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Products => Crowd Funded Projects => Topic started by: sairon on March 06, 2014, 10:20:06 am

Title: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: sairon on March 06, 2014, 10:20:06 am
Hello,

In the recent days I have been in discussion with people who both created or backed a Kickstarter project known as the Soap router: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soaprouter/soap-first-smart-router-w-touch-display-powered-by (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soaprouter/soap-first-smart-router-w-touch-display-powered-by)

I'm in a serious doubt about this project - as I have some experience with building embedded devices, I summarized my finding and wrote a post on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/kickstarter/comments/1zjhvg/warning_soap_router_a_soapy_bubble_of_scam/ (http://www.reddit.com/r/kickstarter/comments/1zjhvg/warning_soap_router_a_soapy_bubble_of_scam/)

Now, because my investigation does not lead any further, I'd like to ask the EEVblog community to help me and enlighten the problem a bit. I know there are many people here who have experience with hardware development and roughly know the costs. Maybe they'll prove that I was wrong, so I'll be happy to hear any ideas why this project could be real or not.

Thanks,
Jan
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: sync on March 06, 2014, 01:43:00 pm
A firewall with tons of other services and applications. What a great idea - NOT! :palm: :--
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on March 06, 2014, 03:21:38 pm
A router running Android? Ouch! Those guys don't have any idea of networking! I'd would take Soap Essentials, ditch any wireless toys, add two WAN ports and make it a nice plattform for OpenWrt.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Fsck on March 06, 2014, 06:11:00 pm
A router running Android? Ouch! Those guys don't have any idea of networking! I'd would take Soap Essentials, ditch any wireless toys, add two WAN ports and make it a nice plattform for OpenWrt.

So ewww! I would just sell a haswell-based mitx appliance for people to run sophos UTM home edition (and probably do a ridiculous easy low tech background guide). I still don't know why intrusion prevention systems and deep packet inspection aren't desired by everyone as standard features in routers. (real time antivirus/malware aren't because typically, to get to 1Gbps throughput, you're looking at effectively a <=2 generation old mid-high end desktop)

and I'm curious what they'll claim as their virus/malware protection throughput. unless they're using a signature database from like 2004 or their v/m protection doesn't act like most "enterprise" UTMs.

if you needed to drop the price down to consumer-level, just throw it on one of those cheap celeron/atom mitx boards and limit the signature database so it doesn't need to work as hard (this would sort of be a pain). but, at this point, you're probably(almost certainly) not going to see >40Mbps (I'd really be quite amused if you do get more than 25Mbps) of real time antivirus/malware throughput, but probably still >5x more than any current arm router can do.

^All the above assumes that there isn't anything else consuming cpu cycles other than the UTM and routing functions.

moving on:
--Soap FlyPaper
The FlyPaper is an exclusive feature that allows for you to trap potential hackers who make attempts to invade your network. What the software basically does is that it creates an ‘artificial vulnerability’ area, which lures hackers into accessing your network. What the hacker doesn't realize is that s/he is now trapped.

--Soap Ninja
Not sure what the ninja mode is all about? Well, it’s actually a mode that makes it possible for you to browse the Internet while making sure that your network remains hidden from all other unconnected devices. What’s so good about it? The fact that it would be extremely hard for hackers to access your network!

--Soap Spy
Want to keep an eye on what the other users on your network are up to? That’s easy! With Soap’s SpyMode, you would be able to see in real-time what users from your network are doing. Through Soap, you can actually stream their screen over its touch display! This way, you would be in a far better position to check on the content that your children are watching – you would also be able to prevent someone from gaining access to your personal data!

>> I don't know what hell those 3 functions actually are or how they're implemented. For "Spy", I'm not sure what the hell it is unless you permanently compromise all the clients on your network. For "Ninja" and "FlyPaper", I don't have a freaking clue about what they really mean with their vague descriptions but it does sound like very good marketing to the masses.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on March 06, 2014, 07:45:52 pm
That is way too many features in a router (for security and sanity), and priced too cheap to be viable.
Despite all the effort they've put in to meet the Kickstarter prototype rules, there is too many red flags for me.
Oh, and yeah the hardware development history is very weird - but I couldn't see any major similarities to Bunnies Novena PCBA.

I'd suggest you submit it to Ch00f at Drop-kicker.com for a review - they have some more visibility to the press and backers.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: minibutmany on March 06, 2014, 09:18:15 pm
The prototype just looks like a nexus 7 glued to a plastic box.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: sairon on March 06, 2014, 09:19:30 pm
Oh, and yeah the hardware development history is very weird - but I couldn't see any major similarities to Bunnies Novena PCBA.

If you look at the pictures of Soap's PCB (the screenshots of layout and 3D renders - probably from Altium) and the layout of bunnie's Novena board you can see on the Novena wiki page, you can tell that they are exactly the same - focus on the layout of the connectors, positions of chips etc...

Edit: What the hell? They deleted those screenshots from the page! Well, I have a screenshot of the page anyway, if you wish, I can send it here.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on March 06, 2014, 09:32:44 pm
Edit: What the hell? They deleted those screenshots from the page! Well, I have a screenshot of the page anyway, if you wish, I can send it here.
Ah, that explains why I couldn't see what you were talking about.  The only Altium thing I saw was the block diagram.  I did look hard (although I can't see the backer onluy updates).

The prototype just looks like a nexus 7 glued to a plastic box.
Yep, just what I was thinking!  With some connectors glued in place to make it look more convincing...

It is certainly possible they contracted a firm (Sage was mentioned) to do a prototype PCB design.  It would have been costly, and they obviously didn't provide much advice on business or pricing strategy and how to estimate COGS.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: sairon on March 06, 2014, 09:57:39 pm
Here are the screenshots of "their PCB design":

http://i61.tinypic.com/2ecgifq.jpg (http://i61.tinypic.com/2ecgifq.jpg)
http://i57.tinypic.com/25in2nn.jpg (http://i57.tinypic.com/25in2nn.jpg)
http://i60.tinypic.com/2uiu24h.jpg (http://i60.tinypic.com/2uiu24h.jpg)
http://i57.tinypic.com/503536.jpg (http://i57.tinypic.com/503536.jpg)
http://i60.tinypic.com/2vnj2hz.jpg (http://i60.tinypic.com/2vnj2hz.jpg)
http://i59.tinypic.com/14ncmd1.jpg (http://i59.tinypic.com/14ncmd1.jpg)
http://i59.tinypic.com/309tt79.jpg (http://i59.tinypic.com/309tt79.jpg)
http://i61.tinypic.com/10if4gy.jpg (http://i61.tinypic.com/10if4gy.jpg)
http://i62.tinypic.com/2rf99n5.jpg (http://i62.tinypic.com/2rf99n5.jpg)

And I've contacted a Sage representative (their COO) and he clearly stated that they have not made any prototype for Soap yet.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on March 06, 2014, 10:09:28 pm
OK, agreed!
They've gone now, but were definitely identical to the Novena layout
http://bunniefoo.com/novena/ (http://bunniefoo.com/novena/)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on March 07, 2014, 12:24:32 am
I couldn't find a copy of the old project page anywhere, other than your captures.  Not that I think they're fake - it wouldn't be the first time for a project creator to stoop so low.

Very often I see crowd funding project descriptions getting edited, usually to improve readability or add additional info/perks/stretch goals/faqs, but sometimes for more suspect reasons (like removing ripped off images).

So I wonder if Kickstarter keep an (internal) archive of older versions of the project page, which in this case would provide evidence of deceit regarding the PCB screenshots.

IGG seem to be pretty lax with stuff like this, but KS generally have a much better handle on things (e.g. deletion of comments).
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Rasz on March 07, 2014, 08:03:22 pm
pcb comparison is on hackaday
http://hackaday.com/2014/03/07/soap-the-home-automation-router-and-kickstarter-scam/ (http://hackaday.com/2014/03/07/soap-the-home-automation-router-and-kickstarter-scam/)

Looks like over enthusiasm to me, not a scam. They are planning to learn how to route 6 layer pcbs AFTER campaign ends, so far their hardware hacking was limited to asking on wandaboard forum how to connect LCD to their devboard.

Will end up like USB analyzer KS from 2-3 years ago? where dude used KS money to buy Altium license so he could learn how to do layout :o :D
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on March 08, 2014, 06:27:46 am
So Soap have posted an update with credible looking PCB layout.  We can only see the top side, and it is pretty low resolution, but it does include the expected parts.  Who knows if it is actually routed or just has the most obvious components quickly placed to placate us.  It almost looks like they took the Novena PCB files as a starting point, moved things around, deleted a few things, and then added the extra ethernet and wireless modules.  All of which is certainly allowed *IF* they abide by the CC-BY-SA license.

They've also shown a video which includes a representative from Sage Electronics indicating they are working with the Soap team, but we already heard that they hadn't really done anything yet, and it is pretty clear that the project owners are not hardware designers.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: TMM on March 08, 2014, 10:47:32 am
For "Spy", I'm not sure what the hell it is unless you permanently compromise all the clients on your network.
Probably just the same as every other linux router can do - display content from plaintext protocols and URLs being visited.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tom66 on March 09, 2014, 04:25:06 pm
The new board looks like someone has thrown on random components - for example, there's no termination network for the HDMI, no visible DC-DC converter inductors, no termination for the RAM, and a large number of (very expensive) large format ceramic caps.
There could be more on the bottom, but it sure is an odd board.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tszaboo on March 09, 2014, 08:47:50 pm
"We initially chose the Arduino" for a router. I cannot take anyone seriously who writes this sentence. But it is funny to read their "process of developing the hardware". We f*cked around with some devboards, someone got a 3D printer, now we need money.
Not to mention that most routers have ASICs in them for a reason. Speed and multiple Ethernet connection. Not a quad core ARM, even it has quite some speed : http://boundarydevices.com/i-mx6-ethernet/ (http://boundarydevices.com/i-mx6-ethernet/)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on March 09, 2014, 10:09:42 pm
Yep, there are special network processors for high throughput. They include things like hardware NAT and so on. Even the chipsets of some inexpensive SOHO DSL routers got some basic features in hardware. Performance tests of software based NAT vs. proprietary hardware NAT on such a SOHO router showed about twice the throughput for hardware based NAT, and that's just for cheap Broadcom/Atheros chipsets.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: chicken on March 12, 2014, 04:29:16 am
Lots of hand waving in this interview with one of the creators on Hack a Day:
http://hackaday.com/2014/03/11/soap-drama-an-interview-with-the-soap-creators/ (http://hackaday.com/2014/03/11/soap-drama-an-interview-with-the-soap-creators/)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tom66 on March 12, 2014, 11:26:11 am
They spec'd a gigabit chip that is NRND and unavailable everywhere. They really don't have a clue. This is another Mu Optics.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on March 12, 2014, 04:58:59 pm
They spec'd a gigabit chip that is NRND and unavailable everywhere. They really don't have a clue. This is another Mu Optics.

The Quad Core Freescale i.MX CPU supports just a single GigE with a maximum throughput of 470Mb/s for both directions added. In reality it's less than 400Mbit/s. That means that the maximum throughput for NAT or routing is 200Mb/s. You're right, they don't have any clue.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tom66 on March 12, 2014, 06:28:14 pm
Yeah, you really want a dedicated gigabit chipset - probably what is used in your average router.

However, I think if you want gigabit speeds with firewall/antivirus(huh?)/etc. you're having a laugh, unless you go to enterprise grade hardware. How are you going to dynamically scan that kind of data with commodity hardware? The switch fabric required is typically 2 x NUM PORTS x SPEED, which mean they will need to be inspecting on-the-fly about 10Gbit/s data rate (1.25GB/s!)   with minimal latency (they claim it's good for gaming, etc.) whilst also running that silly tablet frontend.

I don't even see how you could do a practical antivirus scanner at 1.25GB/s. It would require constant processing of data to look for pattern matches against a database of 100,000+ signatures, this is not to mention that most databases aren't free and you're probably looking at a massively parallel ASIC to do this........

They have one poor hardware engineer, who's probably way above himself, no prototype, nothing practical, and they're going to take everyone's money and deliver nothing. It's like Mu all over again.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on March 12, 2014, 10:36:10 pm
However, I think if you want gigabit speeds with firewall/antivirus(huh?)/etc. you're having a laugh, unless you go to enterprise grade hardware. How are you going to dynamically scan that kind of data with commodity hardware? The switch fabric required is typically 2 x NUM PORTS x SPEED, which mean they will need to be inspecting on-the-fly about 10Gbit/s data rate (1.25GB/s!)   with minimal latency (they claim it's good for gaming, etc.) whilst also running that silly tablet frontend.

The numbers would be correct if each PHY would be a dedicated Ethernet port of the CPU. Actually the typical SOHO router has an Ethernet switch built in. So in most cases the traffic is limited to the CPU's Ethernet ports. The standard design is a dedicated port for WAN, one for LAN (connected to the switch with 4 PHYs) and another one for WLAN (or two for dual band). Since most people just want to filter the incoming WAN traffic the requirement would be to filter/scan 1Gb/s. But that's still too much for the CPU of a SOHO router.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: sync on March 12, 2014, 10:46:52 pm
Since most people just want to filter the incoming WAN traffic the requirement would be to filter/scan 1Gb/s. But that's still too much for the CPU of a SOHO router.
It's not needed. SoHo routers aren't used on an 1Gb/s WAN connection.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Fsck on March 13, 2014, 07:06:27 am
For "Spy", I'm not sure what the hell it is unless you permanently compromise all the clients on your network.
Probably just the same as every other linux router can do - display content from plaintext protocols and URLs being visited.

as I quoted them: "you can actually stream their screen over its touch display", sort of implies to me that they want you to think you can view the screen of the clients on the router's display.

to hit 1Gb/s, you can probably work it on a reasonably modern Intel quad-core. You can do your network scanning during low-usage time.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on March 13, 2014, 02:29:34 pm
Since most people just want to filter the incoming WAN traffic the requirement would be to filter/scan 1Gb/s. But that's still too much for the CPU of a SOHO router.
It's not needed. SoHo routers aren't used on an 1Gb/s WAN connection.

It's uncommon right now ;-) But you can get 200Mb/s Internet access in some towns via cable TV or FTTH/PON (GigE). A quad core CPU >1GHz with some network enhancements done in hardware should be able to process a GigE WAN at wire speed (just networking, no malware scanning). I assume that SOHO routers with such CPUs will be common in 2-3 years. At the moment most vendors present their first router with a dual core ARM >=1GHz. 
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: sync on March 13, 2014, 03:13:37 pm
I think you don't need a quad core to route 1Gb/s. Realtime malware scanning is of course something completely different. You need tons of computing power for it. Also to make it proper you need to decrypt and reencrypt encrypted connections.
I'm guessing the realtime scanning of the SoHo routers are very basic and limited. In case of the Soap router maybe an app which displays a nice animated "you are safe" icon is enough. :-DD
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: sync on March 13, 2014, 04:05:51 pm
Out of curiosity. How fast are these Japanese 1Gb/s SOHO connections in real life?
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: gabhex21 on March 13, 2014, 04:19:02 pm
Quote
We have been dealing with this issue and in testing speed we have used a mPCIE to USB3.0 and we have tested SATAII to USB3.0.

They seem to believe that you can take a USB -> SATA DEVICE cable and just swap the connectors.
What they are missing is that they actually need something that behaves as a SATA device and connects to an external USB3.0 mass storage device, not the other way around.
The stuff they keep making up would be funny if it wasn't for the real people who are going to lose money in this scam.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on March 13, 2014, 09:48:37 pm
Quote
We have been dealing with this issue and in testing speed we have used a mPCIE to USB3.0 and we have tested SATAII to USB3.0.

They seem to believe that you can take a USB -> SATA DEVICE cable and just swap the connectors.
What they are missing is that they actually need something that behaves as a SATA device and connects to an external USB3.0 mass storage device, not the other way around.
The stuff they keep making up would be funny if it wasn't for the real people who are going to lose money in this scam.

