IKA Logic pen scope, too little for too much money?

[Lightages]

So this IkaScope looks cool, but how practical is it? The price seems rather steep for the specs. Max 253VAC input protection for one minute. 200Mbps with 30Mhz bandwidth. 4x 1k memory depth, actual input voltage range of ±40V. Too little for too much money? At 299 Euro, I think it is crazy.

https://ikalogic.com/pages/ikascope-wireless-oscilloscope

[ataradov]

Yeah. It is a bit wonky to be a real tool, but can be a cool quick sanity check thing.

But I personally would not even consider paying more than $100-$150 for something like this. Especially given non-changeable tips and basic throw-away after use design.

[Gyro]

Pretty good galvanic isolation though. 

[pascal_sweden]

French company that wants to rip your cash

[ataradov]

To be fair, I can see this being a real price of the device. They probably don't have enough volume to sell this at a lower price and have any profit left. So their choice is to either close the shop, or sell at whatever price they need it too sell at and hope that there are some people that are OK with this kind of price.

I would love to see Chinese version of this. But knowing Chinese manufacturers, software will suck, and probably spy on you at the same time.

[ikalogic]

Hi,

I'm part of the team behind IkaScope, and i'ld like to just provide my point of view.

Let me first say that IkaScope is not meant, nor was it designed to fully replace a bench-top oscilloscope. However, we believe it can help in simple everyday quick measurement tasks. Actually, we've been using it around the company for a while now to beta test it, and we really miss it whenever we have to use a classic oscilloscope.

IkaScope is not just a "pen shaped oscilloscope". We invested huge effort and time into designing an interface that is really pleasant to use. This along with the "ProbeClick" technology that senses the pressure underneath the tip opens a whole new set of perspectives (that's what we show in the video). The automatic history is also something quite useful, to say the least.

As the voltage range implies, it's not to be used for very high voltages. For security reasons, we choose to target the market of "low voltage applications". Portable oscilloscopes that can measure and sustain very high voltages usually cost thousands of euros.

As for the probe tip, it was engineered and tested to sustain high pressure and more than 70 000 cycles. The 3 years warranty covers the probe tip, of course (and the whole system is designed with replacement in mind: the tip is an independent part that can be replaced)

So indeed, the price is rather on the high end. I wish we could lower the price, but good quality software and products comes with costly investments (Developers, engineers, technicians,.. you know, a whole team is needed to bring such a product to life!)

Thanks

[mikeselectricstuff]

I really can't see many reasons to buy something like this, less so at that price. It has been tried a few times before with little success.
A large proportion of scope applications need multiple channels.
Wirelessness isn't useful most of the time - a smaller, lighter probe will often be preferable.

Appears that the ground lead is the only grounding option - it's only 30mHz but to not have an option for low-inductance grounding seems a significant omission.

I'm sure there will be a few niche cases where it will be useful, but for not much more, you can buy a Micsig tablet, which gives you the portability, wifi access ( don't know how good this is atm)  as well as being useable as a benchtop scope.
 

[ataradov]

And also, clean videos on the site make me vomit. If your engineers have benches that are this clean, you are doing it wrong. Same goes for when your reception people need to use a scope to poke at unconnected board

This style of presentation goes well for useless toys and scammy KS campaigns.

[mikeselectricstuff]

And also, clean videos on the site make me vomit. If your engineers have benches that are this clean, you are doing it wrong. Same goes for when your reception people need to use a scope to poke at unconnected board

This style of presentation goes well for useless toys and scammy KS campaigns.

Absolutely.
And of course people are always sending scope traces of sinewaves to each other...
BTW I didn't see any evidence of a spring-hook tip - you often need to be looking at a scope trace while tweaking /holding something else, so you need a way to make a hands-free connection.

And it looked like it had a loose cap - unless this can be clipped onto the back end to stop it getting lost, that's a bit of a fail. 

As for ergonomics, having to do even basic settings on the screen sort of ruins the whole idea of having the probe seperate from the display  - if you had encoders/buttons on the body to do at least timebase and volts/div it would be a lot more practical. 

[mikeselectricstuff]

Although rather bigger, for half the cost, twice the channels and bandwidth :
http://www.hantek.com/en/ProductDetail_2_10165.html

[jjoonathan]

Cable wrangling sucks, knobs suck ( ),  laggy UIs suck, and probe tips without pogo suck. This thing goes after four sources of suckage. I want very badly to like it. Not badly enough to pay the current asking price, but this is just the beginning of the price discovery process. It looks like it was BOM optimized to be viable at a lower price point. I just hope these guys stay in business long enough to come up with an offer I find compelling.

>  it's only 30mHz but to not have an option for low-inductance grounding seems a significant omission.

