4 inch display SAA-2N NanoVNA V2 3GHz with N-type

[aristarchus]

In this year, 2020, we have seen the explosion of the NanoVNA devices, creazy cheap VNAs for the masses.
Hugen, a pioneer in the area brought earlier the NanoVNA-H and NanoVNA-H4 and TinySA spectrum analyzer in quality packaging with cases, cables, bags, etc, complete products.
Now, he announced another package, a NanoVNA V2 (3GHz) with 4 inch screen, N-tyoe RF connectors, case, cables, bag, neatly packaged.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001267696890.html

We are definitively live in very good VNA times! Lots of options from many developers, open source, and VFM that we could not even dream in the past.

[cdev]

That does look nice, very nice, but..

I really see what Gabriel says about how he seems to perhaps be selling his stuff below his own cost for some reason. I have very mixed feelings.

Who is he, does he ever participate in these forums?

[Kean]

Brand new store with 0 feedback.  Price just seems too good.  Otherwise I'd considering ordering for comparison (playing around).

[aristarchus]

Hugen is well known in the NanoVNA world.
He is there long before others like Gabriel come in, in fact Gabriel took ideas and was based on the work of edy555, cho45 and hugen79.

https://github.com/ttrftech/NanoVNA
https://github.com/cho45/NanoVNA
https://github.com/hugen79/NanoVNA-H

Have a look at here
https://nanovna.com/
Hugen's github
https://github.com/hugen79

Hugen has a store in Taobao named NanoLab, only recently he came to Aliexpress

Here is his announcement today on this new Aliexpress store, in the famous nanovna-users group in groups.io
https://groups.io/g/nanovna-users/message/15943

I guess lots of people do not know the story behind nanovna and how this market evolved, that happens since here they read only one specific vendor/developer, Gabriel.
I hope the above could shed some light to everyone.
Myself is not affiliated in any way, I just happen to got a NanoVNA-H4 and was surprised by the quality, packaging and completeness of Hugen's work and product thus I do recommend it.

[cdev]

I've noticed the selling price for these expensive boat anchor VNAs on ebay seems to be falling fast.

Maybe I am just imagining it  

I'd like to see similar values in ham gear. The manufacturers who are selling their own bootleg copies of open source projects lke the mcHF trasceivers are still way too expensive for most people.

The price of used ham equipment is almost as high as new gear.

[Kean]

Hugen is well known in the NanoVNA world.

Thanks, I had seen his name mentioned a few times in a positive way.

It is very tempting to this one because of the nice presentation...
I'm going to try resist as I already have a recently purchased NanoVNA V2, now with a 4" screen.  I also have a hardly used xavna.

Good to see him selling on AliExpress.  Dealing with Taobao is a bit too hard.  Maybe I'll look at his store again when the next generation is released.
I've also joined nanovna-users on groups.io - so thanks for that link, not that I have any spare time to read another mailing list.

[KE5FX]

Wow. 3 GHz VNAs now cost $70.  Dogs are sleeping with cats, Donald Trump is the President of the United States, Star Wormwood blazes in the east, and a cow has been born with two heads.

I just want things to go back to normal.... 

[hwalker]

   hugen very seldom gets into any of the back and forth on the forums regarding any of his products.  He lets his reputation and designs do the talking through feedback from user's who are satisfied with his products.

  I very much doubt he would engage in any intentional unethical behavior.  One of his US distributers was pricing hugen's version of the SAA-2 at a price that was $10 below market.  It turned out that distributor was was offering a LOWEND SAA-2 with RG316 cables and a $10 higher priced HIGHEND SAA-2 with SS405 cables.  Nothing unethical about offering the customer a choice if they are only planning on using the SAA-2 up to 1.5GHz.

 The same US distributor used some wording Gabriel disagreed with and she called the distributor unethical.  Again it was a unintentional mistake by a well respected ham store, R&L Electronics.  As soon as they learned of the error, R&L changed the boilerplate wording which was text other Asian manufacturers are still using.

I bought one of the original SAA-2's from Tindie, as did several members of my Ham club.  It is an innovative product and outside of its UI, is independent of Edy555's original design.  Customer loyalty, however,  on goes so far and presented with a choice between two products that have similar performance the pocket book generally decides.

I just ordered hugen's 4" SAA-2N because I believe it is a better value than the current Tindie offering. Some of my other club members did the same.  hugen's packaging, metal enclosure, relocation of the buttons from the awkward location between the connectors, 4" display and type N connectors are more in line with how I will be using the SAA-2N.  Hugen was very upfront in his planned announcement of the SAA-2N, "There is no innovation, just a new shell."