I pledged them $1 just to ask the USB 3.0 question. Once I saw that answer ...   :palm:

I don't understand how Kickstarter allows their program to remain open when they obviously do not have a functional prototype.

But hey, I could use an extra $100K too...I have a TI MSP430 Launchpad, some STM32F4 Discovery boards, and an Embedded Artists LPC3250 board sitting at my desk. Gimme some money!  :-DD
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: marcan on March 17, 2014, 06:25:08 pm
I like their current claimed board design.

(https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/001/754/083/5db3a8e6e8e3fa11b796a3ce011cb684_large.png)

Let's count the fail:
- No mounting holes for the board
- SATA male connector, which needs a completely non-standard female-female data+power cable.
- mPCIe socket next to that, hanging off the board. No mounting holes for the card that goes there.
- Two radio modules but no antenna connectors for them
- Another radio module with a single SMA connector - but this is supposed to be a MIMO router
- No Ethernet switch chip - instead they have a PHY for each connector, but nowhere for that PHY to connect to

Nevermind the random rows of passives and general BS smell of the layout.

And their explanation for why they used to have the ripped off Novena screenshots is just gold:

Quote
We originally had a opensource board called Kosagi as our foundation for our final design but we changed this when cost was too high and it had to many features that we didn't need.

We have now updated the project with our new and most recent design below which is not using any opensource source files to build (like a Altium from Kosagi)

"A Altium". Right.


Edit: more lies:

Soap Prototype Video on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/88034251)

That's this board: http://www.friendlyarm.net/products/tiny4412 (http://www.friendlyarm.net/products/tiny4412)
Note the absence of SATA or a 12V power rail, and yet they have an HDD hanging off to the side...
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Fsck on March 18, 2014, 09:11:29 am
I'm sort of curious how they'll draw the traces for those PHYs.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tom66 on March 19, 2014, 07:14:13 pm
I mentioned the PCB didn't look right but there's more.

- I see them mostly using large format ceramic caps which are really expensive.
- And they don't have any easily visible clock/xtal for the processor
- If they use the i.MX don't they need the i.MX power/reset controller with the various core supplies?
- Amusing random headers in the middle of the board no idea what they do.
- Insufficient clearance for the SATA header to install a HDD and miniPCI card unless extension cables are used, pricey.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on March 20, 2014, 03:47:45 pm
Suddenly they have added an internal battery, which of course, is nowhere to be seen on the "prototype" PCB...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soaprouter/soap-first-smart-router-w-touch-display-powered-by/comments?cursor=6237539#comment-6237538 (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soaprouter/soap-first-smart-router-w-touch-display-powered-by/comments?cursor=6237539#comment-6237538)
Quote
Soap will have a small internal battery for this sort of thing we don't want it forgetting everything with the simple loss of power.

Maybe it will connect to one of the many BS headers.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: amyk on March 22, 2014, 01:53:52 pm
Is it that hard to Google "router PCB" and create your fake one based on existing layouts...? At least that would make it a little more convincing.

Quote
Out of curiosity. How fast are these Japanese 1Gb/s SOHO connections in real life?
I was there a few years ago. Under the right conditions, they are really fast: http://i61.tinypic.com/2b7cyh.png (http://i61.tinypic.com/2b7cyh.png)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: marcan on March 23, 2014, 12:21:47 am
- And they don't have any easily visible clock/xtal for the processor
That they do have - I think the small grey squares are supposed to be small SMT xtals. There are two near the CPU and one next to each ethernet PHY.

- Insufficient clearance for the SATA header to install a HDD and miniPCI card unless extension cables are used, pricey.
It's not even the right connector for that - it's male, that needs a cable no matter what. It'd have to be female to plug in directly to a drive. Not that that would work with their claimed form factor anyway. But then again, neither can the miniPCI card.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: CanadianAvenger on March 23, 2014, 12:23:47 am
That SATA header as you're calling it is a CFAST connector [SATA version of CompactFlash] The data signals are in the right order, IIRC, but the power part of the connector is mapped differently, with different voltages.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tom66 on March 24, 2014, 02:46:14 am
Well, they got their bux, so now we wait and see if anything happens. :clap:
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: BravoV on March 24, 2014, 02:52:18 am
... so now we wait and see if anything happens. :clap:

Hopefully it won't get "MµTI-ed".

PS : "MµTI" stands for Mµ Thermal Imager  :-DD
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: marcan on March 24, 2014, 04:19:13 am
That SATA header as you're calling it is a CFAST connector [SATA version of CompactFlash] The data signals are in the right order, IIRC, but the power part of the connector is mapped differently, with different voltages.

It's not CFAST. This is CFAST:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/CFast_Kontakte.jpg/640px-CFast_Kontakte.jpg)

Note how the two slots are flat, while the wafers on the 3D render have a lip. It's just a SATA connector, of the kind you'd find on a drive:
(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTI0MFgxNjAw/z/1t8AAMXQKLdR1BsX/$T2eC16J,!w0E9szN(W+hBR1BsWeyiQ~~60_35.JPG)

Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: CanadianAvenger on March 24, 2014, 02:52:24 pm
Whups you're right... I did not notice the lip/key in the rendering earlier, thanks for correcting me.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Bud on May 15, 2014, 04:21:09 am
I enjoyed reading the few last updates

"We have been putting together a large update with a lot more final information. The problem is we don't have the final information yet."

(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/icon_smile_thumbsup.gif)

This is hilarious. Make sure you read last couple dozen comments, too. 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soaprouter/soap-first-smart-router-w-touch-display-powered-by/posts (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soaprouter/soap-first-smart-router-w-touch-display-powered-by/posts)

Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on May 15, 2014, 10:49:34 am
From Update #32:
Quote
-Premium apps from Soap and subscriptions available and discounted price for KS backers only

Let's call it iRouter  >:D There are already a few SOHO routers with dual core ARM on the market right now and we'll see much more, also dropping prices. As soon as some of them are supported by OpenWRT or DD-WRT Soap doesn't stand any chance. Some could argue that Soap got that nice touch screen but I think it's a silly idea. Either you want to connect ethernet cables and optimize the position of the WLAN antennas for best performance or you want to carry the touch screen around. I'd buy a SOHO router, place it on a shelf, wire up everything and leave it there. And if I need a touch screen I'd get a pad.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on May 15, 2014, 03:26:13 pm
As is typical, there is almost nothing in the recent updates... except this nugget from the latest update:
Quote
SOM Vendor for CPU (For any hardware guy this was a obvious change that needed to happen for development)

Ummm... huh?  So they've ditched all their previous (faked?) PCB layouts and switched to a System-on-Module?   :-//

Don't know how that addresses any of their actual deliverable issues - multiple gigabit ethernet ports, high network throughput, Android drivers, kitchen-sink wireless standards, etc.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tom66 on May 29, 2014, 11:36:59 pm
May 21st update

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soaprouter/soap-first-smart-router-w-touch-display-powered-by/posts (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soaprouter/soap-first-smart-router-w-touch-display-powered-by/posts)

wow... where do we start

...Inability to distinguish between MB/s and Mb/s, and MB and MB per second (not a typo - claims they will overcome "470 Megabyte" limit, "ethernet gigabyte speeds", etc.)

...USB 3.0 x 2 ports requiring 10GBits/s bandwidth, yet the i.MX6 Quad only has a single USB 2.0 host (if they did this it would be via PCI-Express but they only have one lane at 5Gbit/s so it's not possible anyway, unless using both ports halves the transfer rate.)

...Sudden late game switch to Maxwell  vs Quantenna, they were so sure and had prototype hardware allegedly...
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Rasz on May 30, 2014, 03:46:26 am
Latest update actually looks realistic. Obviously they will use PLX PCIE switch chip for USB 3.0, ethernet and two wifi radios.
Something like PEX 8606

example of how it looks like
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-e-express-1X-to-4port-1X-switch-multiplier-riser-card-for-diy-bitcoin-miner-/221390112653?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item338be1078d (http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-e-express-1X-to-4port-1X-switch-multiplier-riser-card-for-diy-bitcoin-miner-/221390112653?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item338be1078d)

Previous update gave me a mental image of 3 frat boys sitting with some MBA type debating how to best monetize the userbase and synergize back-end convergence (ass fucking said user base). App stores? nickel and dining for every code snippet while hardware still doesnt exist? Sure sounds like they are already pitching this thing to VCs to get that sweet piece of silicon valley startup pie.

Edit: Obviously the plan is to "make it up in volume". i.MX6 module alone is ~$200 in volume, PLX switch ~$15, probably ~$10 for wifi radios, usb ~$5, BT another 5, <1GHz radios $10? 20? sounds like its some off the shelf usb module.

All in all ~$300 in parts alone, and they "sold" them at $150-170. Another solid business plan in action.  Either they screw some sucker investment fund or not deliver at all.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: sairon on May 31, 2014, 09:49:50 am
Still sounds bullshitty to me. What are those symmetric groups of components you can see four times on the bottom side and once left from the mPCIe slots? Looks like a crystal oscillator with some diodes and capacitors around, but it doesn't make sense to have this five times randomly spawned around the board. And why is there an unequipped place for THT crystal next to the clock battery? Also, I don't see any connector for the LCD and the layout doesn't correspond to the layout of connectors in their previous 3D render (then why did they do it?).

I have been looking for any 802.11ac mPCIe card with Marvell chipset and haven't found one (after some Google searching nor in this list: https://wikidevi.com/wiki/List_of_802.11ac_Hardware), they plan do design their own?

Yeah, and the component prices still don't add up to their retail price, that's right. Still won't believe until I see anything real that's really working.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: rob77 on May 31, 2014, 10:56:29 am
ROFLMAO  :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD

those guys are either scamers or extremely optimistic newbies knowing nothing about the things they're planning to do ;) considering all those features they would need a hardware at least an order of magnitude more powerful than today's high-end SOHO routers and several years for developing the software for it.

and who the hell would choose android for a router ? ok. the kernel is a modified linux kernel.. but one of the modification is the network stack which was made kind of restrictive to improve security of the android devices on the network.

most of things what they promise are pretty possible, but on a powerful hardware optimized for routers, not in the device they're presenting.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on May 31, 2014, 01:11:52 pm
What are those symmetric groups of components you can see four times on the bottom side and once left from the mPCIe slots? Looks like a crystal oscillator with some diodes and capacitors around, but it doesn't make sense to have this five times randomly spawned around the board.
If you're talking about what I think, then in the 3D view they surround a QFP/QFN IC with a large thermal pad - maybe ethernet transceivers or DC/DC converters?  If ethernet, then they are weirdly positioned.  I see 4 very similar on the bottom, and one that could be the same on the top?

Also, at first I suspected the footprints that look like SMD crystals at the edge of the board next to the outer mPCIe slot were for the quad antenna connections, but surely they would come directly off the mPCIe module via u.fl connectors.

Also, I don't see any connector for the LCD and the layout doesn't correspond to the layout of connectors in their previous 3D render (then why did they do it?).
Yeah, where is the LCD connector?  I only see HDMI.  Surely the final prototype has to verify the LCD, if not the other unproven features like the audio and backup battery power.  They also seem to have misplaced some of the other wireless modules previously visible.

Yeah, and the component prices still don't add up to their retail price, that's right. Still won't believe until I see anything real that's really working.
They did say they were subsidising the cost of the KS devices - but why the hell would they do that???  Get a working unit on the market, and you can sell your first batch of super duper routers for a huge premium to all those people who must own the latest and greatest, who cares the cost!  Most likely they'll run out of money getting a partially working prototype and never deliver anything.

And even worse they're now using a third party SOM, which can only be cost effective if they've realised they will only making a few hundred units.
AND YET THEY'RE SELLING THEM AT A LOSS!

They also say
Quote
The SMA connectors are not on the board. We are going to run antenna wire from the case to the WiFi chipset. THis doesn't change anything for you guys but allows our EMI to pass with flying colors
Wow!  Pretty confident aren't they!
Most WiFi routers I've pulled apart do this anyway with short coax cables between the chassis mount RPSMA and PCB.
And this is a completely different connector layout to that of the earlier "production" housing renders, so any emmissions test results on this board aren't particularly relevant to a final production PCBA.

All that said, if they had shown this "prototype" early on in the KS timeline they might have got a few more belivers, rather than showing photos of Arduinos and silly low end ARM boards with faked SATA connections.  I will be very surprised if the iMX6 and Android bloatware environment will ever meet their stated throughput goals, but had I backed this project for more than $1, I'd only be doing it for a nice HA controller.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on May 31, 2014, 01:20:09 pm
Oh, and I forgot - they've got one of the large electrolytic capacitors placed on top of a bunch of SMD passives (near the HDMI connector).
Maybe just a slip of the mouse during 3D mode in Altium... I know I've done it.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on May 31, 2014, 02:20:56 pm
I think that the Soap team totally underestimated the project and overestimated their skills. I wouldn't be suprised if their last project was something with an Arduino  >:D
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: echen1024 on June 01, 2014, 11:36:55 pm
I think that the Soap team totally underestimated the project and overestimated their skills. I wouldn't be suprised if their last project was something with an Arduino  >:D
Oh yea. We made LED go blinky blinky based on Adafruit tutorial. Router is just more led and LCD plus Ethernet shield right?
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on June 02, 2014, 10:53:09 pm
The board still doesn't have mounting holes!
How on Earth does it attach to anything? Why would you do a proto-run without mounting holes?
Just to blow money when you have to respin it to add them and muck up your layout? Am I missing something about this? Why hasn't the board guy added mounting holes by now!?

They are simply dicking around - easily could have had a small qty of rev 1 PCB spun by now (especially since they ditched doing the iMX6 themselves), instead they are making bullshit renders.

Quote
5. Optical Audio connector and audio 3.5MM are still planned, but we have removed the connectors from this version.
Huh? You removed them from the design? Or just removed from the BOM? I don't see footprints so uhh...you removed them from the design?  :clap:

Quote
6. As you can see we do have double sided board this is for two reason. We have a lot to put on such a small area and it allows for easy EMI approval.
What? Oh yeah, double sided component placement inherently implies "easy EMI approval"??? What in the #$%@.  :palm:

Quote
This board is the final prototype...

How can it be the final prototype when you haven't even tested it?  :-//

Bullshit looking rows of passives still present on the board. And do my eyes deceive me or are some of these passives overlapping an electrolytic cap? Wait...big surprise here...there are no mounting holes for the standoffs for the Congatec board!

It's a bullshit board and a bullshit layout. Sucks they got so much money and are now just tooling around in Altium 3D view.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: HackedFridgeMagnet on June 02, 2014, 11:41:53 pm
Forgive if this is already noted. It made me laugh, but then I'm not a backer.
Quote
Update #32

May 13 2014
Update on the Update
We have been putting together a large update with a lot more final information. The problem is we don't have the final information yet.

One thing in their favour is the Raspberry Pi had no mounting holes, and they managed to sell stacks of them.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Bud on June 03, 2014, 02:52:16 am
Quote
We want to post a few 3D photos of the new board...


Ah.. now I understand the difference between the words "picture" and "photo". Certainly they used a wrong one here...deliberately?
 :)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soaprouter/soap-first-smart-router-w-touch-display-powered-by/posts (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soaprouter/soap-first-smart-router-w-touch-display-powered-by/posts)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: rob77 on June 03, 2014, 08:34:54 am
Forgive if this is already noted. It made me laugh, but then I'm not a backer.
Quote
Update #32

May 13 2014
Update on the Update
We have been putting together a large update with a lot more final information. The problem is we don't have the final information yet.

