Author Topic: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter  (Read 74890 times)

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Offline PlainName

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #200 on: June 12, 2019, 07:28:30 am »
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no limit on when I could refund people for the 121GW meter, and I had to for shipments that didn't make it

Interesting! I had a kickstarter that didn't arrive after shipping, and I never got the product or a refund even after complaining. Far too late to chase it up now, though, and it wasn't a huge amount.

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I'm surprised they are even going to bother to ship any

They seem to have bits to get rid of, so why not ship? It doesn't look to me like it set out to be a scam, just people that got out of their depth. The idea may not have been practical and the product not achievable, but at least they had a go instead of sitting behind a screen rubbishing everyone elses projects.
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #201 on: June 12, 2019, 07:49:19 am »
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no limit on when I could refund people for the 121GW meter, and I had to for shipments that didn't make it

Interesting! I had a kickstarter that didn't arrive after shipping, and I never got the product or a refund even after complaining. Far too late to chase it up now, though, and it wasn't a huge amount.

They probably just didn't care. I cared.
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #202 on: June 12, 2019, 07:54:21 am »
Just checked, and yes, I can still issue refunds to any 121GW backer. But as I said it only works if both credit cards (mine and theirs) is still valid. I don't believe it actually reverses the transaction, it just creates a new transaction to debit my CC and charge theirs. This is probably a deal KS have with the CC companies.
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #203 on: June 12, 2019, 08:01:11 am »
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no limit on when I could refund people for the 121GW meter, and I had to for shipments that didn't make it

Interesting! I had a kickstarter that didn't arrive after shipping, and I never got the product or a refund even after complaining. Far too late to chase it up now, though, and it wasn't a huge amount.

They probably just didn't care. I cared.

OK! (and yes, that's probably the case) I think I misunderstood your 'could' for 'should'.
 

Offline Muttley SnickersTopic starter

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #204 on: June 12, 2019, 08:26:37 am »
They seem to have bits to get rid of, so why not ship? It doesn't look to me like it set out to be a scam, just people that got out of their depth.
They should not ship a device to people if the integrity or reliability of that device is questionable. They just declared that the remote application is not reliable so if the end user happens to be testing mains voltages (as shown in their marketing campaign) and the remote display shows 0.00 instead of say lost connection then the result could be shocking.   :o ::) 

 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #205 on: June 12, 2019, 08:42:07 am »
Yes, one can imagine lots of scary scenarios, just as one could about almost anything at all. Does the app say lost connection or not? Maybe it's best to find out the reality before basing a trashing on some particular point? Hey, maybe they could just shove a note in: don't use on >50V.

Mind, they'd only have to do so for a month (how long they say it'll take to fix), and it sure seems like that would occur before they start shipping, going from recent history  :-DD
 

Offline Muttley SnickersTopic starter

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #206 on: June 16, 2019, 04:50:34 am »
I don't have an Indiegogo account but just noticed that one of the backers recently stated that the ability to purchase the Vion Multimeter on Indiegogo has now been removed. I cannot confirm either way but perhaps somebody here with an account could verify.   :o ::)

Vion Indiegogo
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/vion-auto-detection-l-bluetooth-l-smart-multimeter#/comments

 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #207 on: June 16, 2019, 10:12:33 am »
I have an account and wasn't offered a perk, whereas on a different project I was. Didn't want to go further and purchase stuff I don't want just to prove  a point :)
 

Online Zero999

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #208 on: June 17, 2019, 10:29:44 am »
They seem to have bits to get rid of, so why not ship? It doesn't look to me like it set out to be a scam, just people that got out of their depth. The idea may not have been practical and the product not achievable, but at least they had a go instead of sitting behind a screen rubbishing everyone elses projects.
Why are you defending them? They should have realised their idea wasn't practical much earlier on, shut the project down and refunded everyone. I suspect they realised they couldn't do this awhile ago, but have been dishonest about it, rather than admitting failure. It's now all about damage limitation, rather than fulfilling their obligations to their backers.
 

