HN Explorer

Any hardware hackers here at YC?

30 points by lyime ↗ HN
Well here at YC I see a lot of startup talk surrounding software and the web, which I am totally down with. I do have a huge passion about hardware and electronic design. Any of you out there with passion in hardware? Perhaps a startup around hardware? Personally I want to be involved with a software and hardware startup some-point in my life. I think we have many software/web startups and not enough startups in hardware. I might be wrong. Thoughts?

37 comments

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tlrobinson
For sure. I love both the hardware and software sides of things, though unfortunately I don't have much time to dabble with electronics any more.

My last project was a computer-controlled kegerator (while I was in college, of course), called the kegbot:

http://tlrobinson.net/projects/kegbot/

chris
Awesome! 2 Years ago, in college, a buddy and I built the same thing. Our "RFID beverage dispenser" was mostly PC software driven using a USB rfid reader, solenoid valve and key fob. Our goal was to sell these to local bars as self service, self monitoring beer dispensers which could have the ability to monitor a persons BAC. Fun project for sure!
davidw
I always think of hardware as "the part you can kick" :-) I suspect people are more interested in software because it seems so much less expensive to get started with, especially web based stuff.
lyime
This is an interesting point. I think you are right in some ways. People seem to admire software more then hardware. I personally have a thing for beautiful hardware and industrial design. Apple fits that bill but there are lots of other companies that have done some brilliant hardware design that stand out. My inspiration came from being part of the FIRST robotics competition in high school.
thingsilearned
I worked for a short while in gaming hardware design at IBM before starting 8aweek. From what I've seen and heard hardware startups take a LOT more money and have some major risk.

I would really be weary of trying to start a hardware startup. You have to be a known expert, well connected, and have a good business team on your side.

Web startups have an insanely smaller barrier of entry. So if you want to start your own, I would definitely do a web startup. If you're just going to join one then I guess I would go with whichever idea I was more passionate about.

VinzO
The problem is that for a startup in hardware the initial investment will be much more important. If you look only at the development tools (for example : simulation tools) it is already very expensive. And if you don't want to be only a R&D startup, you will have to invest in very expensive production hardware. Maybe the easiest way to start alone is to be a hardware consultant.
anupamkapoor
umm, maybe sorta true only. currently with the price/performance of fpga's fast approaching custom asic's, i think fpga's are not a bad bet to start hacking stuff on.

also, you can buy fpga h/w approx 100k gates etc. for < 1000$ (cheaper if you are student, and can get it via some univ. program). design, and simulation tools are also available for free (with periodic registrations etc.) the only (slight) pain point being that the s/w is generally windows only.

VinzO
FPGA allows you to do digital hardware. My point of view is that a startup will have troubles competing on digital hardware development. Digital hardware is kinda "easy" developpment that can be done much cheaper in eastern europe or asia. For a startup to have a chance to succeed, I guess it would be better to focus in a niche market which required tricky analog design that can not be outsourced or done much faster by big companies.
comatose_kid
Digital vs. analog probably isn't the issue - how well your device solves the user's problem is what people care about. Start with the problem your device should solve first.
mnemonicsloth
This is a good thought process for software, where the marginal cost per user is near zero.

Unit costs matter in hardware though, so first thoughts should tend more toward markets and demographics -- "what problem should I solve... for how much?"

A new Ferrari (or a new Prius) would solve my getting-places problem better than the POS I drive now. I could buy a new Tesla Roadster, which would be better than either one, but that's even less affordable.

Of course, since a hardware startup requires some hefty NRI that you'll probably have to borrow from someone else, you might want to start by polishing up your resume.

danw
Arduino is a pretty cheap way to get started in hardware.
mixmax
I've actually done a hardware startup, and it does face some unique problems that sofware doesn't.

I found that the most time consuming and expensive was turnaround time. If you have a bug in your software you fix it, compile, and go. 10 minutes of work. In hardware your turnaround time can be a week or more if you have to solder around on a breadboard to check changes or bugs.

For the record we managed to build a display device using RGB LED's, a FPGA to control them, a microcontroller to talk to a mobile phone unit that would be able to send and receive updates from a central server, and of course the server that controlled the displays that were scattered around the country in around 1½ years using roughly $150.000. It was an advertising network - take the display, plug it in to a power outlet, and it would wake up and receive news and ads from the central server over the mobile phone network.

corentin
I'm interested in the software side of hardware :) (firmware)
brlewis
I have a great firmware idea I'd like to see implemented.

We bought a digital photo frame last week. Normally it sits horizontally. Horizontal photos fill the frame, but vertical photos are squeezed to fit. It detects when you turn it on its side, so that vertical photos fill the frame and horizontal photos are squeezed to fit.

Squeezed photos are too tiny, so I added horizontal-only and vertical-only Media RSS feeds to ourdoings.com, the world's best photo-sharing site. When we change the orientation of the frame we change the RSS feed.

This works great for my wife and me, but it takes some button pressing to change RSS feeds. Too much button pressing for non-technical people, I think.

If you hacked the firmware so that it switched back and forth automatically according to the orientation sensor, that would be really cool. People could set up a frame, send it to relatives as a gift, and the relatives could just plug it in and watch it go.

http://ourdoings.com/2008-03-01

corentin
I had a quick look at the firmware (file "NK.bin" in the firmware .zip file I found on Samsung's website).