Gabriel has said that if not enough sells of the V2 are generated at the Tindie store then it could jeopardize development of a future follow-on 6GHz product.  If I was interested in 6GHz operation I would definitely take that into consideration when making a purchase.  Neither I or any of my ham club members have interests above 3 GHz so that was not a consideration in any of our current purchases.  I suggested to Gabriel's OEM seller that they have fallen behind some of the other manufacturer's who offer a complete package of battery, shell, and accessories.  The reply I received was that a battery is not a technical innovation.  While true, it certainly weighed in on several of my club member's decision, along with the other factors, when they made their decision to purchase hugen's SAA-2N.

Hugen and edy555 before him, have had to contend with the same flood of marketers using their open source design.  That's just the nature of the Asian market.  hugen has stayed ahead of the curve by making his offerings stand out with distinctive packaging and in the case of the SAA-2N, being first with a 4" offering.  Since the Tindie store was first to market, I would have thought the opposite would be true.

Hugen also asked Gabriel for permission to manufacture and sell his SAA-2 offering, and if any royalty arrangement was required. I wonder how many other Asian manufacturers extended the same courtesy.

I wish much success  to Gabriel and her sponsors with V2 and any future products, but the open source model is a tough one. I would do like the current v.3x NanoVNA-F and the new tinySA product: release the firmware opensource and delay releasing the hardware schematics until a return on investment is realized.  It won't stop the Asian cloners but it should slow them down long enough for your product to establish a foothold.

Just my opinion, which with a dollar might get you a cup of coffee.

[Gandalf_Sr]

hwalker,

While I agree with most of what you wrote, I bought from Tindie, possibly paying more than I could have, in an effort to support the people who put the work in; cheap clones are always a crap shoot and I've been burned once too often to keep buying junk.

[hwalker]

Gandalf_Sr,

  I also have more Asian crap in my desktop drawer than I care to admit.  I am responsible for evaluating new products for purchase by my ham club so I tend to do a lot of research before making any recommendations.  I ordered the SAA-2 when it was originally offered for sell on Tindie.  I recommended it for purchase by other members of my club.  At the time it was the only game in town.

  I remember asking Gabriel about the funding of the V2. At the time she said her company was only contracted and paid for the design work. She said once the contract was complete her only involvement would be to help find a  distributor and train QA for the product.  It almost sounded like some benevolent benefactor had contracted her company to design the V2 and have it distributed at a cost the masses could afford.  I often wondered who that benefactor was.

  In any event, I make my current purchase recommendations based on merit rather than supporting any particular seller.  The Tindie offering is not the complete package you would expect at this stage in its production run.  Both hugen's current 4" SAA-2N and the 3.2" offering by another another seller come with metal cases, battery, and accessories.  The snap together plastic case and missing battery on Tindie offering pale by comparison.  User reviews of the 3.2" offering and Hugen's 2.8" offering have been positive.  5 members of my ham club own hugen's current 2.8" version, and our performance comparisons against the original Tindie purchases have not shown any measurable difference.

  Gabriel has said there are bad clones out there, and she has also said that those manufactures that follow her GitHub specifications are producing units with acceptable performance.  If you buy from other than the Tindie store then you need to do your homework.  In my case, I have been able to compare hugen's offering with the Tindie store offering so I have no qualms about recommending his product based on its performance and complete packaging.  If the situation were reversed, I would be recommending the Tindie store offering.  hugen is no fly-by-nighter selling cheap junk.  I doubt if he would ever sully the reputation he's worked so hard to achieve by doing so.

  If the V2 was a commercial offering and its copyright was being violated by other sellers, I would never make a recommendation of purchasing from any source except from the OEM.  If a design is released as open source then its hard after the fact to ask for anything - other than recognition as the designer.  Edy555's situation as the designer of the original NanoVNA should have been a warning to any opensource project following him.  He has not profited to the extent you would think he should have - other than endorsements

[all_repair]

I think Hugen did ask eddy555 to setup store on ebay or other platform and resell his offerings, and hugen would take care of all the backend and shipping.  He is trying to find ways to compensate the original creators.  With his pricing, the margin is not that high per piece also. 

[OwO]

 

V2 was completely designed by a team of HCXQS and OwOComm engineers from scratch and not based on the original NanoVNA. Only HCXQS funds the development team, and the original developers will not see a single cent if you buy from others. Others simply took our PCB design and put a different enclosure around it, they did not have to do any of the work designing the RF PCB layout, so naturally they can focus their effort on the enclosure and get to a 4 inch version faster. The official store does not include a battery because it is a fire hazard.

