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"A project like LIFX is, without a doubt, impossible to get done with $100,000. Not a chance in hell anyone could pull that off." I wouldn't be so sure. There

"A project like LIFX is, without a doubt, impossible to get done with $100,000. Not a chance in hell anyone could pull that off." I wouldn't be so sure. There is a company here in LA called Oval Integration that has been doing stuff exactly like this, just hacking and integrating off-the-shelf electronics, see a demo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X6sHabSXwg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X6sHabSXwg . If garage hackers can bootstrap it like this then why wouldn't a team with significant kickstarter funding be able to do the same? (edited to fix youtube URL above)

robomartin 14y ago
Don't confuse prototyping and making one-offs or small hand-made runs with mass manufacturing. You can make anything you can nearly imagine in a garage environment. That does not translate into a shippable consumer product. My comment specifically stated that this lightbulb could not have been done for the stated goal of $100K. This is absolutely true. I won't get into all of the details. I'll just mention that regulatory testing alone could easily eat-up anywhere from $25K to $100K. And, BTW, you cannot sell a device such as these lights without full FCC, CE, UL, TUV and other certifications. And, BTW, you can EASILY burn-up two months going through regulatory testing. Beyond that, you have to develop tooling and dies. That ain't cheap. Making a mass-market consumer product requires a lot of up-front investment and planning. It also takes time. Unless you have full in-house expertise you'll have to hire qualified mechanical designers well-versed in the technologies at play (plastics, stamping, machining and die-molding are different disciplines). There's also the requirement for extensive testing on something that could potentially set fire to a home. This is serious business. You can't assume that production units will perform as a garage prototype might. There are manufacturing variances and issues that need to be tested and accounted for. The project just passed the million dollar mark with about 20,000 units sold. We'll see what happens. It sounds like a lot of money, but you'd be surprised how quickly it can become "not enough" once real design and manufacturing costs start to pile-up. My rough educated guess is that you could make a run of 100K units for about $20 a piece, packaged and landed in the US. That means that you need two million dollars plus engineering and other costs, which could reach $500K. In my eyes, at $2,500,000 the project starts to make sense. At this rate they could reach that number as they nearly have two months to do. My real question is: What would they have done if the project only funded just past their original $100K requirement? There's no way to get this done with only $100K. Save outside investment it would have been a mess. Not sure how Kickstarter deals with such cases.

robomartin 14y ago

Don't confuse prototyping and making one-offs or small hand-made runs with mass manufacturing. You can make anything you can nearly imagine in a garage environment. That does not translate into a shippable consumer product. My comment specifically stated that this lightbulb could not have been done for the stated goal of $100K. This is absolutely true. I won't get into all of the details. I'll just mention that regulatory testing alone could easily eat-up anywhere from $25K to $100K. And, BTW, you cannot sell a device such as these lights without full FCC, CE, UL, TUV and other certifications. And, BTW, you can EASILY burn-up two months going through regulatory testing. Beyond that, you have to develop tooling and dies. That ain't cheap. Making a mass-market consumer product requires a lot of up-front investment and planning. It also takes time. Unless you have full in-house expertise you'll have to hire qualified mechanical designers well-versed in the technologies at play (plastics, stamping, machining and die-molding are different disciplines). There's also the requirement for extensive testing on something that could potentially set fire to a home. This is serious business. You can't assume that production units will perform as a garage prototype might. There are manufacturing variances and issues that need to be tested and accounted for. The project just passed the million dollar mark with about 20,000 units sold. We'll see what happens. It sounds like a lot of money, but you'd be surprised how quickly it can become "not enough" once real design and manufacturing costs start to pile-up. My rough educated guess is that you could make a run of 100K units for about $20 a piece, packaged and landed in the US. That means that you need two million dollars plus engineering and other costs, which could reach $500K. In my eyes, at $2,500,000 the project starts to make sense. At this rate they could reach that number as they nearly have two months to do. My real question is: What would they have done if the project only funded just past their original $100K requirement? There's no way to get this done with only $100K. Save outside investment it would have been a mess. Not sure how Kickstarter deals with such cases.