One thing in their favour is the Raspberry Pi had no mounting holes, and they managed to sell stacks of them.

yes raspberry got no mount holes in the first revision, but it was never meant to be embedded in products.. the primary goal was a cheap small computer for educational purposes. and they met their goal 100%. and of course they added the holes in the second version - but the connector layout is kind of unusable for embedding it into a product ;) but anyways - raspberry is a great product meeting the initial goal for 100%.

this router thingy discussed in this thread seems to be a scam.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: BartManInNZ on June 05, 2014, 12:06:02 am
this router thingy discussed in this thread seems to be a scam.
Considering what these eastern european folks do with their hardware running an optimised linux kernel:
www.mikrotik.com (http://www.mikrotik.com) and  www.routerboard.com (http://www.routerboard.com)
They can provide a rock-solid router/firewall for a very low price - they are up to v6 of their OS - RouterOS and are still ironing out bugs on a very regular basis. They provide Cisco-like routing/firewall features at a fraction of the cost both in hardware and software.

To suggest that you can improve on this, whilst running on Android has to be the biggest joke of the decade.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on June 10, 2014, 08:10:29 pm
They want more money.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/soap-the-android-tablet-to-replace-your-old-ugly-router (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/soap-the-android-tablet-to-replace-your-old-ugly-router)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: rob77 on June 10, 2014, 08:32:08 pm
They want more money.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/soap-the-android-tablet-to-replace-your-old-ugly-router (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/soap-the-android-tablet-to-replace-your-old-ugly-router)

and it's just the beginning :D it's going to be even worse :D

those guys should consider return the funding and take the loses - it would be far cheaper for them at the end of the day.

i would never ever start a kickstarter campaign without having a working prototype... apparently those kids wants to learn the hard way  :palm:
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Rasz on June 10, 2014, 09:00:40 pm
it's going to be even worse :D

..
it would be far cheaper for them at the end of the day

They are fine, they have the money and they pretend to do something - this alone satisfies KS ToS. Its backers problem now :)
$250 might actually cover their hw cost this time. But still doesnt guarantee any delivery.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: echen1024 on June 12, 2014, 12:04:03 pm
The feature list is fucking hilarious. Constantly updates anti-virus that somehow negates the need for AV software running on all your PCs? "Flypaper" to "trap" hackers? What does that even mean?

They also list a load of well known brands as their "partners", but they aren't actually working with them at all. They just buy in Freescale ARM processors, that doesn't make them a "partner".

Indigogo should shut down obvious scams like this.
Yea tell me about it. First of all, what the fuck is flypaper? Any TECHNICAL details on how it works? Second, Spy, which allows you to view someone else's screen, is close to impossible, not only would this raise multiple security concerns, it would also necessitate the cooperation of all major OS maintainers.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on June 12, 2014, 05:48:07 pm
Yea tell me about it. First of all, what the fuck is flypaper? Any TECHNICAL details on how it works? Second, Spy, which allows you to view someone else's screen, is close to impossible, not only would this raise multiple security concerns, it would also necessitate the cooperation of all major OS maintainers.

Flypaper is a mix of a honeypott and an IDS to monitor unwanted traffic. Spy could be something like VNC.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on June 12, 2014, 06:16:53 pm
Yea tell me about it. First of all, what the fuck is flypaper? Any TECHNICAL details on how it works? Second, Spy, which allows you to view someone else's screen, is close to impossible, not only would this raise multiple security concerns, it would also necessitate the cooperation of all major OS maintainers.

Flypaper is a mix of a honeypott and an IDS to monitor unwanted traffic. Spy could be something like VNC.

VNC needs a server installed on the target machine, though. They claim (have claimed) you can spy on any device on the network without installing any software.  :bullshit:

Even with a honeypot and IDS, how are hackers "trapped"? Are they put in some kind of invisible jail?  :P

The IGG campaign is up to $7K USD already!  :wtf:
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on June 12, 2014, 07:06:50 pm
VNC needs a server installed on the target machine, though. They claim (have claimed) you can spy on any device on the network without installing any software.  :bullshit:

Even with a honeypot and IDS, how are hackers "trapped"? Are they put in some kind of invisible jail?  :P

Please don't believe that marketing hogwash! You're right, without installing any software/malware on the device monitored, the only thing they can spy on is the network traffic. And yes, 'trapped' is BS too. Would you run a honeypott light and an IDS on the same machine controlling your network and home automation? I wouldn't, even if it would run in a virtual machine. Those guys haven't any clue about IP networking and security.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: BartManInNZ on June 12, 2014, 07:38:11 pm
Please don't believe that marketing hogwash! You're right, without installing any software/malware on the device monitored, the only thing they can spy on is the network traffic. And yes, 'trapped' is BS too. Would you run a honeypott light and an IDS on the same machine controlling your network and home automation? I wouldn't, even if it would run in a virtual machine. Those guys haven't any clue about IP networking and security.
And all from the robust networking OS known as Kitkat... err Android!
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: rob77 on June 12, 2014, 09:26:52 pm
btw.. this router project  https://www.turris.cz/en/ (https://www.turris.cz/en/)  is what i call a real high-end SOHO router - it was designed and made by the Guys behind CZNIC - the Czech internet peering center - so REAL NETWORK EXPERTS. it took them  1 and half year to finish (whole time-line of the project on the web).. btw... they are not selling the unit - they are borrowing it to volunteers in Czech republic  (there is some research project behind it). the estimated price is in the 400+ Euro range, but in mass production it would be cheaper. if they'll eventually start selling the unit (i hope they will) i would happily buy one.

so how could those SOAP guys make it within a few months ?  :-DD this SOAP thingy will be either never delivered, or it will be already obsolete when they will start delivering.  :-DD
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on June 18, 2014, 04:54:07 am
Quote
Soap Mesh gives you unheard of security for your home network. With two more Soap devices wirelessly clustered, it allows Soap to run checks or balances to verify that your home network and all connected devices are always secure.

What does this even mean? Checks OR balances.... ??? :bullshit:

They jumped to from around $9K to almost $20K in a day or two. Amazing. Amazingly depressing.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: free_electron on June 18, 2014, 06:41:48 am
Z-wave ? Really ? I don't believe a single word of it. The amount of NDA paperwork in that is mindboggling. Slapping on a toolstick is not z-wave ...
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: BartManInNZ on June 18, 2014, 10:13:25 pm
They are halfway there on IG - inconceivable! Nothing of substance, all hype and bluster. They will get $46K+ to bank on top of the KS 'earnings' to spend on anything but what they have promised - hookers and crack no doubt...
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Smokey on June 19, 2014, 05:14:17 pm
...
They jumped to from around $9K to almost $20K in a day or two. Amazing. Amazingly depressing.

Some of that is the advertizing they get from hackaday.  Does indiegogo have a referral rewards program?
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on June 19, 2014, 06:36:13 pm
...
They jumped to from around $9K to almost $20K in a day or two. Amazing. Amazingly depressing.

Some of that is the advertizing they get from hackaday.  Does indiegogo have a referral rewards program?

Oh yeah, and being "featured" on Wired.  :-//

And they just went from $25K to $30K make that $35K make that $38K(!) now in one day. Is that normal for a crowd funded project? It seems like such a steep increase.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: echen1024 on June 19, 2014, 06:41:43 pm
Someone should alert their "partners" that they are using their good names and logos to promote a scam. Claiming that they are partners is highly misleading - it suggests that have an actual business relationship and co-operation at a technical level. By their standards I could claim Mitsubishi are my partners because I drive one of their cars. Actually, I'm partnered with the Soviet Military because I'm designing a product that uses a part developed by them.
I'm partnered with Iran since I have a box if Iranian sweets.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on June 25, 2014, 07:49:20 pm
Soap Rap!!!! on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/98774179)

 |O |O |O |O

I noticed they have removed their old "prototype" video from the web. I wonder why?
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on June 26, 2014, 03:52:21 am
Posted pictures of the "pre-production prototype" on IGG:

(https://images.indiegogo.com/file_attachments/675777/files/20140625200429-20140625_161210.jpg?1403751869)

http://www.congatec.com/us/products/accessories/conga-mcbqseven-arm.html (http://www.congatec.com/us/products/accessories/conga-mcbqseven-arm.html)
 
 :-//
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Rasz on June 26, 2014, 04:51:43 am
so their pre production board is off the shelf $250 dev board carrier for $200 dev board, brilliant
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on June 26, 2014, 01:34:14 pm
How can they not realise that many people are watching them, and this would be quickly seen to be an off the shelf (and somewhat expensive) development board.
:palm:
It is almost nothing like their "design" they showed (somewhat suspect) 3D renders of, but I guess it could be used as an initial development platform.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on June 26, 2014, 03:45:44 pm
How can they not realise that many people are watching them, and this would be quickly seen to be an off the shelf (and somewhat expensive) development board.
:palm:
It is almost nothing like their "design" they showed (somewhat suspect) 3D renders of, but I guess it could be used as an initial development platform.
I just think they don't know what the term "pre-production prototype" implies.

Quote
June 26th. video, test prototype Stress testing, software loading for the first week of july.
I guess today we'll see the actual prototype.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: janoc on June 26, 2014, 06:47:06 pm
How can they not realise that many people are watching them, and this would be quickly seen to be an off the shelf (and somewhat expensive) development board.
:palm:
It is almost nothing like their "design" they showed (somewhat suspect) 3D renders of, but I guess it could be used as an initial development platform.

People putting money into this stuff are not known to actually understand the hardware or even do basic due diligence before going all googly-eyed and taking the credit card out  ::)

How would a Joe Sheep know that it is an off-the-shelf dev board? Or even know what a dev board is? All they see is a picture of an impressive and complicated looking PCB with a lot of chips, so the project is obviously progressing well and the whole thing is totally legit  :palm:

Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on June 29, 2014, 01:13:47 am
Big surprise, no video.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: BartManInNZ on July 01, 2014, 11:38:38 pm
So now nearly 2000 people have supported both the KS and IGG campaigns and all they can show is more 3d renderings... reading the comments makes one weep - people falling over themselves to buy these 'things'. As the old saying goes "more dollars than sense (cents)".
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 02, 2014, 03:55:16 pm
lol at all the "can you upgrade me to Soap XYZ" posts on IGG and all the people on KS being like "WTF is going on ???"

I have not cared enough to do any math on this,  but all of the  :scared: "LIMITED TIME ONLY DISCOUNT!!!" :scared: BS seems like a totally asinine way to run a campaign. If they are so heavily discounting the top-of-the-line model (where I'm assuming most of the profit should come from), aren't they eating their own dog food, so to speak?

Now they want to add inductive charging to the router. Why??  :-\

Another hilarious thing is how people are pledging for multiple units so they can "mesh" them...what genius marketing, lol.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: echen1024 on July 02, 2014, 04:13:29 pm
lol at all the "can you upgrade me to Soap XYZ" posts on IGG and all the people on KS being like "WTF is going on ???"

I have not cared enough to do any math on this,  but all of the  :scared: "LIMITED TIME ONLY DISCOUNT!!!" :scared: BS seems like a totally asinine way to run a campaign. If they are so heavily discounting the top-of-the-line model (where I'm assuming most of the profit should come from), aren't they eating their own dog food, so to speak?

Now they want to add inductive charging to the router. Why??  :-\

Another hilarious thing is how people are pledging for multiple units so they can "mesh" them...what genius marketing, lol.
Who the f needs inductive charging in a router. For shits sake, it's a bloody router. You plug the damned thing in and you leave it there. So you have an inductive router with a battery, that's great. What about all those ethernet devices you have? For things such as my home server, I prefer the reliability and speed of gigabit Ethernet (now that theres 1300Mbps AC, that's moot, but reliability). I can't pick up my bloody router and carry the stupid thing around
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: rob77 on July 02, 2014, 04:17:23 pm
lol at all the "can you upgrade me to Soap XYZ" posts on IGG and all the people on KS being like "WTF is going on ???"

I have not cared enough to do any math on this,  but all of the  :scared: "LIMITED TIME ONLY DISCOUNT!!!" :scared: BS seems like a totally asinine way to run a campaign. If they are so heavily discounting the top-of-the-line model (where I'm assuming most of the profit should come from), aren't they eating their own dog food, so to speak?

Now they want to add inductive charging to the router. Why??  :-\

Another hilarious thing is how people are pledging for multiple units so they can "mesh" them...what genius marketing, lol.
Who the f needs inductive charging in a router. For shits sake, it's a bloody router. You plug the damned thing in and you leave it there. So you have an inductive router with a battery, that's great. What about all those ethernet devices you have? For things such as my home server, I prefer the reliability and speed of gigabit Ethernet (now that theres 1300Mbps AC, that's moot, but reliability). I can't pick up my bloody router and carry the stupid thing around

it's a scam. they're just inflating the bubble by promising new and new features. - the more backers the more money they'll get.
i'm just waiting for the shitload of articles all over the internet once the bubble bursts  :-DD
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Legit-Design on July 02, 2014, 05:13:27 pm
What if people actually got together and developed something for existing firmwares like DD-WRT, OpenWRT and all the variants. Made a universal configuration app for those? Control your already existing amazing router with super powers from your existing tablet just by installing an app. Ok this open source configuration app for open source linux powered routers might not be a big hit on KS or IGG, but who cares. Using what most people have already and making it even better with some software. Why does the router and tablet need to be inside same enclosure when we already have routers which can be controlled through web interface from a tablet.
Ok like soap router people tell it's not the easiest thing to configure a router, if you want to do directly some tricks with iptables or install programs to do things it becomes even harder. But that is just software we don't need this new developed expensive hardware for things like this. We need to make the existing software easier to use.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: BartManInNZ on July 02, 2014, 09:57:20 pm
...seems like a totally asinine way to run a campaign....
That was the word I was looking for - as others have pointed out, this 'campaign' can only be for their benefit and the detriment of their 'backers'. I hope it implodes before the end of the campaign - either way this is going to cause a lot of grief to a lot of people.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 03, 2014, 05:34:04 am
Looks like they've started to post "for backers only" updates. Oh, the secrets.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on July 03, 2014, 11:19:22 am
Looks like they've started to post "for backers only" updates. Oh, the secrets.
I'm a $1 backer, so can see the latest backer-only update.
It is just more BS to convince existing suckers backers to part with more money...
Only really needed because they've got everyone confused (including themselves) with what backers have pledged for due to the constant upgrade offers, ridiculous add-ons, and "limited time only" discounts.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 03, 2014, 03:20:21 pm
Looks like they've started to post "for backers only" updates. Oh, the secrets.
I'm a $1 backer, so can see the latest backer-only update.
It is just more BS to convince existing suckers backers to part with more money...
Only really needed because they've got everyone confused (including themselves) with what backers have pledged for due to the constant upgrade offers, ridiculous add-ons, and "limited time only" discounts.

Haha. I should have kept my $1 pledge just to keep reading. No more fun for me.  :=\

Now the "soap bar" they've "created"...jeeeeezus....  :bullshit:
You didn't create anything except yet another rendering.... oh myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy  :blah:
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Smokey on July 03, 2014, 11:51:56 pm
What if they shipped every backer... a bar of actual soap... and then disappeared.  That would be the best.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: HackedFridgeMagnet on July 04, 2014, 02:29:30 am
^ I'd be laughing anyway.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: BartManInNZ on July 08, 2014, 01:35:24 am
1500+ suckers going to loose $100 each on average - imagine if it had been called "the potato salad soap router"... they would have been in the millions by now!!!
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 08, 2014, 03:58:03 pm
Quote
..issues involving silkscreen and a drill hole that required an adjustment, but not to worry it only set us back about 1-2 days

And 7 days later, all they show are more rendered pictures of vaporware accessories...

Edit: Posted pics of the board.
(https://images.indiegogo.com/file_attachments/702835/files/20140708105321-carrier__pcb_1.jpg?1404842001)

(https://images.indiegogo.com/file_attachments/702838/files/20140708105335-carrier_pcb_2.jpg?1404842015)

It's certainly a PCB of some sort. Will it work?
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Smokey on July 08, 2014, 07:53:34 pm
If I'm reading the sightly blurry silkscreen correctly...

