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I like this project but the hardware seems quite overpriced at $300+. Similar for tinypilotkvm.com. In the past I've considered making and selling a cheaper ve

I like this project but the hardware seems quite overpriced at $300+. Similar for tinypilotkvm.com. In the past I've considered making and selling a cheaper version. Aside from lack of time (or motivation), one thing which discouraged me is that I would feel bad "undercutting" someone selling open hardware.

jermaustin1 3y ago
>I would feel bad "undercutting" someone selling open hardware As a potential customer, I feel bad you feel that way.
- theodric 3y ago
  Roll your own. I've got one running PiKVM software on a Pi Zero 2W with an AliExpress HDMI-CSI board connected, and the whole thing bundled together with kapton tape and hanging off the USB port on a headless system. I had to mask off one pin on one of the two microUSB cables. I think I'm into it for about €50 including the Pi0. The instructions are/were on their website.
  - MaKey 3y ago
    Do you have a link?
    - theodric 3y ago
      It's at the article link. Directly in the README.md: search for the text "HDMI to CSI-2 bridge based on TC358743"
Aurornis 3y ago
You’d be surprised at how expensive it can be to manufacture, program, test, package, warehouse, sell, ship, and support small hardware projects like this. It may seem overpriced when compared to collecting all of the pieces and putting them together for yourself, but the person trying to do this as a business has to make a big investment in up front purchasing as well as labor to get them all together and shipped out. It quickly reaches a point where doing it for an “undercutting” level price doesn’t justify the risk and effort.
- JonChesterfield 3y ago
  It helps to remember that your own time has a cost associated with it. Standing one up from pieces is probably a couple of days of indecision over component selection and loss to misc software refusing to behave itself. An arm soc is probably $100. So break even is maybe $200 per day getting the thing working. Thus should buy the thing, unless you particularly enjoy the construction process more than whatever else you could spend the weekend doing. The posted profit over time figures suggests the above back of envelope is rather optimistic, so there's a non-zero risk that after the weekend the thing wouldn't work. (and thus I've learned that the UK distributor is in Germany with possible brexit/VAT hazards, but hopefully it'll turn up at some point)
mtlynch 3y ago
TinyPilot founder here. I understand the feedback about the price. When I created the original TinyPilot,[0] I wanted a low-priced alternative to the $600 KVM over IP options I was seeing, and now I sell my devices for $400-500/unit. The thing that's tough about selling hardware is that it seems easy to produce a few units cheaply, but creating a sustainable business for it, the costs add up. You have to fulfill orders, provide support when there are delivery issues, provide support when the customer has trouble understanding how to connect to a device on their local network. And there's certification, stockpiling components so you don't run out of stock, managing inventory from many different vendors. TinyPilot became profitable in 2023, but for the first 2.5 years, we were operating at a loss. [1] Also, small correction: no KVM over IP vendor is really selling open hardware. The part that's open is the software. I haven't seen any vendors publish their hardware schematics. It's expensive to create PCBs, and it's not like open-source software where you can hope to get useful external contributions. [0] https://tinypilotkvm.com/blog/build-a-kvm-over-ip-under-100 https://tinypilotkvm.com/blog/build-a-kvm-over-ip-under-100 [1] https://mtlynch.io/retrospectives/2023/10/#tinypilothttpstinypilotkvmcomrefmtlynchio-stats https://mtlynch.io/retrospectives/2023/10/#tinypilothttpstin...
- wferrell 3y ago
  Fan of your work, your blog and your openness. Thank you.
  - mtlynch 3y ago
    Thanks! I appreciate you saying that.
- SCUSKU 3y ago
  I have been following the TinyPilot project on & off for a while, and I just wanted to say I appreciate your openness as well as your excellent attitude toward feedback. I think many of us (myself included) have been spoiled with various forms of free/open software and have come to expect things to be cheap or free. But of course github stars and positive reviews won't pay our bills. So it totally makes sense to charge what you are charging for your product. You deserve it, and you're clearly putting in hard and honest work. If and when I need a KVM I will 100% be reaching for a TinyPilot.
m463 3y ago
basic functionality with generic hardware looks doable and one-clickable for a pi4: usb splitter $9 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08C5FWQND https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08C5FWQND usb power blocker $7 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094FYL9QT https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094FYL9QT hdmi-csi2 adapter $32 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09GY9M9BX https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09GY9M9BX atx power control looks less off-the-shelf