Is there a <=30MHz 8bit 100mV/div application where it makes a difference?

> This style of presentation goes well for useless toys and scammy KS campaigns.

Sure, but to me the minimalist/startup style also says "maybe our software won't suck." In an industry as terrible at software as this one, that probably counts for something 

> hantek

Oh come on, these guys are targeting the "good UX" market niche, not the "cheapest scope at any cost even if the software needs a f***ing windows XP virtual machine and a day of hacking to run" market niche.

> loose cap, spring-hook tip MIA

Now those are some criticisms I can get behind.

[stj]

when i saw the title i was reminded of the ozifox and expected a small display,

then i checked the link.
i cant see the point.
you probe the circuit with your glue-stick/marker-pen size probe, and you look up at the seperate display.

how is that any different to a regular scope other than the huge probe??

[simone.pignatti]

I remember PicoScope 2104 and 2105 had a pretty good success in the past.
Looking at the data sheet https://www.picotech.com/download/datasheets/PicoScope2100SeriesDataSheet-en.pdf
The 25MHz price was around 299USD 249EUR , pretty close to what IKALOGIC offers today.
The time will decide if the IkaScope will be a success or not. 

[mikeselectricstuff]

probe tips without pogo suck.

I hate probes with built-in springs - they are never strong enough, fragile and you lose feedback and control of contact pressure.

[ikalogic]

Just for your information, IkaScope's probe is not spring-loaded. 

The probe tip is fully rigid, no springs at all, but it's coupled to a button with 0.2mm stroke, that detects the pressure. The name "ProbeClick" really describes the feeling you get when you use IkaScope.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Just for your information, IkaScope's probe is not spring-loaded. 

The probe tip is fully rigid, no springs at all, but it's coupled to a button with 0.2mm stroke, that detects the pressure. The name "ProbeClick" really describes the feeling you get when you use IkaScope.

Does it have a hard stop which is not just the button, or could  over-pressing damage the button?

[ikalogic]

It does.

Actually, testing shows that it sustains pressure of 200 Newtons before parts start to break.

As a matter of fact, the whole probe tip mechanism was quite a challenge to design. Personally, when i use an oscilloscope, I tend to press on the probe tip very, very hard to make sure i get through all layers of flux on the pcb! So my recommendations to the designer was to make sure the probe tip could sustain such very high pressure, while being able to move, just enough to to push the button without friction.

[Z80]

Complaining about the cost is nonsense, western companies can NOT compete with the east on cost.  China has access to cheap knock off parts, slave labour and state sponsored postage, that isn't a level playing field.  The west (currently) has the advantage of design quality, reliability, accountability and support.  If you are a professional and your time has value then the extra cost of trusted tools is not an issue, this is the market for the likes of Keysight, R&S, Fluke etc.  This tool looks interesting, but I must also admit it has a somewhat limited use compared to a bench or USB scope.  I could see a real use if the probe was more conventional so it could be clipped onto a test point on a card allowing remote monitoring in place thus avoiding using extenders or wires.

[xani]

I remember PicoScope 2104 and 2105 had a pretty good success in the past.
Looking at the data sheet https://www.picotech.com/download/datasheets/PicoScope2100SeriesDataSheet-en.pdf
The 25MHz price was around 299USD 249EUR , pretty close to what IKALOGIC offers today.
The time will decide if the IkaScope will be a success or not. 

It's not the same tho. Being on WiFi I can still see it being useful when you have "proper" scope due to isolation.

But it is at price range when it starts to contest with "real" scopes (you can probably get new/hardly used Rigol 1054Z if you search hard enough) and, on other side of spectrum, Analog Discovery 2 that have 2 channels and a bunch of other features.

So it's not really for beginners as those will be better served by one of those options. But on the other side, if you already have a scope and need isolation you can just... buy a differential probe for similiar amount

[mickmake]

Hi guys,
IkaLogic sent me one of their IkaScopes for review.

I was pretty impressed with it. It's a rock solid design. Software is great, but as a lot of you have mentioned... the price is a bugger.

If you're tied to a desk, then a DSO would be much better, but as a mobile option I don't really see any other competition to this.

Anyway, I did a small review and teardown of it as part of my mailbag.

[ataradov]

So "ProbeClick" (C) (R) (tm) is a standard push button. Mkay...

[mickmake]

So "ProbeClick" (C) (R) (tm) is a standard push button. Mkay...

Yup

[ikalogic]

Hi,

Just informing you that we have heard you and changed our price policy slightly.

Now IkaScope comes with free worldwide shipping. We though this was a fair thing to do as soon as we were able to!

Also, prices on the store are now displayed "Taxes included", meaning if you're outside Europe or have a VAT registered business, taxes are deduced at checkout.

Thanks!