"SOAP_carrierboard_rev1.0
To all those who said it wasn't possible and to all the doubters.
Soap is here.
~Alexander
"

Funny.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: rob77 on July 08, 2014, 08:33:06 pm
how much of the funds went to the board designer ?  apparently nothing left for the parts  :-DD  :-DD

btw... such a complex things never works on the first try ;) and they still need to write the software....
i assume 5 more crowd funding campaigns and 2 more years and the first soap will be here :D
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 08, 2014, 08:44:22 pm
If I'm reading the sightly blurry silkscreen correctly...

"SOAP_carrierboard_rev1.0
To all those who said it wasn't possible and to all the doubters.
Soap is here.
~Alexander
"

Funny.

Yeah, I think that's what it says. I'm not sure I'd say its "here" in any way quite yet. Gotta applaud the optimism, I guess.

I still don't understand some things about this board - still no mounting holes #1 (for the board or for the standoffs for the Congatec module), but #2, how is the assembler going to run this through reflow without any process rails? Maybe this is the solder sample, but then why would they remove the rails for the picture?

Edit: just realized maybe the board was part of a much larger panel. can't see any marks it was removed from a panel, tho.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: marcan on July 09, 2014, 06:53:52 am
It's okay, they'll just solder everything by hand, including that dual-row QFN. That won't be painful at all  ;D

(From OpenVizsla lore: one of the reasons why the project bled money at the start was because we had the bright idea of using a dual-row QFN part in v1 - and botched the footprint the first time - which proved to be completely and utterly unreworkable, worse than BGA.)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on July 09, 2014, 02:39:56 pm
"SOAP_carrierboard_rev1.0
To all those who said it wasn't possible and to all the doubters.
Soap is here.
~Alexander
"

Funny.

He seems to think that an unpopulated rev 1.0 PCB would make a running router.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 09, 2014, 10:10:09 pm
Haha, campaign extended. Oh boy.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: EEVblog on July 10, 2014, 02:50:52 am
For the public record:
The Soap CTO put in an abuse report against this forum to my ISP (well, cloudflare actually) claiming:
Quote
I will be filing defamation and slander suits to each contributor and person who has taken part in this.  They continue to endorse it and to attack us personally, our company and our project.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: echen1024 on July 10, 2014, 03:02:10 am
For the public record:
The Soap CTO put in an abuse report against this forum to my ISP (well, cloudflare actually) claiming:
Quote
I will be filing defamation and slander suits to each contributor and person who has taken part in this.  They continue to endorse it and to attack us personally, our company and our project.
:-// We are criticizing your project. If you can't take criticism, don't get on the internet.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: SeanB on July 10, 2014, 03:52:40 am
Good luck serving those summonses, though the sheriff of the local court who has to serve them will love the worldwide travel and accommodation that he will have to pay to serve.

Does he realise that the owner of the forum is actually not living in the USA? As well he will have to prove this to each jurisdiction world wide.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: HackedFridgeMagnet on July 10, 2014, 04:00:08 am
No, I think US law applies world wide.  8)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Legit-Design on July 10, 2014, 04:04:59 am
Does he realise that the owner of the forum is actually not living in the USA? As well he will have to prove this to each jurisdiction world wide.
I think this forum and other sites are hosted by hostgator in texas USA? I don't think that is secret knowledge? And USA is the leader of the free world and leader of the internets. But anyways since something like the piratebay cannot be closed down from the internet, good luck trying to close this site down. Which has mostly healthy critique and some people who actually know their shit. Why attack this site if it's not actually hurting them in a real way. Truth hurts...
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 10, 2014, 04:38:16 am
Um, slander is spoken defamation. I think he's looking for 'libel'. Anyways, what a tool. Wonder if they sent a similar threat to hackaday?
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Bored@Work on July 10, 2014, 05:05:23 am
For the public record:
The Soap CTO put in an abuse report against this forum to my ISP (well, cloudflare actually) claiming:
Quote
I will be filing defamation and slander suits to each contributor and person who has taken part in this.  They continue to endorse it and to attack us personally, our company and our project.

That would require:

A) They actually have a CTO?

I doubt they have one, given the lack of technology knowledge. And I couldn't find anyone billing himself as the CTO on the two crowdfunding campaign pages.


B) There is actually a corporate entity, presumably called Soap Inc.?

Trying to look for Soap Inc. and their corporate officers I came up with nothing. (Ok, I found a Soap Inc producing real soap, as stuff for washing). Does the router Soap Inc. company exist at all?


C) The CTO is authorized to make legal threads in the name of the company?

Typically companies don't allow their officers, especially not the T, to run around and make legal threads. They send the corporate lawyer, or the CEO makes statements, carefully crafted by the corporate lawyer.


Taking A), B), and C) into account I think that "Soap CTO" is full of shit.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Smokey on July 10, 2014, 05:18:32 am
.....Wonder if they sent a similar threat to hackaday?
That's a good point.  Might be why the tone turned so positive all of a sudden. 
Guess we'll have to wait and see what Brian from hackaday comes up with since it's coming up on "a week or two".
http://hackaday.com/2014/06/26/the-ifind-kickstarter-campaign-was-just-suspended/comment-page-1/#comment-1598914 (http://hackaday.com/2014/06/26/the-ifind-kickstarter-campaign-was-just-suspended/comment-page-1/#comment-1598914)

Name and shame the alleged "CTO" maybe?
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: rob77 on July 10, 2014, 06:55:49 am
don't you guys have some kind of official company/business directory in the US ? someone should look up them there.
if there is no official company registered under SOAP Inc. , then it's an illegal business i think ;) (at least it would be illegal here)

over here we have a official list for all businesses - corporations, limited liability, personal business licenses - everything is online, so you can look-up anything online. and of course all persons responsible for the company/business are listed there as well - so once you run your business here, you can't hide from public ;)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: EEVblog on July 10, 2014, 07:31:13 am
BTW, if Soap are reading, then you are more than welcome to register on the forum and explain your project and respond to any criticism.
Reporting the forum to the ISP is not cool (and pointless), but engaging with the technical community is a very cool thing to do. Countless examples of companies doing that on here and being much better off for it.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: HackedFridgeMagnet on July 10, 2014, 11:05:41 am
But lets face it, they are scammers. Their best bet is to ignore us and try to get as much money as they can.
 
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on July 10, 2014, 12:55:02 pm
Good luck serving those summonses, though the sheriff of the local court who has to serve them will love the worldwide travel and accommodation that he will have to pay to serve.

Does he realise that the owner of the forum is actually not living in the USA? As well he will have to prove this to each jurisdiction world wide.

I think they are just trying to silence any critics by intimidation. Our critic is technically well grounded and can be proven in front of any judge. Anyway, most stuff written here is protected by free speach according to US law and the laws of a lot of other countries, as long as it's reasonable. If they really want to file suits they'll face a huge risk in loosing a lot of money and any lawyer would tell them that. The backers won't be happy if the Soap team would burn the money for pointless law suits, might be embezzlement. IIRC the US DOJ has filed the first suit against a crowd funded project that didn't deliver.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 10, 2014, 07:01:56 pm
Quote
With Soap mesh, you can create a 3 GB/s wireless link.

I'm going to sue them for making false and/or misleading claims. Show me some performance tests & data on your 3 Gigabyte per second wireless link.  Units matter!
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: echen1024 on July 10, 2014, 07:25:48 pm
Just noticed this on their website. And they wonder why people don't take them seriously.

Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Hardcorefs on July 11, 2014, 02:01:14 pm
For the public record:
The Soap CTO put in an abuse report against this forum to my ISP (well, cloudflare actually) claiming:
Quote
I will be filing defamation and slander suits to each contributor and person who has taken part in this.  They continue to endorse it and to attack us personally, our company and our project.
:-// We are criticizing your project. If you can't take criticism, don't get on the internet.

I think the issue is that looking at some of the posters on EEVblog, they are using words such as 'scam' and 'faked',  It should be possible for people to take a look at the design and make  valid points without resorting to such terms.

For example we could be looking at :
The placement of 'osc5/osc6'  6 seems most likely to clash with the metal case on the RJ45 pins after assembly, then there is the clash with the SMT on the right of osc6.( not to mention on most of the giga routing chips it specifically states to keep ALL oscillator circuits away from the data tracks

The 'differentials' for the  giga internet, at those speeds every 45 Deg. angle in a PCB track is potentially a dangerous curve.

As regards  peoples comment to the software and it being difficult to write,  'Android' has a linux foundation , there are already a multitude of 'firewalls', routers & switches already in the public domain. ( personally I would NOT have used Android' any where near this, all the GUI can be implemented in a far cleaner way)

However a linux SBC does not a router/switch/firewall make…., for such a design to be truly effective,  packet switching MUST be implemented with a switching fabric, slapping 'giga' rate packets between ports is not something you do by routing the crap via an ARM CPU.

In fact I cannot find any mention of the word 'switch' any place in the kick-starter blurb… which would get me thinking that perhaps this is nothing more than a packer 'router', where each packet is forwarded to each and every connection in a dumb manner.
(generally Switches intelligently switch packets based on the headers and ONLY forward packets to where they are supposed to go, routers just shove every packet over every endpoint with NO regard for the header…)

Which has the potential to be a massive security issue, since that would allow any connection to see the packets of any other connection, a single PC loaded with 'wireshark' on a router based network is the kiss of death, and another reason NOT to build a firewall that way…

RF
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on July 11, 2014, 03:26:35 pm
In fact I cannot find any mention of the word 'switch' any place in the kick-starter blurb… which would get me thinking that perhaps this is nothing more than a packer 'router', where each packet is forwarded to each and every connection in a dumb manner.
(generally Switches intelligently switch packets based on the headers and ONLY forward packets to where they are supposed to go, routers just shove every packet over every endpoint with NO regard for the header…)

Some network 101 for you ;) A classic switch is a layer 2 device, e.g. switching Ethernet frames based on the MAC address of the destination. The common SOHO router with 4 LAN ports got an Ethernet switch for the LAN ports and 5th port is connected to the CPU. Switching IP packets (also called layer 3 switching) is something completely different. The normal process of moving packets around is called forwarding. The router reads the destination IP address, looks up that address in the routing table and then forwards the packet to the next hop. Layer 3 switching is a method to offload the CPU from checking the routing table for each packet. There are several methods available for layer 3 switching, some are completely software based, and others use a mix of software and ASICs. There are also some solutions using sub-processors which perform forwarding and layer 3 switching. Anyway, you won't find any SOHO router supporting layer 3 switching, it's to expensive for that kind of hardware and market.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 11, 2014, 04:13:57 pm
For the public record:
The Soap CTO put in an abuse report against this forum to my ISP (well, cloudflare actually) claiming:
Quote
I will be filing defamation and slander suits to each contributor and person who has taken part in this.  They continue to endorse it and to attack us personally, our company and our project.
:-// We are criticizing your project. If you can't take criticism, don't get on the internet.

I think the issue is that looking at some of the posters on EEVblog, they are using words such as 'scam' and 'faked',  It should be possible for people to take a look at the design and make  valid points without resorting to such terms.

I see your point, but it is very hard not to feel the Soap people were being a bit disingenuous when they tried to pass off bunnie's Novena PCB as their own prototype.
If you look at one of the initial "prototype" videos, they have a hard drive positioned to look like it is connected to the eval board - but the board itself has no SATA ports...

The foundation of their "relationship" (if you want to call it that) with backers and/or The Internet is mired in what appears to be dubious behavior.
I believe it will be hard to evade the "scam" or "fraud" tag now, based on said "relationship". Instead of responding to technical criticism with technical info, they come out swinging with legal threats, which seems to me, would be the response of someone who is not qualified to answer those technical criticisms.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Rasz on July 11, 2014, 07:01:35 pm
I think the issue is that looking at some of the posters on EEVblog, they are using words such as 'scam' and 'faked'

Because it is a scam. Few guys with "good idea" and ZERO knowledge about implementation and no hope of delivering duck make Scampaign using FAKE art assets. Lying about Bunnies laptop pcb being their own work, using clever angle/crop shots normally employed by fat chicks on myspace to pretend their prototype actually exists. Then receive $xxxK - this automagically:
-makes them think they have something real
-that this money will somehow design product for them, just pay subcontractors, right?
-lures clueless VC money

VC will drop few mill on their laps, because VC is just as retarded as those retards and 'money will somehow design product for them'. At this point they are in 'just push something out the door at a loss, we will make it up in volume later' phase, except we have so much money we can start adding features ....
for example
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/07/how-one-kickstarter-project-squandered-3-5-million/ (http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/07/how-one-kickstarter-project-squandered-3-5-million/)



For example we could be looking at :
The placement of 'osc5/osc6'  6 seems most likely to clash with the metal case on the RJ45 pins after assembly, then there is the clash with the SMT on the right of osc6.( not to mention on most of the giga routing chips it specifically states to keep ALL oscillator circuits away from the data tracks

meh, thats just pcb semantics, will work on third board spin ($xxK spend at that point) if particular subcontractor that did that carrier board for them has a clue. Electronics are not rocket science for this project. Electronics at _particular price point_ accompanied by appropriate software stack is the key.
I can deliver Soap router today .. by shipping $1500 laptop to every backer.

The 'differentials' for the  giga internet, at those speeds every 45 Deg. angle in a PCB track is potentially a dangerous curve.

dude cmon, not this 'hi speed electrons will fall off at the turn' bullshit

As regards  peoples comment to the software and it being difficult to write,  'Android' has a linux foundation , there are already a multitude of 'firewalls', routers & switches already in the public domain. ( personally I would NOT have used Android' any where near this, all the GUI can be implemented in a far cleaner way)

Android ripped stock Linux network stack, there is no iptables, no netfilter, no nftables.

for such a design to be truly effective,  packet switching MUST be implemented with a switching fabric, slapping 'giga' rate packets between ports is not something you do by routing the crap via an ARM CPU.

sounds kewl in your head, sounds retarded when you say 100MB/s stream cant be parsed by 1GHz of processing power (times 4 in quad core). Thats ~10K cpu cycles per packet. Even shittiest cheapest desktop board with Pentium cpu can route at line speed. If you need performance the trick is routing in userspace, bypassing linux stack overhead (this is how hi frequency trading people handle all their network traffic on linux boxes).

In fact I cannot find any mention of the word 'switch' any place in the kick-starter blurb… which would get me thinking that perhaps this is nothing more than a packer 'router', where each packet is forwarded to each and every connection in a dumb manner.
(generally Switches intelligently switch packets based on the headers and ONLY forward packets to where they are supposed to go, routers just shove every packet over every endpoint with NO regard for the header…)

someone already explained that one :)

Anyway, you won't find any SOHO router supporting layer 3 switching, it's to expensive for that kind of hardware and market.

https://www.turris.cz/en/ (https://www.turris.cz/en/)
L1-3 full hw acceleration.