- Y_Y 3y ago
  You can save even more by making the splitter/power blocker yourself. It's simple enough that you can even do it by twisting instead of proper soldering, as long as you have a couple of cables you can sacrifice. On top of that you can get a cheaper hdmi-usb converter instead of using MIPI. They don't recommend it because the latency is bad and it's awkward, but it's still serviceable, especially if you only use the KVM for quick tasks. Doing it this way you could make the thing for only about ten euro cost on top of the pi.
geerlingguy 3y ago
Note there are also alternative Pi-KVM hardware boards (in a variety of formats) from BliKVM. They don't seem to directly support the upstream project, and I believe they may have even forked some of the software from PiKVM and TinyPilot both and may or may not have provided proper attribution/recognition... so take that as you may.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
numpad0 3y ago
I wonder if the cost can be cut by replacing computer part with ESP32 at the cost of losing .iso mount and video input quality, and at the same time take out SD card anxiety. The only problem is difficulty of getting framebuffer cheaply, I think.
- themoonisachees 3y ago
  A kvm without iso mount may as well not be a kvm at al
- vbezhenar 3y ago
  Raspberry Pi cost is few bucks. You won't save significant money here, but will lose very significant computing power and software ecosystem.
  - numpad0 3y ago
    But it's also bloat on a rescue device. KVM has to and only has to work when a remote computer is unable to come back online, no need for computing power or app marketplace to fix that.
mdevaev 3y ago
PiKVM founder here :) This project is a full-time job for an entire development and support team, and it's a way to keep the software open. For this money you get excellent hardware, software without any restrictions and a huge number of features. We also have a production-grade support: if you find a bug, it will be fixed quickly, and if the device fails due to a defect, we will quickly replace it. In fact, we have developed and support all the key components of the KVM stack for Linux - the video server, kernel patches, and so on, which is also used by our competitors, like TinyPilot. But unlike them, we don't impose any licensing restrictions - for example, buying TinyPilot you find yourself bound by a subscription, and if you stop paying, your OS will no longer receive updates. With PiKVM, you don't need to do this - the device is yours forever, with updates until the end of time. In addition, the production of large quantities of iron is quite expensive. Each device must be assembled, tested, packaged, and so on. When you do some small project, you can do it yourself, but in a large batch it inevitably has to be delegated to the factory, where each operation costs a certain amount of money. In summary, that's where the price comes from: software, support, development, people.
- mtlynch 3y ago
  >But unlike them, we don't impose any licensing restrictions - for example, buying TinyPilot you find yourself bound by a subscription, and if you stop paying, your OS will no longer receive updates. With PiKVM, you don't need to do this - the device is yours forever, with updates until the end of time. This is true and is a fundamental difference between PiKVM and TinyPilot. TinyPilot charges a yearly subscription for customer support and software updates because those things have ongoing costs. I don't think small businesses can realistically promise customers free support and updates for life. It may work in the short term, but at a certain point, it's not sustainable for a vendor to spend their limited support and dev resources on customers who purchased hardware five years ago and will never pay the vendor another dime.
  - mdevaev 3y ago
    Well, I don't know what you consider a short term, but PiKVM feels pretty good throughout its existence, and it has been for several years. It seems that we have set priorities differently at the start. My policy has always been that throughout the entire lifecycle of the device, the user must be sure of its security. In particular, this means that the user must receive updates. There is nothing more important than security when it comes to equipment, and I hate when a device turns into a unsafe brick after a few years. That's why we put it into the business model even before the first Kickstarter. Another thing that made it possible to do this is the automation of all routine processes, such as testing and package builds. In PiKVM, the first component that was written was a build system to solve this issue once and for all. In this vein, I made a huge contribution to the "pre-launch" before flying. BTW, to be honest, I was somewhat surprised that you used Ansible instead of packages, it seems that this caused you a giant overhead for support. Of course, in the future we plan to provide some paid services, but this does not concern the regular OS and access to updates at all, they should remain free.

