Marcus Deely said 4 days ago
Kris,
We do have a thermal sensor. It’s in an open prototype; I can see one from where I’m sitting!
But anyhow, when trying to figure out the financial angle, you need to budget with a $400 retail price instead of $150.
But anyhow, when trying to figure out the financial angle, you need to budget with a $400 retail price instead of $150.
Why? They didnt get 400, they got something like $250/unit from the campain. You arent suggesting they run a charity?
Hmm, maybe the angle is to scam some big company into buying them out?
Re. the money numbers :-
"$125 ....... Shipipng not included. This represents $200 off the MSRP."
"$150 ....... Shipping not included, This represents $175 discount off the MSRP."
"$300 ....... (BRANDED camera)Shipping is included only in the U.S, This is a $100 discount to what we expect will be the MSRP."
So any budget calcs need to be done assuming a retail price of $325.
Crowdfunded projects usually operate at a loss. Sometimes by design
Labor essentially is the assembly cost. Ok, so you have some testing, but this qty could be done in-house by them.
The often quoted figure for small player prototypes is Retail = 2.5 x BOM cost (minimum). To make it worthwhile.
Don't forget the battery. Or NRE for the case. NRE for PCB and assembly gets easily absorbed into 2000 boards, but I doubt that's the same for the case.
Yes, that is very strange. If the sensor has been on the market for years, someone would have used it already in a low cost product.
But ultimately you are right, they can't possibly meet this price point and make a profit for sub 2000qty unless the sensor + lens is going to cost maybe $20 tops. And if a 160x120 thermal sensor exists for that price (and has been for some time) the market would have already gone apeshit with it.
We haven't factored in the several employees they have either.
The numbers don't add up.
Did you read the rest of my post? Many of the earlier posts doing budget calculations were assuming they were looking at making a profit on these early sales so assuming they are willing to supply them at cost just to get the money in/the units out there then they have $150 for component cost/development with the profit (if any) to come from future retail sales.
Martin.
Here's a decent intro to all the costs associated with distribution:
https://www.nuvonium.com/blog/view/how-to-price-your-product-for-retail-distributor-and-direct-to-consumer-sal
And we never even considered testing/approvals (FCC, and whatever equivalents around the world).
On the hardware end, I’m happy to be able to say that we’ve settled on a microcontroller from Atmel, the Sam3x...
We’re narrowing down our assembly options(there have been a lot of potential manufacturers) and for our electronics and pcb manufacturing, our current top contenders are “Advanced Circuits” and “American Standard Circuits”...
That's an old update, here is the latest:QuoteHello All,
I thought I’d share with you a few pieces of hardware and manufacturing news.
QuoteOn the hardware end, I’m happy to be able to say that we’ve settled on a microcontroller from Atmel, the Sam3x. This 84MHz MCU is the brains of the imager, it drives the image sensor and the communications equipment. We’ve been using this chip since early in the development cycle and trust it to be able to give great performance in the camera.
We also have a wireless chipset from RedPine Signals that enables realtime wireless video from the imager to your smartphone or computer. It’s been very fun adding wireless and we think that we have a few more tweaks we can implement to get some added functionality out of it.
QuoteWe’re narrowing down our assembly options(there have been a lot of potential manufacturers) and for our electronics and pcb manufacturing, our current top contenders are “Advanced Circuits” and “American Standard Circuits”. Both great companies.
QuoteAs we work to get the case and body of the imager finalized, we have come up with a few slight modifications to the body that we are currently considering. If those ideas go anywhere, I’ll try to post pictures of the possible changes down the road.
QuoteAs always, Thanks for all of your support. We can’t wait to get the first imagers into your hands and see what uses you come up with. (I personally really want to see someone mount one to a quadcopter drone).
Cheers,
-Charles and the MuOptics Team.
Once again, they talk about their development cycle and infer prototypes, but continue to still not show them.
QuoteOn the hardware end, I’m happy to be able to say that we’ve settled on a microcontroller from Atmel, the Sam3x...
We’re narrowing down our assembly options(there have been a lot of potential manufacturers) and for our electronics and pcb manufacturing, our current top contenders are “Advanced Circuits” and “American Standard Circuits”...
Just now figuring out the MCU and assembly house? They also seem to think that it's all downhill from here. I've used advanced circuits for assembly runs before. They're a good company and do good work, but they're not cheap and they're not fast. Expedited assembled boards could cost a third of the $125 base price before you even get into the components.
Ridiculous.
Aside from that, while I never have used ASC, I have used AC and they are not cheap - not at all. I can't understand why Mu would choose these two as their suppliers?
Why do they even need to 'choose a supplier' when they are still changing WiFi modules and imaging sensors?
It does have a battery. I don't see any issues with size, and the given functionality.