Waiting for hackaday update, at this point its pretty obvious legal (well, not so legal when made by a fictitious corporate persona) threats were the reason of attitude change. VC( if they have any) is more than happy to pay lawyer fees to kill all the bad PR while its fishing for a bigger sucker to buy this 'disruptive innovative in teh CLOUD next NEST' thing off their hands.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 11, 2014, 07:08:00 pm

The 'differentials' for the  giga internet, at those speeds every 45 Deg. angle in a PCB track is potentially a dangerous curve.

dude cmon, not this 'hi speed electrons will fall off at the turn' bullshit

+1
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: rob77 on July 11, 2014, 08:56:38 pm
(generally Switches intelligently switch packets based on the headers and ONLY forward packets to where they are supposed to go, routers just shove every packet over every endpoint with NO regard for the header…)

 :-DD sorry man.... but i couldn't help myself... i would give you a networking nobel prize for this one ;)
no offense - but you should really learn some stuff around networks. start with wikipedia articles and then read some textbooks (e.g. cisco CCNA courses are good to start learning networks).

but in general:
HUB - layer2 -  sends everything everywhere
SWITCH - layer2 - switching ethernet frames based on MAC table (MAC to port bindings) - if the MAC is not in the table - sends it everywhere
ROUTER - layer3 - forwards packets to particular destinations based on routing table
LAYER3 SWITCH - special case it's a L2 switch and a L3 router combined to one device - the routing is done in hardware (super fast for plain routing), but it has not enough CPU power for advanced stuff like GRE tunnels..etc..
for example the good old Catalyst3550 with L3 firmware (layer3 switch) was able to route a shitload of traffic while handling a routing table with 2k+ prefixes (BGP) , but the CPU become dead slow during 10Mbps traffic via a GRE tunnel (terminated on that catalyst).

btw.. regarding SOHO routers - in many cases of the soho routers (especially the cheap ones with lot's of features) have a 6 port switch with primitive 802.1q capabilities - 4 ports available for LAN connection , 1 port for WAN and the last port connected to the CPU is a VLAN trunk carrying both LAN and WAN traffic (each with a different tag). Wifi on those is usually connected to the CPU
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: BartManInNZ on July 12, 2014, 07:28:05 am
Their latest update about the wireless takes the cake!
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Hardcorefs on July 12, 2014, 08:10:10 am

The 'differentials' for the  giga internet, at those speeds every 45 Deg. angle in a PCB track is potentially a dangerous curve.

dude cmon, not this 'hi speed electrons will fall off at the turn' bullshit

+1

It is nothing to do with the electrons, rather the track is smother for the  '1' & '0',  It is not difficult to understand.
Get a  flexible pipe and drop some marbles and spaghetti down it, now bend the tube at 45 degrees and see what happens.


Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: fubar.gr on July 12, 2014, 10:17:22 am
It is nothing to do with the electrons, rather the track is smother for the  '1' & '0',  It is not difficult to understand.
Get a  flexible pipe and drop some marbles and spaghetti down it, now bend the tube at 45 degrees and see what happens.

But electrons are neither marbles nor spaghetti. At high frequencies electrons vibrate, but stay put. What moves around is the EM field generated around the transmission line.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on July 12, 2014, 11:26:46 am
The wifi update is full of verifiable lies. It won't double the speed to your device or offer SATA like data transfer rates, because no device has two wifi radios that can be bonded together to double the bandwidth. Also, $100 for a shitty Marvell 802.11acbgn card? You can buy them for about $15 each. That's Apple levels of gouging.

Link aggregation on layer 2 requires links with the same speed. Since WLAN connections change the link speed all the time they can't be used for link aggregation. The obvious solution would be to use IP load sharing, but that requires a sophisticated algorithm for links with different and changing speeds. Another issue with available IP load sharing solutions is, that they can't fully utilize the links. The utilization depends on the mix of IP connections. If someone develops an algorithm solving all those issues he would get a nice job offer from Cisco or Juniper ;) For me, it's just more marketing hogwash.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 12, 2014, 06:41:38 pm

The 'differentials' for the  giga internet, at those speeds every 45 Deg. angle in a PCB track is potentially a dangerous curve.

dude cmon, not this 'hi speed electrons will fall off at the turn' bullshit

+1

It is nothing to do with the electrons, rather the track is smother for the  '1' & '0',  It is not difficult to understand.
Get a  flexible pipe and drop some marbles and spaghetti down it, now bend the tube at 45 degrees and see what happens.

I believe Rasz was being facetious - of course electrons don't "fall off", but when you say that a 45 degree bend is a "dangerous" route - I don't buy it.

Even a "worst-case" 90 degree bend has almost no impact on a signal with a rise-time of 17ps, according to this paper (http://www.ultracad.com/articles/90deg.pdf). It also mentions your "not difficult to understand" electrons are marbles (or spaghetti??? lol  :) ) analogy. I do not believe this analogy is accurate.

This Gigabit transceiver (http://www.ti.com.cn/cn/lit/ds/symlink/tlk2226.pdf) shows a min rise-time of 150ps on the differential output.

At higher and higher frequencies, yes, I think the geometry of the trace plays more and more into any impedance discontinuities, but to start worrying about 45-degree bends on GigE...I think that is a bit rich. 
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: cyr on July 12, 2014, 07:39:37 pm

This Gigabit transceiver (http://www.ti.com.cn/cn/lit/ds/symlink/tlk2226.pdf) shows a min rise-time of 150ps on the differential output.

That's for 802.3z (1Gbps over a single signal pair with two voltage levels). 802.3ab (regular copper GigE) is much much slower, it uses 5-level encoding and all four cable pairs in parallel to get the data rate and is really robust. It's designed to go over 100m of cheapo cat5 cable, a couple of cm on the PCB at an odd angle isn't going to make it fail...
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 12, 2014, 07:59:28 pm

This Gigabit transceiver (http://www.ti.com.cn/cn/lit/ds/symlink/tlk2226.pdf) shows a min rise-time of 150ps on the differential output.

That's for 802.3z (1Gbps over a single signal pair with two voltage levels). 802.3ab (regular copper GigE) is much much slower, it uses 5-level encoding and all four cable pairs in parallel to get the data rate and is really robust. It's designed to go over 100m of cheapo cat5 cable, a couple of cm on the PCB at an odd angle isn't going to make it fail...

Word, thanks for pointing that difference out.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: EricVanWyk on July 12, 2014, 08:10:38 pm

I believe Rasz was being facetious - of course electrons don't "fall off", but when you say that a 45 degree bend is a "dangerous" route - I don't buy it.

Even a "worst-case" 90 degree bend has almost no impact on a signal with a rise-time of 17ps, according to this paper (http://www.ultracad.com/articles/90deg.pdf). It also mentions your "not difficult to understand" electrons are marbles (or spaghetti??? lol  :) ) analogy. I do not believe this analogy is accurate.

This Gigabit transceiver (http://www.ti.com.cn/cn/lit/ds/symlink/tlk2226.pdf) shows a min rise-time of 150ps on the differential output.

At higher and higher frequencies, yes, I think the geometry of the trace plays more and more into any impedance discontinuities, but to start worrying about 45-degree bends on GigE...I think that is a bit rich. 


Thanks for the link!

I had someone (who claimed to be an engineer) tell me that Ethernet was too unreliable, because:
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on July 12, 2014, 09:29:41 pm
I had someone (who claimed to be an engineer) tell me that Ethernet was too unreliable, because:
  • If the cable is longer than 100 meters, you will blow the amplifiers.
  • If the cable is shorter than 1 meter, you will blow the amplifiers.
  • If the cable has a bend with a radius of less than an inch, the packets can't make it through.

Actually, there's some truth in the third point. Bending the ethernet cable too much degrades it's transmission properties resulting in more FCS errors (broken ethernet frames) for example.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: rob77 on July 12, 2014, 09:47:35 pm
I had someone (who claimed to be an engineer) tell me that Ethernet was too unreliable, because:
  • If the cable is longer than 100 meters, you will blow the amplifiers.
  • If the cable is shorter than 1 meter, you will blow the amplifiers.
  • If the cable has a bend with a radius of less than an inch, the packets can't make it through.

longer than 100m might not work because of attenuation of the signal and picking up noise - the receiver side might not be able to decode, other factor might be the delay caused by >100m . but i had fast ethernet links on high quality shielded cat5 with a length of 140m - without issues (there was no option to install a repeater and cost was a blocking factor for fiber).

shorter than 1 meter - that's valid only for long range optics - if you connect 2 SFPs designed for a 100km fiber link with a 1m cable - then you'll burn the receiver. but for copper.... that's bullshit.

bending the cable too much will cause errors as mentioned above, but will not burn the transceivers. bending the fiber optics will attenuate the signal , bending  it way too much will crack the fiber
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Rasz on July 12, 2014, 09:52:26 pm
Link aggregation on layer 2 requires links with the same speed. Since WLAN connections change the link speed all the time they can't be used for link aggregation. The obvious solution would be to use IP load sharing, but that requires a sophisticated algorithm for links with different and changing speeds. Another issue with available IP load sharing solutions is, that they can't fully utilize the links. The utilization depends on the mix of IP connections. If someone develops an algorithm solving all those issues he would get a nice job offer from Cisco or Juniper ;) For me, it's just more marketing hogwash.

its coming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multipath_TCP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multipath_TCP)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: duncan711 on July 12, 2014, 09:54:30 pm
I just wanted to mention that kickstarter rely purely on the backers to judge if a campaign is a scam. As long as they respect the ToS they are fine.

Any criticism on a kickstarter  project from people like you should be encourage because it is literally the only way to find out if a project is a scam or not.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on July 12, 2014, 10:05:59 pm
its coming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multipath_TCP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multipath_TCP)

And what about ICMP, UDP, SCTP and all the other protocols? ;) A load sharing method has to support all protocols.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: BartManInNZ on July 16, 2014, 07:14:11 am
An update, English is not their first language I am guessing?
"The Bad News

We were hoping we would have our assembled board today to show off to everyone, but there has been a delay (we know its lame)"

The word should be: "it's"

The end comes soon?
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: echen1024 on July 16, 2014, 12:40:51 pm
An update, English is not their first language I am guessing?
"The Bad News

We were hoping we would have our assembled board today to show off to everyone, but there has been a delay (we know its lame)"

The word should be: "it's"

The end comes soon?
We're gonna get this line quite often.

Crowdfunding scheme has delay, no reason=no news
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 16, 2014, 03:27:03 pm
Their grammar has been bad throughout the campaign; I wouldn't start harping on them now, though.

I actually do believe their latest delay story - they probably went to the assembly house with 3 (or less?) boards or something and the house was probably like "bollocks to this one-off shite!!!"
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: rob77 on July 16, 2014, 07:28:53 pm
I actually do believe their latest delay story - they probably went to the assembly house with 3 (or less?) boards or something and the house was probably like "bollocks to this one-off shite!!!"

does it even make sense to ask an assembly house to populate one or two boards ? isn't it better to do it by hand ? even BGAs can be soldered by hand with hot-air ;) or ask the assembly house just to solder the BGAs and do the rest by hand "in house".
when doing it by hand - one could do some basic verification during assembly - such a board will never work 100% correctly on the very first attempt.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Precipice on July 16, 2014, 07:46:47 pm
does it even make sense to ask an assembly house to populate one or two boards ?

They have money but a shortage of time, so I'd say it was definitely worth subbing out the assembly. Bringing up a prototype when you're not sure what's soldered down right is a nightmare. That double-pad-ring QFN they've got is more scary than the BGA.
While it's just about possible to hand-place BGAs, yield isn't 100% (far from, in many cases, especially if you're struggling to get the solderpaste perfect), this is a double sided, reasonably annoying component mix, board.

Of course, subbing out the assembly still takes time and effort, and makes it harder to just populate one section of the board at a time, if you're desperately short of silicon, or want to bring up a subsystem at a time.
Best of luck to them - it can be a hell of a long and expensive journey from first bare PCB to a product.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 16, 2014, 09:16:08 pm
I wonder how the costs compare between what they are doing (board house hand assembly) vs. having a PNP machine run thru a lot of 10, lets say.
Does the NRE for all that equal labor cost for hand-assembly? They will have to come back again and have a PNP program set up eventually...

I would shoot for as close to final manufacturing process as possible in the prototype runs, so that problems can be identified and corrected sooner (Correct PNP program, solderpaste composition, stenciling...whatever else could go wrong....Murphy! :P )
Maybe I'm off though?
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Precipice on July 16, 2014, 09:54:26 pm
For what it's worth, I've got both PnP machines and manual gear.
For a run of 10 of those boards, I'd go for PnP - but I don't have access to minimum-wage labour to do the hand assembly - that might swing things back to manual. Perhaps all the easy components (passives, easy silicon) by machine, and the tricky chips and connectors by hand (well, silicon on the BGA / CSP placement rig, connectors by hand). That volume and complexity does put the job safely into 'there's no ideal way, so it's going to be a bit expensive' category.
Component sourcing for small batches is a pain, too - stuff tends to turn up in utterly machine hostile forms - short strips, single chips in bags, and just plain wrong, all of which pushes the balance towards manual assembly. Having the machines toss away components because they're wrong is more annoying than having hand assembly stall while people scratch their heads for a while.
Going to 'real' production methods too early (and this really does feel like there are a few spins to go) can just be a distraction. Still, it'll give the hardware team something to do while the softies work their way through that enormous and ever-growing 'spec'.

Edit: Obviously, this is just me. The Soap guys are obviously much closer to the project and know much more detail.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 16, 2014, 10:02:48 pm
For what it's worth, I've got both PnP machines and manual gear.
For a run of 10 of those boards, I'd go for PnP - but I don't have access to minimum-wage labour to do the hand assembly - that might swing things back to manual. Perhaps all the easy components (passives, easy silicon) by machine, and the tricky chips and connectors by hand (well, silicon on the BGA / CSP placement rig, connectors by hand). That volume and complexity does put the job safely into 'there's no ideal way, so it's going to be a bit expensive' category.
Component sourcing for small batches is a pain, too - stuff tends to turn up in utterly machine hostile forms - short strips, single chips in bags, and just plain wrong, all of which pushes the balance towards manual assembly. Having the machines toss away components because they're wrong is more annoying than having hand assembly stall while people scratch their heads for a while.
Going to 'real' production methods too early (and this really does feel like there are a few spins to go) can just be a distraction. Still, it'll give the hardware team something to do while the softies work their way through that enormous and ever-growing 'spec'.

Cool, thanks for the good insight.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: BartManInNZ on July 16, 2014, 10:07:38 pm
The backers on kickstarter are starting to ask the hard questions - without answer from the soap crowd... how long before this overflows into IGG?

I would really like to believe that Soap can deliver on all they have promised but I have serious doubts whether they will actually come up with anything other than excuses.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Smokey on July 16, 2014, 11:09:50 pm
I can take a guess as to how much assembly would be for a small run. 
We just went through a small prototype run of boards.
Our Board stats = around 80 line items, around 350 components total, 3in x 8in PCB, mostly 0402s TSSOPs and a 150+ pin TQFP.  No BGAs.

NRE = 2 stencils (top and bottom) + programming + documentation = around $1200USD.  The crappy part of doing a small prototype run is that you pretty much KNOW you will be changing something so you will have to pay this again next go.
Machine Assembly Cost = $350 USD per board.  I'm not sure how much extra x-ray inspection of the BGAs would be.  You would need to add that in, plus I guess it's technically optional so you could be cheap and just pray they all got soldered right.

So assuming a run of 5 boards, that's somewhere around $3000USD for the build, just for assembly cost.  You have to add in BOM cost to that too, so if you have $200USD in parts cost per board because you could only order small expensive quantities for your prototype build, that's another $1000 USD right there.

Call it a round $4000USD total to get 5 boards built.  That's my wild ass guess.  By doing this small run, you not only get a set of boards to confidently debug but you also have a first pass at working out any potential assembly issues that might come up.  You don't want to find out you put a connector too close to the edge so they can't cut the rails off or forgot the fiducials after you already ordered 10,000 PCBs and have the machines all loaded up.  You want to work that out in the first 5.

One last assumption:
Assuming they are actually legitimately trying to make a real product in the real world.... which is a BIG assumption...
For a group of guys that took in hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding money, I think that's an easy decision to do a small professional assembly prototype run to work the bugs out quickly.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 18, 2014, 09:01:12 pm
http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/17/listening-to-the-crowd-proves-a-slippery-slope-for-soap/ (http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/17/listening-to-the-crowd-proves-a-slippery-slope-for-soap/)

Quote
Yet Jones appears deaf to reasonable criticism that Soap is growing out of control. Following his passion for devices that use mesh networks to increase their overall computing power and reliability, he touts the fact that multiple Soap devices can leverage this ability. When we asked why someone would want more than one Soap, he said, “When you buy two of these devices they’ll work together as one superior model,” but to our follow-up question of why a router would need to be so powerful in the first place, he replied, “I actually agree with you on that. It’s that these people love these numbers, they love these specs to the teeth. We were trying to appeal to that early adopter.”

Translation: "Let's come up with as much bullshit as possible."
 :--
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on July 18, 2014, 10:06:09 pm
And another goodie:

Quote
Your normal router is a thousand times more vulnerable than Soap.