jermaustin1 3y ago

>I would feel bad "undercutting" someone selling open hardware As a potential customer, I feel bad you feel that way.

theodric 3y ago
Roll your own. I've got one running PiKVM software on a Pi Zero 2W with an AliExpress HDMI-CSI board connected, and the whole thing bundled together with kapton tape and hanging off the USB port on a headless system. I had to mask off one pin on one of the two microUSB cables. I think I'm into it for about €50 including the Pi0. The instructions are/were on their website.
- MaKey 3y ago
  Do you have a link?
  - theodric 3y ago
    It's at the article link. Directly in the README.md: search for the text "HDMI to CSI-2 bridge based on TC358743"

Aurornis 3y ago

You’d be surprised at how expensive it can be to manufacture, program, test, package, warehouse, sell, ship, and support small hardware projects like this. It may seem overpriced when compared to collecting all of the pieces and putting them together for yourself, but the person trying to do this as a business has to make a big investment in up front purchasing as well as labor to get them all together and shipped out. It quickly reaches a point where doing it for an “undercutting” level price doesn’t justify the risk and effort.

JonChesterfield 3y ago
It helps to remember that your own time has a cost associated with it. Standing one up from pieces is probably a couple of days of indecision over component selection and loss to misc software refusing to behave itself. An arm soc is probably $100. So break even is maybe $200 per day getting the thing working. Thus should buy the thing, unless you particularly enjoy the construction process more than whatever else you could spend the weekend doing. The posted profit over time figures suggests the above back of envelope is rather optimistic, so there's a non-zero risk that after the weekend the thing wouldn't work. (and thus I've learned that the UK distributor is in Germany with possible brexit/VAT hazards, but hopefully it'll turn up at some point)

mtlynch 3y ago

TinyPilot founder here. I understand the feedback about the price. When I created the original TinyPilot,[0] I wanted a low-priced alternative to the $600 KVM over IP options I was seeing, and now I sell my devices for $400-500/unit. The thing that's tough about selling hardware is that it seems easy to produce a few units cheaply, but creating a sustainable business for it, the costs add up. You have to fulfill orders, provide support when there are delivery issues, provide support when the customer has trouble understanding how to connect to a device on their local network. And there's certification, stockpiling components so you don't run out of stock, managing inventory from many different vendors. TinyPilot became profitable in 2023, but for the first 2.5 years, we were operating at a loss. [1] Also, small correction: no KVM over IP vendor is really selling open hardware. The part that's open is the software. I haven't seen any vendors publish their hardware schematics. It's expensive to create PCBs, and it's not like open-source software where you can hope to get useful external contributions. [0] https://tinypilotkvm.com/blog/build-a-kvm-over-ip-under-100 https://tinypilotkvm.com/blog/build-a-kvm-over-ip-under-100 [1] https://mtlynch.io/retrospectives/2023/10/#tinypilothttpstinypilotkvmcomrefmtlynchio-stats https://mtlynch.io/retrospectives/2023/10/#tinypilothttpstin...

wferrell 3y ago
Fan of your work, your blog and your openness. Thank you.
- mtlynch 3y ago
  Thanks! I appreciate you saying that.
SCUSKU 3y ago
I have been following the TinyPilot project on & off for a while, and I just wanted to say I appreciate your openness as well as your excellent attitude toward feedback. I think many of us (myself included) have been spoiled with various forms of free/open software and have come to expect things to be cheap or free. But of course github stars and positive reviews won't pay our bills. So it totally makes sense to charge what you are charging for your product. You deserve it, and you're clearly putting in hard and honest work. If and when I need a KVM I will 100% be reaching for a TinyPilot.

m463 3y ago

basic functionality with generic hardware looks doable and one-clickable for a pi4: usb splitter $9 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08C5FWQND https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08C5FWQND usb power blocker $7 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094FYL9QT https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094FYL9QT hdmi-csi2 adapter $32 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09GY9M9BX https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09GY9M9BX atx power control looks less off-the-shelf

