counterfeit parts?
- morcheeba 7y agoThe grey market doesn't mean stolen - it just means unauthorized distributors. Companies building a product will end up with excess parts -- either they bought too many to satisfy minimum purchases, or changed the design, or cancelled the product. They sell these parts to brokers, who then resell them. The way to avoid this is to limit sole-source suppliers and make sure there are backup plans (parts that fit with same footprint, etc.)
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- ryanmercer 7y ago
- TheRealPomax 7y ago"we don't know" is not as good as "we don't know, but it won't be less than the material cost, which is currently X" would go a long way towards taking the people you want to get excited about this product seriously. We understand how "things cost money" works, but going "we don't know, figure it out yourself" is not a nice thing to tell people who are actually interested in what you're making =) Even updating it to say "it will likely be in the $100-$200 range due to material cost and production fees" is fine: that's a _huge_ range, and still better than "we don't know, figure it out yourself".
- penkia 7y agoFair point, will update accordingly. I hesitate to say anything because we are getting mixed signals from Chinese manufacturers....
- bjelkeman-again 7y agoIt is great that you release this info early, including the “we don’t know”, as someone who does know may show up and help.
- loganekz 7y agoWould you be willing to work with US based companies for hardware?
- krapht 7y agoIt is impossible to find cheap US-based PCB manufacturing, the ones who compete on price all left for China years ago. What's left services the high-end/custom/defense/1-day-turnaround market.
- TheRealPomax 7y agoGreat update, thank you!
- tracker1 7y agoBeyond that, material costs are X assuming a 10k initial production run.
- playpause 7y agoEven if you can only fill in the blanks of this sentence, that would be really helpful: "I'd be surprised if the retail price ends up being less than $___ or more than $___"
- dredmorbius 7y agoAnother point w/ looking at a pricing that's in flux: if prices are changing markedly over time, and you're tracking those, showing the plot provides information. As in: is the trend downwards (my expectation), upwards (would be a surprise), or perhaps varying (market showing major shifts). And by how much. A comparable concept is the bug burn-down charts the Debian project has produced over the past decade or two, which hugely assist with getting some sense of when "when it's ready" might be. And sure, wrap the information in all the "this is not a price committment" language you care to.
- rchaud 7y ago> Who is going to Google each of the 89 components listed in the bill of materials to get a rough guess (since it doesn't list price info)? This is an open source product, and not consumer-grade in the least, so I imagine hobbyists wouldn't be opposed to doing that legwork.
- TheRealPomax 7y agoAs a hobbyist: I really am. Looking up the price for each component takes a lot of time, which I would much rather spend working on my hw/code projects.
- rrix2 7y agoSo sign up for the mailing list or come back when they are more ready to talk money.
- TheRealPomax 7y agoSimple rule of FAQs: if you don't know, say you don't know, and stop. Don't then go on to tease about how people could look up the component costs if they really want to, because are you also going to let them guess as your production overhead and the profit margin? No. Just say "we don't know". Or, at this point, after limited runs, give a real indication.
- penkia 7y agoI guess that's an old habit from maintaining open-source projects, fully disclosed & all transparent policy sometimes make things overly complicated. My apologies for the bad writing ;-)