3 ms·

By "industry" you mean "electronics hobbyists"?

andrewstuart 3y ago
I oh see you are wanting to diminish her capabilities for some reason. I'm not interested buddy, you can take your sneering elsewhere until you show me the multi million dollar company you have created, the hundreds of commercial quality boards you have designed and sold for real money, the driver software you wrote to make them usable and the industry accolades you have received - on merit.
- markrages 3y ago
  She's a solid entrepreneur and a competent engineer. Calling her "greatest" seems odd, for implementing breakout boards with datasheet circuits.
  - joemi 3y ago
    I agree. She's really great for hobbyists and for prototyping. She's done a ton to help beginners. And Adafruit is a very interesting company. I seriously admire her. But as to the original claim that she's "one of the industries greatest hardware designers", when you look at the electronics industry on a whole (an industry where people design incredibly complex things that are used by millions/billions of people), her _designs_ are nothing special.
- leptons 3y ago
  > and sold for real money "Lady Ada" and Adafruit certainly are good at price gouging. They often charge exorbitant prices for the same stuff we can get elsewhere at a fraction of the cost. No, providing datasheets and some instruction isn't enough, there's a thousand other sites with better instructions in most if not all cases.
  - joemi 3y ago
    As far as I can tell, Adafruit doesn't price gouge. More expensive than some other US places, sometimes, but usually not by much. Sometimes they're cheaper than similar US places. The only places that sell same or similar items for drastically less than Adafruit are places like Aliexpress (or the same foreign sellers selling on Ebay), and there are many reasons why Adafruit is more expensive than those places... Some of the stuff Adafruit sell is likely sourced from Aliexpress (or perhaps from Alibaba if they're buying in large enough quantity) and is indeed priced higher at Adafruit, but that's because if they price it the same or lower they make no money. So we know for those items, they must mark them up. But how much they need to be marked up is kind of complicated. Buying lots of things in order to resell them is more complicated than buying just one or two things for yourself, especially when the seller is on the other side of the world. Simply put: there's a lot more overhead when buying for resale that you don't have to worry about when buying low quantities for yourself. One big difference is that they need _reliable_ suppliers with large quantities consistently available, and those are rarely the same sellers selling things for pennies. (I could go into more differences, because there are many, but this reply is already getting pretty long. Ask me if you want to know more, or google for info about how to open and run a retail business.) Also, bear in mind that some of that stuff that you can get elsewhere at a fraction of the cost than Adafruit are actually Adafruit's own designs being directly cloned, like a lot of their breakout boards. In those cases, you really can't blame Adafruit, since the reason those items are cheaper elsewhere is because someone's specifically trying to undercut them (often at the expense of overall quality and sometimes even at the expensive of authentic correctly-working parts).
    - leptons 3y ago
      >As far as I can tell, Adafruit doesn't price gouge. They charge ridiculous prices for LED strips, the same strips you can get anywhere. Here's one example: https://www.adafruit.com/product/1461 https://www.adafruit.com/product/1461 Black LED strip. 60 LEDs/meter. 1 Meter = $24.95 4 Meters = $99.80 And they advertise 4 meters as a "full reel" when everywhere else 5 meters is considered a full reel. What jerks! Same exact thing, except 5 Meters, $22.99: https://www.amazon.com/LOAMLIN-WS2812B-Individually-Addressable-Waterproof/dp/B09571JRS3 https://www.amazon.com/LOAMLIN-WS2812B-Individually-Addressa... So, let's calculate this price gouge. Adafruit price per meter at 4 meters/roll = $24.95 LOAMLIN price per meter at 5 meters/roll = $4.60 Adafruit is charging 5.42 times the price. And if I want to wait a few days more to get it delivered, Aliexpress has the same thing for $11.26 per 5 meter roll! https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2255800689099192.html https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2255800689099192.html Every LED Adafruit sells comes from China, they do not make their own LEDs. They just mark up the price to a ridiculous extent and they prey on well meaning but clueless electronics hobbyists. There are many other examples, but I think I've spent enough time on this topic.
MSFT_Edging 3y ago
Adafruit breakouts, libraries, and other various components are often leveraged at early prototype stages in general industry. That is unless all you do is high speed FPGA work and that's all you consider to be "industry".