There were far more shady business practices that I initially kept silent about, like generating fake order traffic on taobao to get his product ranked to the top and take over all taobao sales, dumping units at cost under other names to Aliexpress distributors, dumping units at cost to former distributors of official devices, hostile over-buying of components to deplete stock and prevent anyone else from getting them, etc etc. I have not specifically called him out on nanovna-users to give him "face".

Open source hardware is dead, and people killed it by promoting a clone manufacturer who operates on shady business practices as if they are somehow official. I have no objections with clones existing, if they play fair and don't try to corner my client. I have less objections to his current 4 inch design than I had with his PCB sandwich V2 design (which was put together in a hurry to flood the market as quickly as possible). We would really like open source hardware to work, but it is clear now that this isn't working. Anyway I hope hugen does not go on this forum, and don't repost what I wrote to nanovna-users or nanovna-v2 on groups.io.

I have a full story of the history of NanoVNA in another post: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/oshw/making-oshw-design-a-viable-occupation-the-oshw-product-introducer/msg3162864/#msg3162864

TL;DR: I don't have any problems if you go buy his 4 inch version with N connectors. But don't mislead user into thinking he developed the V2 like the first post does.

[OwO]

@aristarchus: Please, at least edit your original post because it is extremely misleading to users.

[0culus]

I bought my regular V2 through Tindie and yeah, maybe it doesn't have all the nice Hugen tweaks, but I prefer to support the real developers and I got it really fast. Some coworkers who also do radio hobby stuff have been waiting a month or more for their clones to ship.

[bicycleguy]

...
There were far more shady business practices that I initially kept silent about, ...,
hostile over-buying of components to deplete stock and prevent anyone else from getting them, etc etc.....

No wonder nobody seems to have the correct 4 inch displays for sale !  Lots of almost, but when you get to ordering they're not available or 3.5 inch, or no touch.

[all_repair]

@owo, I think people would like to buy SAA2 from your endorsement as much as possible, at least I am speaking for myself.  But most of us already got a few nanovna (3 for myself) and can afford to wait for a complete one with as good enclosure as possible, with or without battery is fine as we can load in a battery later.  For me, I find many engineers want to make and sell what they want people to buy, But not what people actually want to buy.   My next nanovna need to have better spec, at least a 4inch LCD, must have a proper enclosure.

[OwO]

They have the acrylic enclosure that is fully enclosed which I designed. For the 4 inch version we are considering paying someone here to do the enclosure design, since my enclosure design skills do not go much beyond laser cut acrylic stuff. Also a metal enclosure worsens isolation between ports, that's why we aren't going that direction.

I don't care so much where you buy from, but what I do care about is when people (especially intentionally like the OP) talk about the V2 as if it's hugen's design. No, he ripped off our client and played foul business practices, and users have the audacity to praise him.

[Kean]

@owo, I think people would like to buy SAA2 from your endorsement as much as possible, at least I am speaking for myself.  But most of us already got a few nanovna (3 for myself) and can afford to wait for a complete one with as good enclosure as possible, with or without battery is fine as we can load in a battery later.  For me, I find many engineers want to make and sell what they want people to buy, But not what people actually want to buy.   My next nanovna need to have better spec, at least a 4inch LCD, must have a proper enclosure.

Exactly this.  The product packaged by Hugen linked above (4" screen, battery, enclosure, N connectors, cables, carry bag, etc) is basically a finished product at a really good price.

While some will prefer SMA connectors, it is otherwise what people will want over an incomplete/lesser product for only a small discount.  Most buyers wont care if it is a clone as long as it works.  Some wont even care if it doesn't perform as well as the original.  And some others will only ever buy the cheapest option anyway.

Edit: I just saw your post recommending against metal enclosure.  I hate laser cut acrylic enclosures.  It would be great if you could offer a matching 3D printable enclosure - either free download, or get them printed in China and add a small profit margin.  That is surely still cheaper and less hassle than getting printed in the West for those without access to a 3D printer.  It should not be hard to find someone who could handle the 3D design - maybe if no one here can help then you could reach out to Naomi Wu for suggestions as she seems to have good contacts.

Please also keep in mind that some of us will want to help support your ongoing work through direct donations if there was some way for us to do that.

[OwO]

And based on the cost of N type connectors, cables, and cal kit, taking into account the 8% Aliexpress fee he is selling very close to cost. I'm sure once he drives everyone else out of business he will jack the price right up. NanoVNA-H has a profit margin of over 3x, his V2 has a margin of less than 1.2x. He can do that because he did not foot any R&D costs. This isn't proper competition and even the shenzhen clones don't use such aggressive tactics.
I think my client is still doing fine at this point, as long as users don't do them a disfavor by promoting these sellers like the OP does, or at least credit us or our client.

