Ask HN: Patented hardware design or open source hardware project?

Hi HN! I have an idea for a hardware project that possibly could become very useful for a lot of people. This hardware project could be the basis for a profitable startup, and is something that I would like to spend the next couple of years working on. The project involves software, hardware and physics. I'm a software developer, and know quite a bit about the problem domain where this hardware project will be a solution. I would like some advice about wether to patent the hardware design, or to make an open source hardware project out of this. I had initially thought about patenting the hardware design, because that would make it easier to sell the product to customers without competition. However, I'm also thinking about doing this project as an open source project. The basic idea for the project is good and sound, but I know that the hardware design is not perfect yet, and I see that the project could benefit a lot from the feedback of an open source community. I'm pretty sure that the final product would become better a lot faster if it was a public open source project. However, as an open source project, I think it would be very difficult to get investors, and earn a good income for myself this way. So HN, what do you suggest I do with this project? Thanks!