Offline Yansi

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Re: Vion : The Worlds Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #209 on: June 17, 2019, 10:34:01 am »
USB charging port
Yeah, that's what you want, a multimeter that only works when two devices are charged (meter + phone)  ::)



Just wondering, what it'll do when plugged in to a charger and probes stuck into a mains panel.

This device should probably be not even allowed to sell, as I strongly doubt any safety isolation exists between the charge port and the probes!  :--
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #210 on: June 17, 2019, 11:05:32 am »
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Why are you defending them?

Maybe because they need it - this entire thread assumes they are scammers who will just run off with the money and never intended to make the thing anyway. Instead, as I tried to point out, they are actual humans with the same foibles as you and me, who no doubt really wanted it to work. It hasn't gone that way, but sometimes shit happens you know and people don't realise they are out of their depth until the water is going up their nose. That's rather different to being a scam from the start, and no-one is immune to cockups like that.

And, like I said, from behind a screen this sort of thing looks piss easy. Try to do it in real life - even just coming up with a product, never mind following up with actually selling and making it - and it's a lot more difficult.
 

Offline Cyberdragon

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #211 on: June 17, 2019, 12:33:11 pm »
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Why are you defending them?

Maybe because they need it - this entire thread assumes they are scammers who will just run off with the money and never intended to make the thing anyway. Instead, as I tried to point out, they are actual humans with the same foibles as you and me, who no doubt really wanted it to work. It hasn't gone that way, but sometimes shit happens you know and people don't realise they are out of their depth until the water is going up their nose. That's rather different to being a scam from the start, and no-one is immune to cockups like that.

And, like I said, from behind a screen this sort of thing looks piss easy. Try to do it in real life - even just coming up with a product, never mind following up with actually selling and making it - and it's a lot more difficult.

Except it's an incredibly stupid idea that preys on IoT smartphone gadget hipsters (to electrocute themselves). Test gear are not toys as these guys appear to make it. Any sane person would see that the idea for this was a no-go/rediculous from the start therefore they are idiots/nutters who don't need defending, they need to be taught a lesson. It falls under the same catagory of BS as crap from Elon Musk, except he's too rich to steal other people's money (though he should still be slapped for every dumb idea he spouts to the public). ::) How long into this did their engineering team go "this is a really bad idea" and they just decided to start posting about BS delays just to keep getting money? My guess is not long as zero said.

I'm building an app-enabled fire extinguisher. No-no, it's great idea, I actually think it'll work. Now give me half a mil. >:D
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Offline PlainName

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #212 on: June 17, 2019, 12:52:06 pm »
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he same catagory of BS as crap from Elon Musk

Who designed, makes and sells electric cars. And also successfully (most times!) launches and lands space craft. Yep, certainly in the realms of 'obviously not going to work' bullshit, that.

There are legitimate arguments about how well some of his stuff performs (like the tunnels, and the autopilot), but one thing you can't deny is that he got off his arse and did it.
 

Offline mikerj

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #213 on: June 17, 2019, 02:45:07 pm »
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he same catagory of BS as crap from Elon Musk

Who designed, makes and sells electric cars. And also successfully (most times!) launches and lands space craft. Yep, certainly in the realms of 'obviously not going to work' bullshit, that.

There are legitimate arguments about how well some of his stuff performs (like the tunnels, and the autopilot), but one thing you can't deny is that he got off his arse and did it.

I'm almost tempted to search the UBeam thread to see if you were white knighting for Meredith Perry  :-DD
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #214 on: June 17, 2019, 02:58:00 pm »
Feel free - there's a chance I might have (although I don't think so). I just naturally root for the underdog and latch onto positives rather than negatives :)

(Well, someone has to!)
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #215 on: June 17, 2019, 03:15:00 pm »
Feel free - there's a chance I might have (although I don't think so). I just naturally root for the underdog and latch onto positives rather than negatives :)

And therein lies the problem with today's media and the sheeple who lap up ridiculous impractical ideas. Engineers should know better than to ignore obvious engineering showstoppers in ideas that are, well, impractical  :bullshit:
Solar roadways, Batteriser, uBeam, Wi-Charge, Hyperloop, BFR trips to New York, silly small piss-ant tunnels etc etc.
Engineers are really the only line of defense protecting and informing the public.
 