[OwO]

I don't take donations because I'm personally doing fine, but with the way things are going in 2020 I'm concerned for the future of open source hardware because I'm now seeing everyone close their designs left and right, and we will be pressured to do the same. Another developer that I'm unrelated to have resorted to close sourcing their firmware even though that's violating the GPL. It looks like the days of being able to run a business selling open source hardware are behind us, now even if you sell at a reasonably low margin the aggressive players will fight tooth and nail for their monopoly status.

[Kean]

Such is the nature of open source.  You will get some who contribute to everyones benefit, sometime in wonderful ways.  And there will be others who just try to profit from, and maybe even take credit for, your hard work - without any actual contribution.  It has pretty much been like this forever.  They may even provide a negative contribution if they tarnish your "brand" - look what happened to the Unix brand thanks to SCO/Caldera.  The main thing is to try avoiding doing that to yourself.

About all you can do is keep iterating and improving on the hardware design, as you seem to be.  Cloners could end up with excess stock of an older design when the new one comes out, killing their magins.  The Arduino brand is a "good" example of how this can/does work with open source hardware, although they've made some rather bizzare missteps along the way.  What happened with Arduino clones has possibly hurt resellers as much as anyone.

The extra support I mentioned could be going to HCXQS rather than you personally if that is where it is needed.  It is a pity stores are not allowed to set up a tip jar or similar on Tindie.  I'm sure there are some other ways we could help to keep HCXQS "encouraged" despite the clones should it become needed.

[OwO]

About all you can do is keep iterating and improving on the hardware design, as you seem to be.  Cloners could end up with excess stock of an older design when the new one comes out, killing their magins.  The Arduino brand is a "good" example of how this can/does work with open source hardware, although they've made some rather bizzare missteps along the way.  What happened with Arduino clones has possibly hurt resellers as much as anyone.

You are right, that is what we are trying to do now with the upcoming V2-N (now renamed to V2 Plus to avoid confusion) that will increase sweep rate and lower noise. We will end up offering battery + 3D enclosure like everyone else. At this point we and our client are both doing fine, but we need to think of a better way to avoid new versions just getting cloned immediately. MiniVNA seems to do just fine even with clones allegedly performing better than official devices, I wonder how they pull that off.

[Kean]

the upcoming V2-N (now renamed to V2 Plus to avoid confusion)

Oh yay...

that will increase sweep rate and lower noise

Cool - I am looking forward to that.   
Also gives me an incentive to save my pennies right now for something I actually need - a higher bandwith current clamp (Micsig CP2100B).

[aristarchus]

Unfortunately, in eevblog so far we see only OwO posting and this person's opinion.
Regardless, I guess Hugen 'speaks' with the quality and completeness of his products.
BTW, it is totally unfair IMHO, when OwO is trying to show as an original idea product and everyone else is a cloner.
In the NanoVNA area, everybody knows that edy555, cho45 and hugen79 are the pioneers, edy555 has the original idea active since 2016. Everybody is reusing with modifications their initial concept, the opensource github firmware, methodology, PC applications and PC to device comunication protocol.
I completely understand, although not my liking, why a newcomer in 2020 like OwO wants to twist that, it is ..good business practice   

In any case, after starting working in my life, now I'm in my fifth decade in business and markets, I've seen enough and witnessed enough to have my own opinion on who is honest and who tries to deceive in a particular situation.

For you OwO, I do not know who HCXQS is or who you are or what business relationship you have and to be honest I'm not interested to read it in a forum post where everyone writes whatever without proof. If your products are good then they will 'speak' about you.
I do like the idea that nowadays devices are insanely cheap and Hugen's got an excellent packaging. This packaging is where you need to focus. Just dont give half finished gizmos, pay attention to detail and quality like Hugen does.
Then your product will shine and stand out. Its up to you.


Aristarchus.

[OwO]

In the NanoVNA area, everybody knows that edy555, cho45 and hugen79 are the pioneers, edy555 has the original idea active since 2016. Everybody is reusing with modifications their initial concept, the opensource github firmware, methodology, PC applications and PC to device comunication protocol.

V2 is designed from scratch and not based on the original NanoVNA. https://www.rtl-sdr.com/nanovna-version-2-0-first-pcb-pictures-released-nanovna-naming-credit-clarifications/
Only the firmware is derived from the NanoVNA firmware, all DSP and VNA math are rewritten and only the UI is kept.

With people confusing facts like you do, the only option we have left is closing the hardware design, not letting hugen on it at all, and then you'll have "evidence" who's the original.