5 ms·
The idea might be good, but the price is extravagant. I think the parts should cost only $60-70, maybe less, so charging nearly $148 is laughable. Especially wh
by trebor 13y ago
The idea might be good, but the price is extravagant. I think the parts should cost only $60-70, maybe less, so charging nearly $148 is laughable. Especially when I can get a nice, brand-name watch for $118 or so.
- wyclif 13y agoApples and oranges comparison: this is not a watch in the traditional sense. It's more analogous to a timer. In any case, it's a completely new product which means there probably aren't many efficiencies of manufacturing like there would be with watches.
- alphard 13y agoWith the same money you can buy a Pebble, and I'm sure that someone could easily write a Pebble app that vibrates every 5 minutes.
- nazgulnarsil 13y agoI have not been able to find a good solution to having a personal vibrating timer with me. Requirements: Easy to set so no frictional cost to starting a pomodoro for instance. Does not beep. Keeps vibrating until silenced rather than vibrating once and then stopping (I don't notice these).
- graue 13y agoPebble has a timer app that meets all your requirements. I use it for pomodoros, laundry, steeping tea, cooking rice, etc. Unbelievably handy.
- nazgulnarsil 13y agoI think that pushes me over the edge on pebble. Thanks!
- trebor 13y agoSorry, but the price I "specced out" was with the modules from Adafruit. If you actually made a custom PCB, etc, you could easily hit the $50 mark with only 10s of units, in my opinion. Especially since the processor is unimportant: there are no complex calculations to perform.
- foob 13y agoWhat was the price? They sold out of them and have apparently taken it down now.
- mnbvcxza 13y agoI could do it for free with the alarm snooze feature on my 5 year old blackberry.
- cwp 13y agoWalking around with a phone strapped to your wrist would be awkward.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- btgeekboy 13y agoAnd yet people strap them to their arms while running around town wearing nothing but spandex.
- chc 13y agoThat would create an alarm that you must reset every five minutes, rather than simply notifying you in the background that five minutes have passed.
- Crito 13y ago> "I think the parts should cost only $60-70, maybe less" Consider that the thinkgeek 'annoyatron' is sold for $10. So the guts of this device cost far less than $10. A cheap watch band, better looking than the one this has, can be had for under $20 on Amazon... Throw the rest of the money into having a nice brass enclosure machined, then pot it with epoxy to make it reasonably water-resistant as well...
- rusew 13y agoGenerally you want to charge 4x your BOM (bill of materials) to cover shipping, fulfillment, customer support, etc. For such a small run (50 pieces) your costs are probably a lot higher than that of a large manufacturer; in their case they'd probably want to do > 4x to actually turn a profit. At $148 I'd be amazed if they were doing more than breaking even – these guys are doing it for the learning experience (and it says so on their blog).
- trebor 13y agoThinking back on this, I think it's entirely possible to build this product without an RTC or microcontroller. It should be entirely possible to wire up a switch, 555 timer(s), vibrator, and a battery... and easily build it for less than $10 in electronic parts.