HackPOD: The smartphone Arduino

[avikalpaK]

Hi,

We made a cool little thing called HackPOD.

HackPOD is based on the Teensy 3.1. The consumer model would be updated to Teensy 3.2 and more aesthetic look of the device.

HackPOD features an integrated 3.2" touchscreen TFT, SD/SDIO card slot, an in-built protoboard and SMT space and a 1800mAH LiPO battery, all within a portable smartphone form factor. It also hosts an antenna port for greater range.

We'll be launching on Indiegogo on June 15. Special Early Bird offers are available through our site.

You can find more information here.
1 - The HackPOD Website https://hackpod.github.io
2 - The HackPOD Blog https://hackpod.gitbooks.io/blog/content/
3 - The HackPOD Indiegogo draft campaign https://goo.gl/xWNaeS
4 - The HackPOD facebook page https://fb.me/gethackpod/

HackPOD caters to the needs of hobbyists, students and engineers by presenting them with great power but also ease.

(•??•?)

Tell us what you think we need feedback from the maker community.

Thanks.

[Skimask]

Indiegogo = Indi-no-no.  Not even going to look.

Vast majority of people around here ain't gonna do shit on Indiegogo, me included.  Who am I?  Nobody in particular...but I do have a brain and a shit load of common sense.

[bitwelder]

Indeed, why Indiegogo? It seems the project is complete and you are ready for production.
Why not going e.g. to Tindie or at least Crowdsupply?

Also, in my opinion there are more descriptive names than 'Hackpod' (i.e. sticking 'hack' word everywhere doesn't automatically make it cool)

[avikalpaK]

Indiegogo = Indi-no-no.  Not even going to look.

Vast majority of people around here ain't gonna do shit on Indiegogo, me included.  Who am I?  Nobody in particular...but I do have a brain and a shit load of common sense.
Report to moderator   Logged

Indeed, why Indiegogo? It seems the project is complete and you are ready for production.
Why not going e.g. to Tindie or at least Crowdsupply?

Thank You for the criticisms. I was not aware of such opinions on Indiegogo.

We are from India. The only international crowdfunding sites that accept projects from India are

* Indiegogo
* Crowdsupply

I hadn't heard of Tindie before this discussion. Thanks for referring. I will check it.

Now the question is Why Indiegogo?

I understand the concerns. I myself would be concerned if I were you. We had made our draft campaigns in both Indiegogo and Crowdsupply/and after analyzing both the platforms we chose Indiegogo. Here's Why:

1. The Manufacturer Dilemma: Crowdsupply wants all campaigns to have their manufacturers contacted. This is not the case for HackPOD. While we have our PCB & stencil manufacturer, component suppliers ready the assembly manufacturing will vary according to demand. Crowdsupply requires all of them to be ready before funding.  For sufficiently high demand we will rent/host our own assembly setup. It helps to keep the costs reasonable.

2. Crowdsupply does not fund ideas: HackPOD as a wearable. To make it wearable we need to design wrist bands, head gears and VR sets. We don't even have the designs ready because we don't know beforehand how our campaign will fare. If it fares well, hopefully it will, judging from the responses we are getting, we will start designing and putting stretch goals. Again manufacturers dilemma here . Some of our well-wishers have suggested us joining the HAX accelerator in Shenzhen for the manufacturing challenge for the wearables. Note: We are currently designing our Case for HackPOD as a smartphone.

3. Ever seen a hardware stretch goal on Crowdsupply: Novena did it. But generally it's hard to fund Hardware stretch goals given the rigidity of Crowdsupply. We want to make HackPADs, smartphone case, give even higher quality LCDs (companies in Shenzhen want a required demand to start manufacturing high quality screens).
This is where the Indiegogo flexibility shines.

4. Popularity & brand recognition: Many people have not heard of Crowdsupply. More people know about Indiegogo and Kickstarter. These are not simply opinions, I've attached some Real-time statistics below.
    The Images are of Google AdWords Campaign.

Also, in my opinion there are more descriptive names than 'Hackpod' (i.e. sticking 'hack' word everywhere doesn't automatically make it cool)

There are many names. We wanted to emphasize the "hacking" capability and the smartphone likeliness. Hence the name "POD" as any consumer understands pod is something very similar to a smartphone.

Hence, the "simplest" name that put the two together is HackPOD.
Another name may be "MakePOD" but I'm sure you'll agree the former name sounds better.

We are open to name suggestions. (0?0)

Lastly,
I wanted to say these are great questions. It helps us to be more transparent to our community.

Thanks.

Hope this helps.

[avikalpaK]

We've just launched at Indiegogo. Visit us at https://igg.me/at/hackpod

Grab the Early birds before they run out.

[Skimask]

Is it just me, or is this project just a teensy bit familiar?

https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/teensy31.html

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rnwsQm8qR34n6WbsUT5PfxACcYkMHMhgUukrC_xgTEM/edit#gid=0



https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2GMteD8m8CfWFdIZm10WHUyTlk/view

https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/schematic.html


I call complete and/or total B.S. and/or ripoff points.