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Getting kind of sick of OP reviewing products that we can't buy and, imo, probably won't ever be able to buy. Rather, sick of it making it to the HN front page

Getting kind of sick of OP reviewing products that we can't buy and, imo, probably won't ever be able to buy. Rather, sick of it making it to the HN front page. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27460885 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27460885

geerlingguy 5y ago
Most of these products are able to be built by hobbyists (in fact, almost all of them are produced by hobbyists). The reason most fail to launch to production is not only the extreme difficulty of scaling from prototype to manufactured production quantities of product, but also from 2020 onwards, the chip shortages. For each product I've been able to actually touch, there are ten more I've heard about and wanted to see happen, but they just couldn't be made because certain specialty ICs are just not available to small-time hobbyists/makers. I don't tend to review these boards because I want people to go out and buy them. I review them because I am inspired to try out new ideas and try my hand at new things (circuit designs, PCB design, etc.), and I figure maybe some other people can get inspired to try too. I try to feature as much open source hardware as possible, because it actually is possible for people to get custom PCBs and put together their own versions of them.
jimmies 5y ago
Being off-the-shelf is an added bonus, but not a requirement. This website is called Hacker news, not Bestbuy news. As long as someone else can replicate the results from what is given in the post, I do think the post has enough merit.
rsync 5y ago
Ugh, what ? I love seeing the Jeff Geerling posts and his blog is great!
wila 5y ago
You don't have to read his posts, the base URL is right next to the title. It is very easy to skip an article if it is not your cup of tea. Personally I love the posts of Jeff as I think they are very well written and well researched.

geerlingguy 5y ago

Most of these products are able to be built by hobbyists (in fact, almost all of them are produced by hobbyists). The reason most fail to launch to production is not only the extreme difficulty of scaling from prototype to manufactured production quantities of product, but also from 2020 onwards, the chip shortages. For each product I've been able to actually touch, there are ten more I've heard about and wanted to see happen, but they just couldn't be made because certain specialty ICs are just not available to small-time hobbyists/makers. I don't tend to review these boards because I want people to go out and buy them. I review them because I am inspired to try out new ideas and try my hand at new things (circuit designs, PCB design, etc.), and I figure maybe some other people can get inspired to try too. I try to feature as much open source hardware as possible, because it actually is possible for people to get custom PCBs and put together their own versions of them.

jimmies 5y ago

Being off-the-shelf is an added bonus, but not a requirement. This website is called Hacker news, not Bestbuy news. As long as someone else can replicate the results from what is given in the post, I do think the post has enough merit.

rsync 5y ago

Ugh, what ? I love seeing the Jeff Geerling posts and his blog is great!

wila 5y ago

You don't have to read his posts, the base URL is right next to the title. It is very easy to skip an article if it is not your cup of tea. Personally I love the posts of Jeff as I think they are very well written and well researched.