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Show HN: Chemical.io – Cloud-Based Lab Management Solution
- michaelmior 13y agoYou really should change re-agents to reagents.
- viggity 13y ago20 euro/month seems way cheap. 20 euro/month for 24/7 technical support seems crazy.
- aristomc 13y agoDefinitely going in the right direction, I remember doing inventory endlessly in an inorg lab. It would be nice to have a little more info about the products, but I think this is a space that could do with some innovation. Good job.
- rcatsr 13y agoI'm sitting in a chemistry lab right now, and this is pretty sorely lacking in anything that would make it remotely useful to a small academic lab, much less a larger corporate lab. The experimental write-up section is a joke, especially if you're going to make people pay for it. The fact that grams and milliliters are the only options when inputting a chemical tells me you have no idea what you're doing, and the idea that chemists are going to log in and enter the amount they took out of a bottle every time they weigh something out is ludicrous.
- rnl 13y agoNice, just what I was looking for. Now I don't have to keep any orders in Excel or similar. Are you planning to add any export features?
- ShaneCurran 13y agoYep, we're working on them as we speak :)
- japhyr 13y agoDo you have a demo of the "Experiment Writeup Functionality"?
- ShaneCurran 13y agoYep, for 7 days after you register your account, you have full access to experiment writeups. Click "Writeups" in the right sidebar in the dashboard :-)
- japhyr 13y agoAre you planning to include an overview of this? This is the kind of thing I'd like to glance through without having to register. "Experiment writeups" is a pretty big domain, it seems like much more than a side project for an app that aims to do inventory control. Can you say a little more about where you are going with this?
- ShaneCurran 13y agoWorking on it now, this was a bit of a weekend project so I didn't work too much on the site itself.
- japhyr 13y agoOkay thanks, looking forward to seeing your approach. This is a pretty interesting problem in and of itself.
- randall 13y agoI literally know nothing about this space... but I'm aware of Quartzy ( http://www.quartzy.com/ http://www.quartzy.com/ ) which I think competes similarly. Care to do a competitive analysis with them?
- ShaneCurran 13y agoQuartzy requires all the data on a chemical to be inserted manually. Chemical.io automatically catalogs reagents based on their chemical formula. We also have a mobile app and experiment writeup functionality.
- kayhi 13y agoWe're on the sales side of chemicals, drop me an email!
- ShaneCurran 13y agoNoted!
- kyro 13y agoIt's been years since I've been in a chemistry lab, so I don't remember how they monitored inventory levels, but do they really just jot down amount used/remaining for each chemical? If that's the case, then I can certainly see value in the app. Just brainstorming, how feasible would it be to detect fluid levels/quantities using the phone's camera? A chemist can simply snap a photo of a vile and the rest is automagically taken care of. Or maybe you could at some point sell a line of viles/beakers/flasks/etc with level markers, volume indicators, and chemical labels that would work with your app. A little design feedback: I would show the product on the homepage. Right now you're just selling to me with words. And the weight of that typeface being used for that sub-header is really light. This is how it's rendering in Safari - http://i.imgur.com/izWWUbZ.png http://i.imgur.com/izWWUbZ.png
- ShaneCurran 13y agoThanks for your suggestions, I'll look into the rendering bug now. :)
- shabble 13y agobarcode/qr-code/RFID sticker (to identify the product) & set of cheap(ish) wireless weighing scales could probably do it easier than trying to estimate based on crappy phone pics. Does require more infrastructure though, but might not be a huge deal for the stockroom if it improves the workflow/reliability of stock levels.
- kyro 13y agoYeah, something like a Withings weighing scale for labs would definitely be interesting.
- aroch 13y agoWe use Quartzy right now, but if you can make the Facilities management (ie. scheduling time on an FPLC) better (which, wouldn't be too hard) and embeddable / supporting CalDav/CardDav I would use this. I have an Excel sheet of all our chemicals (~500+ reagents), is there a way for me to upload this? The data is fairly well ordered with the below headers Chemical Description Bldg Room #Units Qty. Unit CAS # Lot # Expiration Vendor Storage_Location Comments Container Physical State Max on Hand Chemical Formula Molecular Weight PO # Vendor Catalog # EHSA Chemical # Order Date Open Date Receipt Date Contact Contact Phone PI Code
- ShaneCurran 13y agoI've added your suggestions to the development roadmap. Would you mind emailing me that spreadsheet over to s@chemical.io and I'll see what I can do? Thanks :)
- aroch 13y agoSweet and sure thing, I'll send it over later today
- dutchguy 13y agoJust a heads up, firefox lists the website as a security threat.
- ShaneCurran 13y agoI'll look into it, thanks for letting me know :)
- nadaviv 13y agoSeems to be working fine for me on Firefox 24.
- nocashvalue 13y agoI saw that too. Seems to be only when trying to access https://chemical.io https://chemical.io as opposed to https://www.chemical.io https://www.chemical.io
- buckbova 13y agoToo many landing pages nowadays with too little information. Be nice to see a better list of features, screenshots, or a demo without having to sign-up.
- chillytoes 13y agoInteresting that they launched first on Android. I wonder if that's because lab managers are expected to use their own phones, and they'll likely have Androids. Or, maybe labs purchase phones for this purpose, and Androids are cheaper. Or, maybe the dev has an Android phone and that's what he or she knows.
- nocashvalue 13y agoLooking really good. Just a minor, minor detail. On your signup page, the page title reads "Chemilog|Login" which I assume is a legacy name...