First provide a working Soap with all software features and then ask a team of security professionals to perform a penetration test. And don't forget that most SOHO routers run Linux. On which OS is Android based? Ah, yes, Linux. And what about the Soap apps? Are you able to write 100% secure code? How do you make sure that the apps are secure? The costs for that are much higher than your KS funding. Please stop promising or claiming things you can't deliver!
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 25, 2014, 03:58:53 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/1enoAvF.jpg)

Quote from: chris.indiegogo1
Question: isn’t the micrel ksz8895mq only capable of 10/100 Ethernet speeds?

Quote from: Micrel
KSZ8895MQ
Integrated 5-Port 10/100 Managed Ethernet Switch with MII/RMII interface
Huh. Where did Gigabit LAN go?

 :-//
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on July 25, 2014, 04:05:31 pm
Quote from: chris.indiegogo1
Question: isn’t the micrel ksz8895mq only capable of 10/100 Ethernet speeds?
Yeah, I just re-posted that Q on the KS comments.  It does kind of affect one of their main features.
Mind you, that is probably the least of their problems at this stage...
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: rob77 on July 25, 2014, 04:15:10 pm
2 weeks to populate one side of a single pcb ? they should have sourced the parts for the very first prototype as soon as possible (even from various sources in single piece quantities) to verify the PCB design... now they spent 2 weeks and still might realize the PCB needs a re-spin....  :palm:
and actually dropping the GigE ? no comment ;) at the end of the day they will most probably have to drop 70% of the promised features to deliver at least something without a 2 years of delay.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 25, 2014, 04:43:14 pm
I'm sitting here looking at that big honkin' 128 TQFP Micrel part and I'm thinking to myself "Man, what a huge and old looking package..."

Checked it at Digi-key...
Quote
Part Status: End of Life

 :palm:

Are you guys serious? You put in a EOL part on a new design...and it's not even 10/100/1000 ??? What the shit?
Man, if you really had "partners", and you met with them, they should be telling you, "No, don't put that Micrel into the design, it's going EOL soon. Here's an alternative part."


 
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on July 25, 2014, 05:04:20 pm
Are you guys serious? You put in a EOL part on a new design...and it's not even 10/100/1000 ??? What the shit?
Man, if you really had "partners", and you met with them, they should be telling you, "No, don't put that Micrel into the design, it's going EOL soon. Here's an alternative part."

LOL!  This has to be theatre just to keep the money pouring into the IGG campaign.  And they should be called out on it!

No way can they build all of these for the ridiculously discounted prices they've been offering without significant additional funding - which is almost certainly what they've realised and why they've added all the premium options.

In the end they're probably happy to just build a handful for themselves, even if slightly underspec'd, and pocket the change.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: andtfoot on July 25, 2014, 05:14:41 pm
For example we could be looking at :
The placement of 'osc5/osc6'  6 seems most likely to clash with the metal case on the RJ45 pins after assembly, then there is the clash with the SMT on the right of osc6.( not to mention on most of the giga routing chips it specifically states to keep ALL oscillator circuits away from the data tracks
I'm curious to see how this ends up with osc6. It almost looks like the connector on the other side of the board overlaps onto the through-hole pins as well...
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 26, 2014, 07:37:33 pm
Quote from:
This one you have seen has the 10/100 on one of the ports and gigabyte on the rest but we are making changes in our next product run to up the speeds but did not need it in this version for our development... [long run-on sentence]

I don't understand this course of action at all. A 5-port 10/100 switch was used for "one of the ports" ??

Why would you put this part down, test it, develop with it, then rip it out and put a new part, test it, develop with it. Isn't that just a waste of time? How does doing this keep the costs down? Maybe I'm missing it, doesn't make sense to me though.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: CanadianAvenger on July 27, 2014, 04:07:01 am
Not that I think these guys are legit, but GigE switch silicon seems to be hard to come by in low quantities. It's a problem I've been having for my work. None of the chips I've found appear to be available, unless you are talking quantities in the 50K range. [I have  a few more parts to chase down, but reps have been slow to respond] If anyone has a line on one that is readily available [in sub 100pc quantities], I'd love to hear from you. [Specifically I've been looking for 5 port unmanaged solutions (or 4+1)]
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Rasz on July 27, 2014, 04:44:21 pm
Not that I think these guys are legit, but GigE switch silicon seems to be hard to come by in low quantities. It's a problem I've been having for my work. None of the chips I've found appear to be available, unless you are talking quantities in the 50K range. [I have  a few more parts to chase down, but reps have been slow to respond] If anyone has a line on one that is readily available [in sub 100pc quantities], I'd love to hear from you. [Specifically I've been looking for 5 port unmanaged solutions (or 4+1)]

rly?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-piece-New-Marvell-88E6350R-TFJ2-TQFP-IC-Chip-/271313543520 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-piece-New-Marvell-88E6350R-TFJ2-TQFP-IC-Chip-/271313543520)
stuff is made in CHINA, stop looking for parts in US
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Precipice on July 27, 2014, 05:12:43 pm
Really?Marvell part, no data, no real supplier? Not for production, I don't, not with a bargepole...
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Rasz on July 27, 2014, 06:18:40 pm
Really?

rly

Marvell part

is that bad? :)

no data

what data?, oh, you want NDA data with your chip? without signing NDA?

no real supplier

13K sold, 99.7%, thats three sigma right there :)
selling mainly replacement ICs for service work, Ill admit some of his 'brand new' ones are recycled :) with solder on the leads, but Im sure they are all working.
plus we are talking sourcing one offs for prototype

Not for production, I don't, not with a bargepole...

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/88E6350R-MARVELL-QFP-NEW/1801115015.html (http://www.aliexpress.com/item/88E6350R-MARVELL-QFP-NEW/1801115015.html)
lists crapton of other marvell chips

or get a shenzhen sales agent to source chips for you on the ground.

+
http://avnetexpress.avnet.com/store/em/EMController/_/A-8866119/An-0?action=part&catalogId=500201&langId=-1&storeId=500201&CMP=KNC-Supplyframe_VSE-T11 (http://avnetexpress.avnet.com/store/em/EMController/_/A-8866119/An-0?action=part&catalogId=500201&langId=-1&storeId=500201&CMP=KNC-Supplyframe_VSE-T11)
http://components.arrow.com/part/detail/59828335S531998N7335?region=na&utm_source=FindChips&utm_medium=buyNow (http://components.arrow.com/part/detail/59828335S531998N7335?region=na&utm_source=FindChips&utm_medium=buyNow)
http://www.componentsdirect.com/marvell-88e6350-a1-tah2c000.html?utm_source=supplyFrame&utm_medium=buyNow (http://www.componentsdirect.com/marvell-88e6350-a1-tah2c000.html?utm_source=supplyFrame&utm_medium=buyNow)

its a frickin ethernet switch, not a military grade 10Ghz ADC
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Precipice on July 27, 2014, 06:36:27 pm
Marvell's approach to data makes it (almost?) impossible to use them in an open source project.
The bastards bought the Stongarm PXA2xx from Intel, and locked it right down, after we were shipping. (I have a long memory...)
Every encounter I've had with them (in the annoying thousands, but not hundreds of thousands volumes) has been a tedious crapfest of NDAs and still inadequate documentation, which had to be wrested from them, page by page. They're right at the bottom of the pile, when it comes to choosing chips, for me. Maybe I was just doing it wrong? Hints would be welcome, they've often got silicon that looks tempting, but I just can't be arsed any more.
The Soap boys are well out of it if they can avoid Marvell, in my opinion.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: CanadianAvenger on July 27, 2014, 07:41:34 pm

rly?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-piece-New-Marvell-88E6350R-TFJ2-TQFP-IC-Chip-/271313543520 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-piece-New-Marvell-88E6350R-TFJ2-TQFP-IC-Chip-/271313543520)
stuff is made in CHINA, stop looking for parts in US

Ebay is not a reliable source for production [it needs to be available through a listed rep or distributor for me to even consider it]. My local Marvell rep is one of the slow responders, so they are still an option, if anyone ever gets back to me. [But I to have had bad experiences with Marvell, so they are not high on my list. On a previous design they refused to even engage because I wasn't talking about 100K units, I'm hoping that's not the case again here]
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 27, 2014, 11:54:56 pm
On a previous design they refused to even engage because I wasn't talking about 100K units, I'm hoping that's not the case again here]

That's odd...must depend on the chipset you are looking at? My company regularly does small runs (much, much less than 100K qty) of very niche designs and we use Marvell GigE PHYs & switches in a majority of them.

I've also been able to request samples of Marvell parts without much fuss. Maybe you just need to wine and dine your Marvell rep?  :D
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Precipice on July 28, 2014, 08:15:25 am
. Maybe you just need to wine and dine your Marvell rep?  :D

I'm beginning to suspect they work differently in the USA...
In the UK, they're repped through a company that doesn't have a website, or you can take your chances with Avnet, which isn't so bad, but is where unloved products go.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: CanadianAvenger on July 28, 2014, 01:21:56 pm
That's odd...must depend on the chipset you are looking at? My company regularly does small runs (much, much less than 100K qty) of very niche designs and we use Marvell GigE PHYs & switches in a majority of them.

I've also been able to request samples of Marvell parts without much fuss. Maybe you just need to wine and dine your Marvell rep?  :D

The 100K was for the Armada Processor and companion chip. [it's the processor used in the reference Google TV design] And in that design My quantity was around 10K/yr!

I have used Marvell chips in other designs, poor documentation, but the chips work as desired. As I said I'm still waiting for a response from the rep on this one... it is summer vacation time around here, so that may explain the delay.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 28, 2014, 07:38:53 pm
I have used Marvell chips in other designs, poor documentation, but the chips work as desired.

Haha, you can say that again! Last Marvell chip I worked with, 88E7221, many of the SoC registers were marked "TBD" in the datasheet.  :clap:
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: rob77 on July 28, 2014, 08:03:32 pm
I have used Marvell chips in other designs, poor documentation, but the chips work as desired.

Haha, you can say that again! Last Marvell chip I worked with, 88E7221, many of the SoC registers were marked "TBD" in the datasheet.  :clap:

TBD => To Be Documented ?  probably they used some high level chip design tool and they still discovering the various unwanted features ?  :-DD :-DD
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: BartManInNZ on July 30, 2014, 09:26:23 am
Does this update make any sense?

"As you may know that the IMX6 has bandwidth limitations with their gigabyte ethernet that peaks around 470 mbps. We have had to use a gigabyte ethernet solution like intel to circumvent this speed limitation but our solution as of now is to use a part from freescale or intel that will put a router/switch on the single port solution from intel. We have been talking with intel, marvell and freescale on our final solution but it will be something similar to the one i have laid out"
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tom66 on July 30, 2014, 06:02:51 pm
They still use "gigabyte" when talking about gigabit ethernet, I cannot take them seriously at all.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: rob77 on July 30, 2014, 07:17:16 pm
Routers capable of 1GB/sec are available

such a router costs a fortune !  1GB/s = 8Gb/s . even a L3 switch capable of routing such a traffic is still freaking expensive.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on July 30, 2014, 07:55:38 pm
Does this update make any sense?

"As you may know that the IMX6 has bandwidth limitations with their gigabyte ethernet that peaks around 470 mbps. We have had to use a gigabyte ethernet solution like intel to circumvent this speed limitation but our solution as of now is to use a part from freescale or intel that will put a router/switch on the single port solution from intel. We have been talking with intel, marvell and freescale on our final solution but it will be something similar to the one i have laid out"

My guess from deciphering the gibberish: Intel GigE PCIe chip (so they can actually get 1Gbit/s, "single port solution"), connect that to a switch from Intel/Freescale/Marvell to get the rest of the ports.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Bassman59 on July 30, 2014, 11:38:30 pm
They still use "gigabyte" when talking about gigabit ethernet, I cannot take them seriously at all.

Well: "As you may know that the IMX6 has bandwidth limitations with their gigabyte ethernet that peaks around 470 mbps"

Since the gigabyte interface only does about 470 millibits per second, I'd say that's a severe limitation.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Rasz on July 31, 2014, 03:21:04 pm
such a router costs a fortune !  1GB/s = 8Gb/s . even a L3 switch capable of routing such a traffic is still freaking expensive.

Typo.

typo is something you do once, maybe twice if you are terribad at keyboard, now when you use same word over and over without understanding its meaning
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: sigxcpu on August 01, 2014, 08:17:00 am
Routers capable of 1GB/sec are available

such a router costs a fortune !  1GB/s = 8Gb/s . even a L3 switch capable of routing such a traffic is still freaking expensive.

No, it is not. http://routerboard.com/CCR1009-8G-1S (http://routerboard.com/RB1100AHx2)

Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: CanadianAvenger on August 01, 2014, 12:21:30 pm
Routers capable of 1GB/sec are available

such a router costs a fortune !  1GB/s = 8Gb/s . even a L3 switch capable of routing such a traffic is still freaking expensive.

No, it is not. http://routerboard.com/CCR1009-8G-1S (http://routerboard.com/RB1100AHx2)

That's a 1 gigabit router not an 8 gigabit router, which is what is being implied by the GB/sec (gigabyte) instead of Gb/sec (gigabit). [technically it would have to be a 10Gb router, as that is the next step from 1Gb]
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Rasz on August 01, 2014, 02:28:59 pm
Routers capable of 1GB/sec are available

such a router costs a fortune !  1GB/s = 8Gb/s . even a L3 switch capable of routing such a traffic is still freaking expensive.

No, it is not. http://routerboard.com/CCR1009-8G-1S (http://routerboard.com/RB1100AHx2)

That's a 1 gigabit router not an 8 gigabit router, which is what is being implied by the GB/sec (gigabyte) instead of Gb/sec (gigabit). [technically it would have to be a 10Gb router, as that is the next step from 1Gb]

They can still deliver 10Gbit router if they really want to, AMD started shipping 2x10Gbit ARMv8 dev kits ($3K) this week :D
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: rob77 on August 01, 2014, 04:33:06 pm
Routers capable of 1GB/sec are available

such a router costs a fortune !  1GB/s = 8Gb/s . even a L3 switch capable of routing such a traffic is still freaking expensive.

No, it is not. http://routerboard.com/CCR1009-8G-1S (http://routerboard.com/RB1100AHx2)

That's a 1 gigabit router not an 8 gigabit router, which is what is being implied by the GB/sec (gigabyte) instead of Gb/sec (gigabit). [technically it would have to be a 10Gb router, as that is the next step from 1Gb]

They can still deliver 10Gbit router if they really want to, AMD started shipping 2x10Gbit ARMv8 dev kits ($3K) this week :D

btw... if a router has 10Gbit interfaces, it doesn't necessarily mean it's capable of routing @ 10Gbit/s ;)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tom66 on August 01, 2014, 10:13:59 pm
Especially with on-the-fly virus scanning on every routed packet.  ::)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on August 02, 2014, 02:41:39 pm
Indeed, they are taking about going beyond carrier grade DPI.

Deep Pocket Inspection of backers?  >:D
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: suicidaleggroll on August 02, 2014, 11:06:32 pm
typo is something you do once, maybe twice if you are terribad at keyboard, now when you use same word over and over without understanding its meaning

I was talking about using GB instead of Gb. What are you on about?

And yes, I have arthritis in my hands, I do typo stuff all the time.

I'm pretty sure he was talking about this:
"As you may know that the IMX6 has bandwidth limitations with their gigabyte ethernet that peaks around 470 mbps. We have had to use a gigabyte ethernet solution..."

As he said, a typo is something you do once, on accident.  Calling it gigabyte vs gigabit TWICE in as many sentences demonstrates a clear lack of understanding, either that or a shady attempt to prey on the lack of understanding in their audience.  Based on their "millibits per second" usage, I'm going with a lack of understanding.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: sairon on August 03, 2014, 03:39:28 pm
Another interesting fact - one of the chips on the bottom side of the board (https://images.indiegogo.com/file_attachments/755146/files/20140730154829-2014-07-30_14.22.59.jpg?1406760509) is presumably SMSC LAN9500. Why the hell would anyone want a USB to ethernet chip on a router?