Y_Y 3y ago
You can save even more by making the splitter/power blocker yourself. It's simple enough that you can even do it by twisting instead of proper soldering, as long as you have a couple of cables you can sacrifice. On top of that you can get a cheaper hdmi-usb converter instead of using MIPI. They don't recommend it because the latency is bad and it's awkward, but it's still serviceable, especially if you only use the KVM for quick tasks. Doing it this way you could make the thing for only about ten euro cost on top of the pi.

geerlingguy 3y ago

Note there are also alternative Pi-KVM hardware boards (in a variety of formats) from BliKVM. They don't seem to directly support the upstream project, and I believe they may have even forked some of the software from PiKVM and TinyPilot both and may or may not have provided proper attribution/recognition... so take that as you may.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

numpad0 3y ago

I wonder if the cost can be cut by replacing computer part with ESP32 at the cost of losing .iso mount and video input quality, and at the same time take out SD card anxiety. The only problem is difficulty of getting framebuffer cheaply, I think.

themoonisachees 3y ago
A kvm without iso mount may as well not be a kvm at al
vbezhenar 3y ago
Raspberry Pi cost is few bucks. You won't save significant money here, but will lose very significant computing power and software ecosystem.
- numpad0 3y ago
  But it's also bloat on a rescue device. KVM has to and only has to work when a remote computer is unable to come back online, no need for computing power or app marketplace to fix that.

mdevaev 3y ago

PiKVM founder here :) This project is a full-time job for an entire development and support team, and it's a way to keep the software open. For this money you get excellent hardware, software without any restrictions and a huge number of features. We also have a production-grade support: if you find a bug, it will be fixed quickly, and if the device fails due to a defect, we will quickly replace it. In fact, we have developed and support all the key components of the KVM stack for Linux - the video server, kernel patches, and so on, which is also used by our competitors, like TinyPilot. But unlike them, we don't impose any licensing restrictions - for example, buying TinyPilot you find yourself bound by a subscription, and if you stop paying, your OS will no longer receive updates. With PiKVM, you don't need to do this - the device is yours forever, with updates until the end of time. In addition, the production of large quantities of iron is quite expensive. Each device must be assembled, tested, packaged, and so on. When you do some small project, you can do it yourself, but in a large batch it inevitably has to be delegated to the factory, where each operation costs a certain amount of money. In summary, that's where the price comes from: software, support, development, people.

mtlynch 3y ago
>But unlike them, we don't impose any licensing restrictions - for example, buying TinyPilot you find yourself bound by a subscription, and if you stop paying, your OS will no longer receive updates. With PiKVM, you don't need to do this - the device is yours forever, with updates until the end of time. This is true and is a fundamental difference between PiKVM and TinyPilot. TinyPilot charges a yearly subscription for customer support and software updates because those things have ongoing costs. I don't think small businesses can realistically promise customers free support and updates for life. It may work in the short term, but at a certain point, it's not sustainable for a vendor to spend their limited support and dev resources on customers who purchased hardware five years ago and will never pay the vendor another dime.
- mdevaev 3y ago
  Well, I don't know what you consider a short term, but PiKVM feels pretty good throughout its existence, and it has been for several years. It seems that we have set priorities differently at the start. My policy has always been that throughout the entire lifecycle of the device, the user must be sure of its security. In particular, this means that the user must receive updates. There is nothing more important than security when it comes to equipment, and I hate when a device turns into a unsafe brick after a few years. That's why we put it into the business model even before the first Kickstarter. Another thing that made it possible to do this is the automation of all routine processes, such as testing and package builds. In PiKVM, the first component that was written was a build system to solve this issue once and for all. In this vein, I made a huge contribution to the "pre-launch" before flying. BTW, to be honest, I was somewhat surprised that you used Ansible instead of packages, it seems that this caused you a giant overhead for support. Of course, in the future we plan to provide some paid services, but this does not concern the regular OS and access to updates at all, they should remain free.