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Offline rsjsouza

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #216 on: June 17, 2019, 04:06:13 pm »
Feel free - there's a chance I might have (although I don't think so). I just naturally root for the underdog and latch onto positives rather than negatives :)

And therein lies the problem with today's media and the sheeple who lap up ridiculous impractical ideas. Engineers should know better than to ignore obvious engineering showstoppers in ideas that are, well, impractical  :bullshit:
Solar roadways, Batteriser, uBeam, Wi-Charge, Hyperloop, BFR trips to New York, silly small piss-ant tunnels etc etc.
Engineers are really the only line of defense protecting and informing the public.
I fully agree with you, and get quite peeved when millions of public money are thrown into such impractical things that are based on overextending physics and/or technology (Hyperloop, Solar Roadways, etc.). We engineers must not corrupt ourselves into smelling the fairy dust or at least giving an honest account of the pros and cons of these products/ideas.

If it is private money such as this one or the Batteriser, I personally don't really give two hoots about it - whomever is pissing their money away on an yet unrealised product, better make their peace with the possibility of loss or perform due dilligence beforehand. This may not do anything to prevent ludicrous ideas from being vented to the marketplace, but it is of limited effect.

That is what I see this thread doing: the Batteriser was initially a very tough to sell idea from the practical standpoint and targeted to solve a problem that didn't necessarily exist, but people threw their money at it probably for the sake of curiosity or novelty. After many months and the several delays with absolutely lame excuses, the case of defending them becomes harder and harder, to a point where I said it was a masters thesis in BS. From my standpoint, this was a criticism on their practices, not on the product itself which could be (maybe) practical given more conservative boundary conditions (lower voltage non-CAT rated, for example).
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Offline PlainName

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #217 on: June 17, 2019, 04:31:13 pm »
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Engineers should know better than to ignore obvious engineering showstoppers

In Batterizer that's fair enough, but in Roadways a big argument was that it wasn't economical, and that every inch of road in the world couldn't be changed, etc. Those are bullshit arguments and should be called out for what they are, and that's what I challenge. Sure, there may be good engineering reasons (which won't be business reasons) but they can get hidden and weakened if these 'add-on' arguments are the ones being shouted about.
 

Offline rsjsouza

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #218 on: June 17, 2019, 05:51:46 pm »
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Engineers should know better than to ignore obvious engineering showstoppers

In Batterizer that's fair enough, but in Roadways a big argument was that it wasn't economical, and that every inch of road in the world couldn't be changed, etc. Those are bullshit arguments and should be called out for what they are, and that's what I challenge. Sure, there may be good engineering reasons (which won't be business reasons) but they can get hidden and weakened if these 'add-on' arguments are the ones being shouted about.
(honest curiosity) Why?

From my standpoint, I see the field of engineering as having to consider many things, including economics and practicality.

At the time these were not the only arguments touted against this specific project - many other technical and physical aspects were thrown against it. The fact the Roadways inventors doubled down on the criticisms by adding more "features" eroded their credibility. This "over promising" is a very common tactic to create a smoke screen and justify any delays in design and production.

(in time: I don't consider the "every inch of the road" a strong argument as well).
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Offline Cyberdragon

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #219 on: June 17, 2019, 06:08:07 pm »
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he same catagory of BS as crap from Elon Musk

Who designed, makes and sells electric cars. And also successfully (most times!) launches and lands space craft. Yep, certainly in the realms of 'obviously not going to work' bullshit, that.

There are legitimate arguments about how well some of his stuff performs (like the tunnels, and the autopilot), but one thing you can't deny is that he got off his arse and did it.