And regarding OSC6, as someone was speaking about earlier, the soldering job has been done as expected (https://images.indiegogo.com/file_attachments/755143/files/20140730154759-2014-07-30_14.22.50.jpg?1406760479) to avoid the collision between ethernet connector's pads and case of the oscillator, just notice those "floating" crystals :D
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: rob77 on August 03, 2014, 03:56:26 pm
i assume the SMSC LAN9500 USB ethernet is the WAN port and the end of life Micrel KSZ8895 is forming a managed LAN switch.
but the guys apparently didn't realize the USB Ethernet will eat up a lot of cpu cycles - considering all the features they're promising... well... i think many of the  $80 SOHO routers will outperform the SOAP in terms of throughput.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: rob77 on August 04, 2014, 01:49:49 pm
is it just me ? or do you find this thread related ? ;)

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/smart-router/ (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/smart-router/)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on August 05, 2014, 06:20:31 pm
I wonder about getting regulatory approval as well. For something with so many radios and such complex software it could be tricky getting it done in every part of the world where they have backers. The EU and US alone will be hard work, and expensive.

They think that because the RF modules are already certified, that everything will play nicely together and passing regulatory tests will be a breeze.  :palm:

I don't think they've ever spent even 1 minute in an anechoic chamber, or even know what one is.
I have a strong feeling they won't actually test the device, but fall back on "We thought everything was certified! We didn't know! Oops!"

Also considering they've wasted time and money with this current stupid layout and BOM (The 10/100 Micrel part just for testing? ), it is pointless to even test this unit for EMI because the layout and BOM will be totally different on the "final" version. You can't test one thing and ship another...

I can't read the KS updates, but from the comments it sounds like they told everyone to expect a 3 month delay. Big surprise there...  :clap:
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: macgyver0815 on August 09, 2014, 02:12:29 pm
Did not wade through the complete thread but just have to say: Very entertaining project! 
3 PCB / Chip antennas* and 4 external "high performance" antennas... plus USB 3, HDMI, Display and several ethernet ports.
Will require magic RF *soap* to clean that mess ;)


* I hope they want to use an external antenna only for that Redpine Wifi combo module, they routed some parallel bus right under the PCB antenna of that module   :-+ :clap: :-+
https://images.indiegogo.com/file_attachments/755143/files/20140730154759-2014-07-30_14.22.50.jpg?1406760479 (https://images.indiegogo.com/file_attachments/755143/files/20140730154759-2014-07-30_14.22.50.jpg?1406760479)
(under the button cell on the top right)


Maybe Apple can help them with the EMC tests.
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/07/iphone-reception-pc-0878-rm-eng.jpg (http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/07/iphone-reception-pc-0878-rm-eng.jpg)
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyimages/1419.gif (http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyimages/1419.gif)

Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on August 09, 2014, 07:08:01 pm
* I hope they want to use an external antenna only for that Redpine Wifi combo module, they routed some parallel bus right under the PCB antenna of that module   :-+ :clap: :-+
https://images.indiegogo.com/file_attachments/755143/files/20140730154759-2014-07-30_14.22.50.jpg?1406760479 (https://images.indiegogo.com/file_attachments/755143/files/20140730154759-2014-07-30_14.22.50.jpg?1406760479)
(under the button cell on the top right)

Oh wow, good eye.  :clap:

Can't wait to see the performance numbers on this thing. 
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on October 17, 2014, 07:56:58 pm
Still vaporware, lol.

The communication with backers mainly consists of: "We will update you later with another update about all our updates." Bravo.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on October 17, 2014, 08:22:06 pm
Still vaporware, lol.

The communication with backers mainly consists of: "We will update you later with another update about all our updates." Bravo.

Thanks for the update! ;) I wonder how long it will take until the first backers start filing complaints.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on October 18, 2014, 08:24:27 am
Wow, yet another useless update.  |O  Thankfully the natives *are* getting restless.

As a $1 backer on KS I can see the "backer-only" update, but am not getting the update emails - presumably they are specifically selecting an option to exclude the 40 $1 backers from notification.  :--
Non backers can see the update on IGG anyway, as they now post identical updates on both projects.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: SashaK on November 10, 2014, 12:36:19 am
Kean & all,

Hi! Just registered here. To your point of getting restless, I've added a link to this thread on the Soap Users tech resources thread http://soapusers.freeforums.org/technical-resources-f6.html (http://soapusers.freeforums.org/technical-resources-f6.html)

I've initialized the Soap Users forum http://soapusers.freeforums.org/ (http://soapusers.freeforums.org/) a few days ago in order to help Kickstarter and IndieGoGo backers reach out to each other more easily than the comment threads on both sites where comments may scroll off and there's no search, threaded reply or direct message. Soap Users is under the users' control and all normal forum features are there plus we can elect our own moderators, etc.

Let me know (or simply reply there) if there's anything missing on the Soap media coverage topic http://soapusers.freeforums.org/soap-project-media-mentions-t11.html (http://soapusers.freeforums.org/soap-project-media-mentions-t11.html)

Also (important) I'm just an IndieGoGo backer (Soap Quad) so have no way of making Kickstarter backers aware of this new resource. If you feel it's worthwhile, it may make sense to post the link in KS campaign comments.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on November 27, 2014, 04:42:34 pm
Entirely vaporware now. Hardware scrapped. Will be releasing PCB source files, though, which I find odd because the thing didn't work, so why would anybody want them? It's clear the whole thing was a disaster and needed more than just a couple simple fixes.  :-/O
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: firewalker on November 27, 2014, 05:06:24 pm
Quote
After the first production run we soon noticed EMI issues and our engineers found a few problems that ended up being much more serious then what we first thought. This led to a cross road of an option to continue down the risky development path and have potentially nothing to show or to ship to our backers, or we could pivot and find a off the shelf option that is all ready to go and then focus on the software.

Just  :-DD :-DD :-DD

Alexander.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Rasz on November 27, 2014, 07:08:06 pm
its almost as if the whole thing was a SCAM from the get go .... :-DD
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on November 27, 2014, 07:23:58 pm
Entirely vaporware now. Hardware scrapped. Will be releasing PCB source files, though, which I find odd because the thing didn't work, so why would anybody want them? It's clear the whole thing was a disaster and needed more than just a couple simple fixes.  :-/O

... but threatening critics with lawyers. One could argue that the whole project is a deliberate fraud, especially when considering the tons of add-ons and extras for a few bucks more.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tom66 on November 27, 2014, 08:27:53 pm
I remain convinced that hardware electronic projects on Kickstarter require considerable vetting before being allowed to fund.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: macgyver0815 on January 09, 2015, 03:43:31 pm
Latest CES News (heise.de is a large german IT news site)

Photo of actual "Soap" hardware on their CES stand:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Schiefgelaufene-Crowdfunding-Kampagne-fuer-Wunder-Router-Soap-Unterstuetzer-sind-doch-keine-Vorbesteller-2514280.html?view=zoom;zoom=1 (http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Schiefgelaufene-Crowdfunding-Kampagne-fuer-Wunder-Router-Soap-Unterstuetzer-sind-doch-keine-Vorbesteller-2514280.html?view=zoom;zoom=1)

(it is real "Soap") :-DD



http://www.heise.de/newsticker/foren/S-Schiefgelaufene-Crowdfunding-Kampagne-fuer-Wunder-Router-Soap-Unterstuetzer-sind-doch-keine-Vorbesteller/forum-290457/list/ (http://www.heise.de/newsticker/foren/S-Schiefgelaufene-Crowdfunding-Kampagne-fuer-Wunder-Router-Soap-Unterstuetzer-sind-doch-keine-Vorbesteller/forum-290457/list/)

crappy translation here (headline is more something like "miracle-router crowdfunding campaign has failed: Backing is not pre-ordering"):
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Fnewsticker%2Fmeldung%2FSchiefgelaufene-Crowdfunding-Kampagne-fuer-Wunder-Router-Soap-Unterstuetzer-sind-doch-keine-Vorbesteller-2514280.html&edit-text= (https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Fnewsticker%2Fmeldung%2FSchiefgelaufene-Crowdfunding-Kampagne-fuer-Wunder-Router-Soap-Unterstuetzer-sind-doch-keine-Vorbesteller-2514280.html&edit-text=)

but you get the message: looking for more money from investors, because they spend all of it and hardware costs 400€ to produce for a product they offered for $200.
They will no longer develop hardware but focus on software.

Though, they do say they want to try to deliver the hardware to backers - if they get new investors and actually sell their software... 

 :palm:


Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on January 09, 2015, 04:07:10 pm
If I got that right, they want to sell a home automation software for some selected router, take the money and try to give the Soap backers the promised router. Isn't that called a ponzi scheme?
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Rasz on January 10, 2015, 10:49:12 am
+ they dont have ANY software to begin with :))
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: rob77 on January 10, 2015, 10:58:32 am
+ they dont have ANY software to begin with :))

no hardware, no software - but making big noise around the yet non-existent product :D sounds like a standard corporate approach nowadays  :-DD
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on January 13, 2015, 11:47:07 am
So SOAP have posted a new "Post CES" update on KS & IGG.  You have to be a backer on KS to read it, but it should be viewable by anyone on IGG:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/it-s-a-router-it-s-a-android-tablet-it-s-home-automation-its-soap/#activity (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/it-s-a-router-it-s-a-android-tablet-it-s-home-automation-its-soap/#activity)

They've basically given up on being a hardware company, and have actually admitted some of the ealy criticism was valid.   |O

They're still saying they have sourced third party "certified" hardware with higher specs, but it won't support all the original features, and no actual details on how this maps to pledges.  The PCB in the photos is labelled SBC8A341 and the MAC addresses belong to Axiom Tech.  I'm guessing it is the PCB from The AxiomTek NA341 - the specifications match.  Note that there is no display connector on this PCB, although there might be VGA hidden somewhere (it is mentioned in Axioms specs).  More importantly, I suspect they don't actually realise that just because this PCB (and whatever wireless module they'll add) is FCC/CE certified, that doesn't mean they can ship without going through certification of their final product (although not as bad if they have test reports for each of the modules).

The "Soap PCB Open Source files" is just a ZIP file of Gerbers & a BOM... for a design that never worked.  No design files or even a PDF schematic, so hardly counts as Open Source.  :--

Worst of all, they are talking about running another crowd funding campaign to fund their new sooper-dooper software.  :palm:
And somehow this relates to refunding unhappy backers:
Quote
the new campaign will give you the chance to withdrawal your support
:-DD
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on January 13, 2015, 03:58:04 pm
Quote
7. Support Withdrawal

We are aware of the people who no longer wish to support Soap and we are going to be processing returns for those people. The final campaign will allow this to happen easier then us returning each unit for each person that wants to pull their support. We are sorry that the direction and the Soap Founders bar are not what you would like but we completely understand.

Not clear what they mean there... A refund for anyone who wants one?

The only way I can make sense of it is that they've already placed an order for all the hardware to satisfy existing backer pledges (yeah, sure!), and to be able to afford to refund anyone they would first need to sell it to someone else via the new crowd funding campaign (good luck!).
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tom66 on January 13, 2015, 05:58:31 pm
I believe that's the textbook definition of a Ponzi scheme. :-DD
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: mamalala on January 13, 2015, 06:14:05 pm
Quote
7. Support Withdrawal

We are aware of the people who no longer wish to support Soap and we are going to be processing returns for those people. The final campaign will allow this to happen easier then us returning each unit for each person that wants to pull their support. We are sorry that the direction and the Soap Founders bar are not what you would like but we completely understand.

Not clear what they mean there... A refund for anyone who wants one?

Sounds like "We start a new campaign and use that money to pay out the backers of the old campaign who wanted out" to me.

Greetings,

Chris
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on January 13, 2015, 10:35:03 pm
LMAO, this is so, so good.  :clap: :clap: :clap:

I did not think it would even get to this level of  :wtf:. I love the PCB "custom design files" release - hahaha ok, Gerbers. Fuck these guys already.

"We'll pay you back with money from our next campaign." HAHAHA. I mean, COME ON. Who is going to buy in to your next campaign, you deluded Soap-people?!?

What an outright ABUSE of crowdfunding. I would say it can't get any worse but tomorrow is another day.  :-DD

Please hackaday tear into these clowns now, once and for all.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tom66 on January 14, 2015, 12:05:33 am
I looked at some of the gerbers, and to be honest they don't look bad. I don't see any major, obvious issues, they look to have been designed by someone with a clue. My guess is they spend ~$10,000-30,000 getting the design done by an actual engineer, then probably realised they'd need a few more spins and a lot more software to make it go, plus the cost of the components will have been way more than they had anticipated.

I don't see anything in the  BOM for lower voltage buck converters so assume all the magic happened on that add on card. I wonder how much that cost?
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Smokey on January 14, 2015, 01:16:28 am
...Please hackaday tear into these clowns now, once and for all.

Hey.. you better watch out.. You are talking about Brian Benchoff's new best friends!  He might use the insight from his dual degrees in Electronic Media and Psychology to write something about you on the internet!

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/why-is-hackaday-com-now-activly-promoting-the-soap-project/ (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/why-is-hackaday-com-now-activly-promoting-the-soap-project/)

And the same people that bought into the indigogo campaign after the obviously scammy kickstarter campaign are the ones that are going to still buy into the third one.  After this project and solar roadways I've pretty much lost any faith that your average person can make tech decisions on their own anymore.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: PlainName on January 14, 2015, 02:31:13 am
Quote
7. Support Withdrawal

We are aware of the people who no longer wish to support Soap and we are going to be processing returns for those people. The final campaign will allow this to happen easier then us returning each unit for each person that wants to pull their support. We are sorry that the direction and the Soap Founders bar are not what you would like but we completely understand.

Not clear what they mean there... A refund for anyone who wants one?

Sounds like "We start a new campaign and use that money to pay out the backers of the old campaign who wanted out" to me.

When I read that I thought they were saying that it's an opportunity for those who are disillusioned to drop out. By implication that would mean that if you are still interested you would contribute to the new funding, if not you won't. What's already been paid is gone, and if you don't cough for the new funding you will see and get nothing.

But there's the mention of a refund, so maybe it is as y'all say after all.  :-//
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: mamalala on January 14, 2015, 03:34:56 am
When I read that I thought they were saying that it's an opportunity for those who are disillusioned to drop out. By implication that would mean that if you are still interested you would contribute to the new funding, if not you won't. What's already been paid is gone, and if you don't cough for the new funding you will see and get nothing.

But there's the mention of a refund, so maybe it is as y'all say after all.  :-//

Well, i think the crucial part is "... people who no longer wish to support Soap and we are going to be processing returns for those people. The final campaign will allow this to happen easier ..." I fail to interpret that as anything else than they wanting to use the new campaign money to reimburse those that  withdrew from the old campaign.

But who knows, english isn't my native tongue, so ...

Greetings,

Chris
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: suicidaleggroll on January 14, 2015, 04:51:00 am
Well, i think the crucial part is "... people who no longer wish to support Soap and we are going to be processing returns for those people. The final campaign will allow this to happen easier ..." I fail to interpret that as anything else than they wanting to use the new campaign money to reimburse those that  withdrew from the old campaign.

But who knows, english isn't my native tongue, so ...

It is mine, and I get the same impression as you...
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on January 16, 2015, 10:47:45 pm
There were at CES and I was curious how much it actually costs to get some space there:
http://www.inc.com/ilya-pozin/what-it-costs-to-exhibit-at-ces.html (http://www.inc.com/ilya-pozin/what-it-costs-to-exhibit-at-ces.html)

They probably spent at least half (eh, maybe not half. still a waste of a lot of money that could have gone to development....)(edit2: actually, probably a paltry amount compared to the money collected. Still....a good investment???) the crowd-funded money on going to CES and showing up with nothing more than bars of soap. :wtf:

They have to have some very gullible external investors also on the hook for this. :palm:
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tom66 on January 16, 2015, 11:50:16 pm
CES could cost them at least ~$70k? And all they do is hand out some silly soap bars?