From "strings NK.bin|less", I learned that your frame was designed around an RMI (formerly AMD) Alchemy DB1200 reference board, running Windows CE 5.0 on an Au1200 CPU (MIPS32 architecture). More info about this stuff here: http://www.razamicroelectronics.com/products_alchemy/

IIRC, the Windows CE development kit contains tools to read filesystem dumps such as this one.

edit: there's some open source stuff in it but it looks legit (libFLAC, which is BSD-licensed and dual-license GPL stuff).

comatose_kid
I'm am embedded guy, mostly software side. But I'm not afraid to use a scope or logic analyzer when necessary :)

A more general approach to this problem would be to embed the sensor and a simple core like the ARM7 to handle the image rotation/scaling on a USB memory stick.

Then your product would work with any picture frame.

jgrahamc
I dabble a little in hardware hacking. I just had fun interfacing a simple temperature sensor to my little one's OLPC. Will blog that shortly. Now I'm playing around with Arduino and want to hook it up using an XPort.
izak30
Yes. I have some ideas for web facing hardware...
ejs
My formal education and majority of background is hardware (EE undergrad and grad). I also work full time doing hardware design and firmware mostly. The problem with a lot of hardware is the initial investment and that things take longer. If you are just hacking some simple hareware together like a microcontroller and nothing special its easy to proto, but if you get into things that need to be prototyped on PCBs the cost and time goes up, especially the time factor. I tend to enjoy software more these days simply because I can compile things and test them right away. It can get onerous when you spend days laying out circuit boards, a week or two to spin them, then 2 weeks to get them built, while you just spent about 10k for 50 prototypes.
a-priori
I dabble a bit. I'm a ham radio operator, so I've built and tinkered with radios before. Also, when I have some free time and money (mostly time), I'm going to get an FPGA and explore an idea I had for a massively-parallel processor design.
pius
If anyone is interested in doing interesting hardware/firmware work, get in touch. Our startup is doing some exciting work in the digital cinema space. We're using the Analog Devices Blackfin processor, which is a pretty sweet piece of kit.
corentin
Tell us more!

I'm not doing embedded gigs right now, but as I'm once again leaving my 9 to 5 job, I may be forced to sell myself soon :)

pius
I just added my contact info to my profile, so e-mail me and I'll tell you more. :)

Be forewarned, though, that the person who takes this role will be working for equity/deferred compensation like everyone else, so it may not be the right gig for you if you need to replace a 9-to-5.

rugoso
i have recently been interested in microcontrollers, chips you can program, to control things like motors and leds, and to recive data from sliders / knobs (potentiometers)

i got some PIC programmer and some pic chips and started doing some experiments ... but it seems like for me, a mac os x user, the AVR is a better option

im looking to buy some AVR "kits" from smileymicros.com very soon, as soon as i get some money ;) (i live in mexico so i have to pay more to get fedex)

im into programming music apps to make my own music, and i see a lot of potential to make hardware to control music/sound

hey, if you try the smilemicros kits, let me know ;)

jgrahamc
Look at Arduino. The entire design and software is open source. You can buy or make.
rugoso
thanks jgc

ive heard a lot about the arduino, i think im gonna get one or build one

but i also want to be able to build my own circuits, to learn to program the microcontrollers, so i can get closer to the idea of designing the hardware for my software

tlrobinson
Arduino is also based on Atmel microcontrollers (kind of like BASIC Stamps are based on PICs)
dkd
agree with AVR series, I myself is developing one data logger for my current company. I was using 8051 a few years back then.
npk
A lot of comments here have focused on implementation details. Let's ignore FPGAs, startup costs, etc... One huge advantage of hardware, is that you actually have something you can sell. As an interesting hardware startup archetype, consider Body Bugg:

http://www.bodybugg.com/

Long story short, they built a device to monitor health, but realized, only after being harassed by clients, that the real market was weight loss. Like ebay, they literally had clients begging them for a product.

Personally, I'd love to work at a hardware startup :)

mixmax
I've considered doing a startup that develops and sells integrated instrumentation for yachts and sailboats (lighting, wind measurements, depth, speed, motor sensors, etc. ) I have a pretty good knowledge of yachting (I live on a boat) and see a market. The stuff that's already there is expensive, a few years behind technologically, and it seems that no great hackers have discovered this niche. I have some thoughts on how to improve this, and would love to hear from hardware hackers. My mail is in my profile if you're interested.
powerflex
I've got some ideas around the eInk type displays. Every now and then I send an email to the eInk guys trying to get some bulk rate pricing on their displays - 3 months now and no response. I've got no idea if my ideas for the displays are marketable as I don't know the display costs. These types of problems usher me toward software time and time again...
DarrenStuart
I intend to do one someday. I have a design for a dishwasher and an interesting take on electric motors.

Aren't hackers just frustrated inventors anyway?

pius
heh, some less frustrated than others
electric
>Any of you out there with passion in hardware? Perhaps a startup around hardware?

Yes.

>I think we have many software/web startups and not enough startups in hardware.

I think we have the right number. ;)