The key part seems to be this: > In other words: We’re making a piece of consumer electronics just-in-time in the US. It is indeed hard to bring down costs th

The key part seems to be this: > In other words: We’re making a piece of consumer electronics just-in-time in the US. It is indeed hard to bring down costs that way, but when each unit needs to be individually programmed, as in this situation, this is a sensible way of doing it. This is also a good way to do low volume production in general for hardware side-projects and the like. My own Relay (https://foundrytechnologies.com/relay.php https://foundrytechnologies.com/relay.php) is made in the same way - the components come from China but the assembly and firmware upload is done in the US. This also keeps the firmware confidential, which works well for IP protection. For higher volumes, I'd think we'd eventually move the assembly offshore, but not the firmware upload.