These people are more stupid than I previously thought. I had thought that perhaps they were just naive but that's just plain stupid.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on January 17, 2015, 12:23:53 pm
CES could cost them at least ~$70k? And all they do is hand out some silly soap bars?

These people are more stupid than I previously thought. I had thought that perhaps they were just naive but that's just plain stupid.

If they would be such stupid they wouldn't have managed to collect all the money via Kickstarter and Indiegogo. It looks more likely to be a new business model, i.e. how to extract money from "investors" using clever marketing and never deliver anything.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tom66 on January 17, 2015, 04:58:51 pm
I don't think they intended to scam. But, they were clearly well over their heads. I'm guessing they expected that designing a PCB would be easy - that they wouldn't need anything more than basic electronics knowledge.  But then they go and spend $70k on CES, which makes me think they are even more naive.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Rasz on January 17, 2015, 08:06:28 pm
most likely at this point there is some VC behind them, and PR spending like CES is a no brainer when your exit strategy is selling 'hot innovative iot/home automation startup' to a bigger sucker
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on January 17, 2015, 09:44:49 pm
Please stop talking about $70k - Soap Inc definitely didn't spend anything like that to attend CES.

According to the news page on http://www.soapapp.us (http://www.soapapp.us)
Quote
Soap was featured in Eureka Park at CES 2015
And as mentioned in the article linked earlier about CES costs:
Quote
If you're just starting out and the above costs are out of reach, another option for first-time exhibitors is Eureka Park, a space located in the Venetian hotel (not the convention center) dedicated specifically to start-ups. There, a 10x10 foot booth will run about $1,000.
Just to be clear, I am in no way defending their behaviour - this has been a total train wreck from the beginning.
As engineers we should be sticking to facts, although some added humour always helps.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on January 17, 2015, 10:02:06 pm
Please stop talking about $70k - Soap Inc definitely didn't spend anything like that to attend CES.

According to the news page on http://www.soapapp.us (http://www.soapapp.us)
Quote
Soap was featured in Eureka Park at CES 2015
And as mentioned in the article linked earlier about CES costs:
Quote
If you're just starting out and the above costs are out of reach, another option for first-time exhibitors is Eureka Park, a space located in the Venetian hotel (not the convention center) dedicated specifically to start-ups. There, a 10x10 foot booth will run about $1,000.
Just to be clear, I am in no way defending their behaviour - this has been a total train wreck from the beginning.
As engineers we should be sticking to facts, although some added humour always helps.

Thanks for posting this. I went pretty overboard in my assumption. Big mistake; I'll admit it.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on January 17, 2015, 10:08:51 pm
Thanks for posting this. I went pretty overboard in my assumption. Big mistake; I'll admit it.
No worries.  It is quite eye opening how much is spent by companies at exhibitions.

It would be good to see some accounting of how Soap have spent the money, as suggested by several backers in comments.
Of course, I doubt that will ever happen - even if/when they finally admit they can't afford to refund everyone or ship physical product.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: BlueBill on January 17, 2015, 10:48:38 pm
The Soap Router is pie in the sky, it'll never see market. The whole project is smoke and mirrors. Get your money back if you can...
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: snoopy on January 18, 2015, 03:01:31 am
I believe that's the textbook definition of a Ponzi scheme. :-DD

Berni Madoff ?
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: SeanB on January 18, 2015, 11:52:31 am
I believe that's the textbook definition of a Ponzi scheme. :-DD

Berni Madoff ?

He was the fall guy, they were all doing it, but Bernie was the smallest one so got the whole lot landed on him.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: PA0PBZ on January 18, 2015, 12:14:12 pm
Meet Charles Ponzi, the inventor:

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Charles_Ponzi.jpg)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on January 20, 2015, 10:26:36 pm
3rd times a charm?

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/control-your-home-network-devices-from-your-phone (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/control-your-home-network-devices-from-your-phone)

 |O

Videos are bullshit mockups. Again they claim all these features, works with XYZ, does everything. Yup.  :bullshit:
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tom66 on January 21, 2015, 12:10:34 am
I reported it to Indiegogo, worth a shot, eh? Maybe if they get enough reports they'll take it down. I hate to see more people ripped off by another scam.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Rasz on January 21, 2015, 02:17:05 am
I reported it to Indiegogo, worth a shot, eh? Maybe if they get enough reports they'll take it down. I hate to see more people ripped off by another scam.

+1, also reported it, but I doubt they will take it down, even scam campains make them money (like haelbo)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: madires on January 21, 2015, 11:54:11 am
The new soap router is a mini ITX running OpenWRT? How exciting  :-DD
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on January 21, 2015, 12:17:48 pm
The new soap router is a mini ITX running OpenWRT? How exciting  :-DD
Not mini ITX, but a repackaged AxiomTek NA341.  Boring!  :=\
And no touch screen, which was one of the big draw cards for many backers along with Android (not that anyone with sense would run Android as a router).

I don't think anyone has linked to this new article about the new "management talent"
http://www.cepro.com/article/exclusive_board_member_on_soap_home_automation_third_indiegogo_campaign/ (http://www.cepro.com/article/exclusive_board_member_on_soap_home_automation_third_indiegogo_campaign/)

Unfortunately what Soap is doing with their latest campaign is unlikely to be considered prohibited by IGG's terms, so they'll be happy to just let it run its course.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on January 21, 2015, 04:48:14 pm
The new soap router is a mini ITX running OpenWRT? How exciting  :-DD
I don't think anyone has linked to this new article about the new "management talent"
http://www.cepro.com/article/exclusive_board_member_on_soap_home_automation_third_indiegogo_campaign/ (http://www.cepro.com/article/exclusive_board_member_on_soap_home_automation_third_indiegogo_campaign/)


Quote
Soap determined, based on Lundwall’s recommendation, that it shouldn’t be in the hardware business, competing with the likes of Cisco. Instead they should do something unique, like creating a software-based home automation platform

Right. Because remember when they had all those hardware "partners" and secret meetings with "big players" in the router industry?  :blah:

Quote
By the end of CES, he says, more than 120 manufacturers had talked to Soap about integrating their products into the Soap ecosystem.

This is the case, he says, despite Soap’s not having Beta software to show these presumed partners.

This is the biggest load of bullshit ever. No sane manufacturer is going to invest development time and money on some unproven "product" that isn't even able to be demonstrated...nobody is earnestly going to join you guys because you made a video that shows some icons and push buttons. Unreal. These guys are hard bullshitters or super naive weirdos...either way, here they are, vacuuming up more money.   :-//

Same fluff as before. 
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Smokey on January 21, 2015, 05:31:58 pm
HA!  I just saw the new indigogo campaign only has a goal of $1000 USD!!!! Way to aim low guys!
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on January 21, 2015, 05:40:33 pm
This is the biggest load of bullshit ever.
Well said!  Nicely sums up all that is Soap Inc.  This new guy is made of the same cloth...
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Rasz on January 21, 2015, 11:41:39 pm
HA!  I just saw the new indigogo campaign only has a goal of $1000 USD!!!! Way to aim low guys!

Its actually quite 'clever'. "$1000 Fixed Funding", meaning it actually works like Flexible Funding after you manage to get first $1000 - brilliant.

http://www.cepro.com/article/both_owners_of_indiegogo-funded_soap_filed_for_bankruptcy_recently (http://www.cepro.com/article/both_owners_of_indiegogo-funded_soap_filed_for_bankruptcy_recently)

here is a picture of Soap router:
https://archive.today/ffWmC (https://archive.today/ffWmC)
haha
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tom66 on January 22, 2015, 12:39:47 pm
Well, luckily they haven't suckered much more than $1,000 yet. It sucks that people have to lose even that much, but it's not as bad as another $100,000 scampaign.

I got a standard bullshit reply bad from indiegogo, saying how they will be "closely monitoring" the campaign. Closely monitoring it to make sure they get their fees, I'm sure.

Quote
Hi there,

Thank you for checking in about this campaign. At this time, the campaign, is under review to ensure that it adheres to our Terms of Use (http://www.indiegogo.com/about/terms (http://www.indiegogo.com/about/terms)).

So what happens now? We will include the information you have provided along with all other information at our disposal in our review of the campaign. In some cases, we will contact the campaign owner for more information or have them edit their campaign and it will remain on our platform. If we find the project or campaign owner doesn't follow our rules, we may remove the campaign. We may also restrict the campaign owner's future activities on Indiegogo.

To protect our users' privacy, we're unable to share the action we take. At Indiegogo, we take the trust and safety of our community very seriously and we greatly appreciate your patience and understanding throughout this review process. To learn more about Indiegogo’s Trust & Safety effort, please visit: www.indiegogo.com/trust (http://www.indiegogo.com/trust)

Please note that you do not need to contact us again. Doing so would create a new ticket and prolong the process. Thank you again for taking the time to get in touch with us and for helping to keep Indiegogo a safe and secure platform.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: BlueBill on January 22, 2015, 05:25:39 pm
A long list of Soap articles...
http://www.cepro.com/topic/tag/soap (http://www.cepro.com/topic/tag/soap)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: PlainName on January 22, 2015, 07:22:31 pm
Dunno about Soap, but that Julie Jacobson couldn't find her arse with both hands and a flashlight, seemingly. She's probably caused a lot of dithering punters to sign up with Soap.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: theatrus on January 22, 2015, 09:03:53 pm
And both "owners" filing for bankruptcy.

http://www.cepro.com/article/both_owners_of_indiegogo-funded_soap_filed_for_bankruptcy_recently/K5 (http://www.cepro.com/article/both_owners_of_indiegogo-funded_soap_filed_for_bankruptcy_recently/K5)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: sairon on January 24, 2015, 05:17:31 pm
It's funny that those articles are written by Julie Jacobson, a person who vouched for Soap and called me "the real scammer" when I came out with my suspicion that the project is scam.

By the way, another funny fact - if you search for Mongoliandonut (an uncommon nickname that's Alex often using) you'll find this post on drugs-forum.com (https://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=199994). Written by a person from US in 2012 - when Alex was 26. Might be a coincidence, but it'd not surprise me if it was him.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: BlueBill on January 24, 2015, 05:27:51 pm
Well they already have $1500 for their next boondoggle. Fools and their money...
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Kean on January 24, 2015, 05:29:27 pm
Yeah, that first Soap article on CEPro was rubbish, and didn't deserve to be published on a "Professional" new site.
And that posting is very likely him - the article about their banckruptcies does mention he owed money to a "detox/rehabilitation facility".
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: BlueBill on January 24, 2015, 06:15:37 pm
It's funny that those articles are written by Julie Jacobson, a person who vouched for Soap and called me "the real scammer" when I came out with my suspicion that the project is scam.

By the way, another funny fact - if you search for Mongoliandonut (an uncommon nickname that's Alex often using) you'll find this post on drugs-forum.com (https://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=199994). Written by a person from US in 2012 - when Alex was 26. Might be a coincidence, but it'd not surprise me if it was him.

I'm not sure why Mrs Jacobson defended the scammers, by the time her article was written it seemed obvious something was very wrong. Perhaps the Dunning-Kruger effect was in full swing for all involved.

http://www.cepro.com/article/indiegogo_drops_the_ball_on_soap_home_automation_but/ (http://www.cepro.com/article/indiegogo_drops_the_ball_on_soap_home_automation_but/)
Quote
Whether or not the operation is a scam
Really...
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: sairon on January 24, 2015, 06:48:11 pm
And that posting is very likely him - the article about their banckruptcies does mention he owed money to a "detox/rehabilitation facility".

Wow, I totally missed that. OK then, that explains everything :D
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on January 24, 2015, 09:34:12 pm
http://www.bluelight.org/vb/archive/index.php/t-650431.html (http://www.bluelight.org/vb/archive/index.php/t-650431.html)

(http://i.imgur.com/h7caDwe.png)


Damn, this mongoliandonut dude was on all kinds of drugs. Heavy shit.

Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: dext0rb on February 01, 2015, 12:48:17 am
Interesting route they are taking now.

PR Sob story  +  (http://i.imgur.com/gVnzkYj.png) =  classic attempt at manipulation, IMHO. Gotta spin the story somehow to save face. This course might have been the best option? (I mean, besides actually delivering a functioning product)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tom66 on February 01, 2015, 12:52:25 am
It really is suspicious that they made the $1,000  they needed within the first day of funding.

My guess is, they set it up as fixed funding then contributed $1,000 of their own money to it through various accounts. This is an attempt to make it more legitimate.

At least they haven't raised much more, I mean even $1 to these guys is too much, but it's better than $200,000.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: hamdi.tn on February 01, 2015, 12:58:24 am
after watching the video in kickstart , what options this router offer that a standard router can't offer except putting it in a 7" display  ??? i mean i know not everyone can configure properly his router but most of the features cited in the video can be configured with that 192.168.1.1 embedded configuration page.
A whole bunch of projects is just " give me your money " i mean one of the feature of this device is to be able to be configured with your smart phone , good ,so my 20$ router !!!
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: tom66 on February 03, 2015, 11:02:23 am
Soap press release with another sob story. Oh, it's so nice he sponsors a bed, there4 pls buy r merchz.


http://www.soapapp.us/# (http://www.soapapp.us/#)!Soap-Press-Release-12815/cixn/F0DDD57C-0BBA-4DD0-BF0F-12153363BBAD
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: jkestner on February 05, 2015, 04:20:35 pm
And the same people that bought into the indigogo campaign after the obviously scammy kickstarter campaign are the ones that are going to still buy into the third one.  After this project and solar roadways I've pretty much lost any faith that your average person can make tech decisions on their own anymore.

The average person never could make tech decisions on their own, but the ubiquity of good consumer tech has led them to believe they can. http://drop-kicker.com (http://drop-kicker.com) does great work analyzing claims (are there other sites?) but it's for engineers. It's been great reading this thread for analysis of the many telltale signs that a project is, um... high-risk, and I make a sport out of guessing how late a project's going to ship myself.

But I love it when individuals who know better will post comments on campaigns, asking questions that educate the innocents (and probably the creators in some cases). It seems rude to do so when crowdfunding is supposed to be a big chummy community, but worse is to see waves of newcomers get disillusioned on the whole idea by the bad actors.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: bigdawg on September 30, 2015, 12:10:51 pm
The Soap Router is pie in the sky, it'll never see market. The whole project is smoke and mirrors. Get your money back if you can...

Seems like this prediction has proven right. No updates since Jan 2015, and comment section is flooded with a list of backers wanting a refund. Its all quite sad actually.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soaprouter/soap-first-smart-router-w-touch-display-powered-by/comments (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soaprouter/soap-first-smart-router-w-touch-display-powered-by/comments)
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: Rasz on September 30, 2015, 04:16:09 pm
The Soap Router is pie in the sky, it'll never see market. The whole project is smoke and mirrors. Get your money back if you can...

Seems like this prediction has proven right. No updates since Jan 2015, and comment section is flooded with a list of backers wanting a refund. Its all quite sad actually.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soaprouter/soap-first-smart-router-w-touch-display-powered-by/comments (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soaprouter/soap-first-smart-router-w-touch-display-powered-by/comments)

this is a great list of names to scam, they are pre screened and proven to be suckers.
Title: Re: Soap router - HW specs too good to be true?
Post by: bigdawg on October 01, 2015, 11:24:10 am
The Soap Router is pie in the sky, it'll never see market. The whole project is smoke and mirrors. Get your money back if you can...

Seems like this prediction has proven right. No updates since Jan 2015, and comment section is flooded with a list of backers wanting a refund. Its all quite sad actually.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soaprouter/soap-first-smart-router-w-touch-display-powered-by/comments (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soaprouter/soap-first-smart-router-w-touch-display-powered-by/comments)

this is a great list of names to scam, they are pre screened and proven to be suckers.

Dont be so hard on them!