I oh see you are wanting to diminish her capabilities for some reason. I'm not interested buddy, you can take your sneering elsewhere until you show me the multi million dollar company you have created, the hundreds of commercial quality boards you have designed and sold for real money, the driver software you wrote to make them usable and the industry accolades you have received - on merit.

markrages 3y ago
She's a solid entrepreneur and a competent engineer. Calling her "greatest" seems odd, for implementing breakout boards with datasheet circuits.
- joemi 3y ago
  I agree. She's really great for hobbyists and for prototyping. She's done a ton to help beginners. And Adafruit is a very interesting company. I seriously admire her. But as to the original claim that she's "one of the industries greatest hardware designers", when you look at the electronics industry on a whole (an industry where people design incredibly complex things that are used by millions/billions of people), her _designs_ are nothing special.
leptons 3y ago
> and sold for real money "Lady Ada" and Adafruit certainly are good at price gouging. They often charge exorbitant prices for the same stuff we can get elsewhere at a fraction of the cost. No, providing datasheets and some instruction isn't enough, there's a thousand other sites with better instructions in most if not all cases.
- joemi 3y ago
  As far as I can tell, Adafruit doesn't price gouge. More expensive than some other US places, sometimes, but usually not by much. Sometimes they're cheaper than similar US places. The only places that sell same or similar items for drastically less than Adafruit are places like Aliexpress (or the same foreign sellers selling on Ebay), and there are many reasons why Adafruit is more expensive than those places... Some of the stuff Adafruit sell is likely sourced from Aliexpress (or perhaps from Alibaba if they're buying in large enough quantity) and is indeed priced higher at Adafruit, but that's because if they price it the same or lower they make no money. So we know for those items, they must mark them up. But how much they need to be marked up is kind of complicated. Buying lots of things in order to resell them is more complicated than buying just one or two things for yourself, especially when the seller is on the other side of the world. Simply put: there's a lot more overhead when buying for resale that you don't have to worry about when buying low quantities for yourself. One big difference is that they need _reliable_ suppliers with large quantities consistently available, and those are rarely the same sellers selling things for pennies. (I could go into more differences, because there are many, but this reply is already getting pretty long. Ask me if you want to know more, or google for info about how to open and run a retail business.) Also, bear in mind that some of that stuff that you can get elsewhere at a fraction of the cost than Adafruit are actually Adafruit's own designs being directly cloned, like a lot of their breakout boards. In those cases, you really can't blame Adafruit, since the reason those items are cheaper elsewhere is because someone's specifically trying to undercut them (often at the expense of overall quality and sometimes even at the expensive of authentic correctly-working parts).
  - leptons 3y ago
    >As far as I can tell, Adafruit doesn't price gouge. They charge ridiculous prices for LED strips, the same strips you can get anywhere. Here's one example: https://www.adafruit.com/product/1461 https://www.adafruit.com/product/1461 Black LED strip. 60 LEDs/meter. 1 Meter = $24.95 4 Meters = $99.80 And they advertise 4 meters as a "full reel" when everywhere else 5 meters is considered a full reel. What jerks! Same exact thing, except 5 Meters, $22.99: https://www.amazon.com/LOAMLIN-WS2812B-Individually-Addressable-Waterproof/dp/B09571JRS3 https://www.amazon.com/LOAMLIN-WS2812B-Individually-Addressa... So, let's calculate this price gouge. Adafruit price per meter at 4 meters/roll = $24.95 LOAMLIN price per meter at 5 meters/roll = $4.60 Adafruit is charging 5.42 times the price. And if I want to wait a few days more to get it delivered, Aliexpress has the same thing for $11.26 per 5 meter roll! https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2255800689099192.html https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2255800689099192.html Every LED Adafruit sells comes from China, they do not make their own LEDs. They just mark up the price to a ridiculous extent and they prey on well meaning but clueless electronics hobbyists. There are many other examples, but I think I've spent enough time on this topic.

MSFT_Edging 3y ago

Adafruit breakouts, libraries, and other various components are often leveraged at early prototype stages in general industry. That is unless all you do is high speed FPGA work and that's all you consider to be "industry".