Except he didn't. Real engineers did. As Thunderfoot even pointed out, he's just a mad visionary with money that spews out ideas. If they are possible, real engineers make them, and if not, we laugh and mock them. He's like a slot machine, you only win the jackpot a small percent of the time. ::)
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Offline PlainName

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #220 on: June 17, 2019, 07:12:51 pm »
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From my standpoint, I see the field of engineering as having to consider many things, including economics and practicality.

Well, primarily we should be looking at whether it is feasible. For instance, are the cables fat enough to carry the juice, can it actually get any juice, etc. Would a battery that fits in a nose clip be able to power a micro-turbine for 8 hours. That kind of thing.

The economics is more tricky since pretty much any new product is far more expensive than the same thing a few years down the line. At this point you would be wanting some thing that is just good enough to sell so you can afford to make better ones, but that's a business decision. The engineering part is how to achieve that.

If you look at the airogel video and think how much that costs, and the massive hassle it is to make it, that would fail at the first post on this forum. But NASA thinks it's worth the price for what they want to do with it, and that's their decision, not ours. All we can do is say that we wouldn't pay whatever it costs to buy, but accept that someone else might.

You might also have noticed that there was a lot of noise about the absolute cost of solaring (hey, a new trademark!) a road, but much of that would have been the cost of a non-solar road anyway so the real costs were wrong. That's what comes of web engineers doing economics :)

Ultimately, so what? If the economics are wrong then it will die a commercial death. Doesn't mean the idea itself it a scam or pants  - there are many things that have died only to be resurrected years later and become a success.

So, when I see a debunking here I expect to see something like "The panels won't take the weight of a truck unless they are too thick to pass sunlight." Fine, but what if the application is a road that won't have a truck that big - there are many roads with weight limits. Right now, if you suggest that you get the nasty label applied and the mob tries to eviscerate you verbally, and I think that's a pretty poor show. We should be able to discuss off-piste things like that with being fearful that we'll be turned into forum lepers.
 
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Offline PlainName

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #221 on: June 17, 2019, 07:33:07 pm »
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Except he didn't. Real engineers did

He enabled them, and they all stood on the shoulders of giants. There is no mileage in trying to say it doesn't count unless you created the chips that power the PC that runs the software you wrote that lets you compile the language you designed, etc.

 

Offline Cyberdragon

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #222 on: June 17, 2019, 09:42:35 pm »
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Except he didn't. Real engineers did

He enabled them, and they all stood on the shoulders of giants. There is no mileage in trying to say it doesn't count unless you created the chips that power the PC that runs the software you wrote that lets you compile the language you designed, etc.

"Enabled them", IE threw money at all of his ideas and the realistic ones turned out successful. How much of a part of the design of his products did he actually participate in beyond the "knapkin drawing" level? ::)


EDIT: There's nothing wrong with having good ideas but not knowing how to implement them. There is a problem with having bad ones, spouting them to the world as brilliant, then expecting people to defend you just because you were successful in some endevours.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2019, 09:45:17 pm by Cyberdragon »
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Offline GregDunn

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #223 on: June 18, 2019, 01:31:07 am »
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Except he didn't. Real engineers did

He enabled them, and they all stood on the shoulders of giants. There is no mileage in trying to say it doesn't count unless you created the chips that power the PC that runs the software you wrote that lets you compile the language you designed, etc.

"Enabled them", IE threw money at all of his ideas and the realistic ones turned out successful. How much of a part of the design of his products did he actually participate in beyond the "knapkin drawing" level? ::)


EDIT: There's nothing wrong with having good ideas but not knowing how to implement them. There is a problem with having bad ones, spouting them to the world as brilliant, then expecting people to defend you just because you were successful in some endevours.

Cf. Thomas Edison.  Visionary, inept engineer.
 
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Offline Cyberdragon

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Re: Vion: The World's Silliest Multimeter
« Reply #224 on: June 18, 2019, 03:03:38 am »
Thomas Edison.  Visionary, inept engineer.

And that's why we have AC in our homes not DC.
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