Ask HN: How do you search for products / apps given a list of requirements?

I’m kind of confused about product-market fit evolving backwards but find it helpful to see items that are available at present. Maybe Best Buy has a compare item feature that enables you to closely view product requirements.

Often I begin from the assumption that the marketplace -- for some reason -- wants to gather as much information about customers as possible, rather than to sell them minimal products that meet their requirements, and so:

- Unless you're careful, searching around may lead you to multiple, spammy-looking websites and domains that appear designed to gather your purchase intent and search information, to share/sell and affect your decision-making

- The products that you find may include surplus functionality (be that hardware, software, subscriptions, tracking, account login requirements, ...) that aren't genuinely required for the requirements that you have

- Since vendors want to build social influence around their products (again, to affect your purchase decision-making and that of your peers), they'll potentially provide rewards, discounts, talking points, and other perks to highly-networked individuals as long as those people remain brand-loyal

- Since continued revenue is an incentive for many vendors, they'll reinvent products on a regular basis and/or use planned obsolescence to encourage you to spend more than once for essentially the same functionality. That could be accompanied by marketing/social-influence campaigns to subtly (or not so subtly) discredit previously-acceptable products (especially if those continue to meet requirements). I can see there being public-good reasons for migration away from problematic products of the past; however I'm not convinced that they're commonly the reason these upgrade cycles are suggested

- If competing products emerge that may meet requirements and are seeing high adoption rates, there is a possibility that vendors will acquire ownership of the competing product outright (stifling competition, although also perversely creating incentives for new-entrant companies to create apparent-competitors that are largely intended to be flipped to a larger incumbent rather than to distribute a lasting higher-quality solution)

- Similarly, if competing products/technologies exist, then vendors may encourage the promotion of brand names that obscure (duplicate, or are similar to) the name of the competitor, causing various forms of confusion and dividing would-be adopters (and their opinions) between the vendor's brand and the competitor's brand

It's possible that I've misinterpreted and misunderstood some behaviours of industry here - based on those, you could be excused for thinking that the goal of these vendors is to extract as much revenue as possible from people as opposed to providing lasting, effective and sustainable products.

By the sounds of it, I think what you want is something like a robust, reliable solid-state music player, as commonly available at low-cost over a decade ago.

The Wirecutter - generally a trustworthy resource - has a section on audio equipment[1], although they don't mention any portable personal music players, as far as I can tell (possibly because many people use their smartphones for this purpose, nowadays).

Rockbox[2] (not to be confused with a similarly-named line of music players) is an open source firmware project that can run on a range of devices[3], many of which may meet most of your requirements.

However, unfortunately it does not appear to have widespread bluetooth support currently. There is work-in-progress[4] on that (last updated in 2020), but one of the challenges with free-and-open-source software is that timescales are difficult to predict, and adding demand/pressure for functionality and bugfixes doesn't always help, so it's hard to tell if-and-when that may be available.

The website gh.de (mentioned in the HN thread that you link to) has a fairly good price-comparison section[5] for portable music players with many relevant filters.

In general: I try to wait until a product that meets requirements arrives (although this often means being well-behind-the-curve compared with peers), try to use the existing devices I...

I happened to be looking for a similar portable music player / conference call headset recently.

My process was to first identify a close-enough product using a search engine like Google or Amazon, and identify the relevant search terms (in my case, "portable DAC Amp". Then, if possible, I'll find a specialty forum for that product niche, and read user reviews there and on Reddit, Amazon, AliExpress, and/or blogs and dig into products that users compare it to or suggest as replacements (or use "$PRODUCT vs" search queries and see what shows up on top).

Then finally read the product manual. This is a very manual and time-consuming process. Or you could just ask here on HN :)

For your requirements, I'd recommend putting Rockbox onto something like an iPod:

- https://www.rockbox.org/

- https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/TargetStatus

- https://www.rockbox.org/manual.shtml

[X] Plays from filesystem

[X] Support OGG, FLAC, other file formats

[X] Equalizer

[X] Shuffle, Fade, etc.

[X] Open source firmware

For my particular use-case, the objective criteria were slightly different:

[X] lightweight / has a clip: 25g, metal clip

[X] high quality audio output via audio jack, that can drive a headphone

[X] move the bluetooth antenna farther away from my head: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/07/01/health-risks-of-cell-ph...

Since I use a phone for media storage, I dropped the "plays from filesystem" requirement, and can play virtually any audio format using apps.

- Fiio BTR5 (get 2021 or later version for better Bluetooth range):

[X] Display

[X] Easy to use interface

[X] equalization, but EQ does not work with LDAC codec

- Qudelix 5K (if you can drop the display requirement)

[ ] Display

[X] Very powerful/configurable app

[X] equalization with LDAC codec

https://www.reddit.com/r/HeadphoneAdvice/comments/vo8dua/wha...

I might consider reframing. For instance, instead of enumerating the list of features, enumerate what you want to accomplish, which is really something different. And then see whether that can help guide you towards a solution.

One thing I recommend being comfortable with is that you will probably not find something that satisfies 100% of your use cases.

find the appropriate subreddit, see if they have a buying guide, if not go to ddg and search "[best product/beginner's guide/whatever] site:reddit.com/r/[subreddit"

Word-of-mouth, popularity, familiarity and availability are the biggest factors for using some products; and of course how well it works. A lot of times products find us. I usually start using an app or product, until I find something that is better.

OP has a long list of very specific list requirements. When I have specific requirements, it is usually about ingredients in food items, or things like 100% cotton shirts; and it is rather a short list. How do I find them -- it is usually hard.

Usually, for electronic devices I start with the Open Source Projects recommendations or first class support items... They usually have good hardware quality e.g. for a smartphone, I look at lineage devices first and then check out reviews for these, that work for me from looking at the specs.

For your purpose, there is no such audio player, I know of. The best devices I know atm are:

  - iPod Nano 7th gen 16GB
    - Pro: Size, Bluetooth, UI
    - Con: Battery, Storage, Formats, req. iTunes, no Wifi / NFC, No Upgrades
  - iPod classic (mod with iFlash Quad and 2200mah battery + iKokkia Bluetooth)
    - Pro: Storage, Battery, UI, Hackable (kind of)
    - Con: Size, Formats, req. Itunes, No native Bluetooth/Wifi/NFC, No upgrades
    - Maybe you should think of RockBox to have more freedom
  - LG G5 H850 (optional with Bang & Olufsen Hifi-Plus module) + Audiobookshelf + Substreamer
    - Pro: Formats, Battery, Storage, Bluetooth/Wifi/NFC, Hackable
    - Con: Size, UI (I did not find a Server/App nearly as good as iPod)

Let me cite my comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32042780:

I use m4b-tool[1], tone[2] and audiobookshelf[3] together with an LG G5 H850 smartphone[8] with Bang & Olufsen Hifi-Plus Module for Audio Only and I am pretty happy with this config. For Music I use Navidrome[5] and Substreamer App[7]. Maybe I'll try out Jellyfin[4] or maybe Plex[6], but I really don't wanna go closed source.

I also thought about writing something self hosted in C# to have ONE solution for audiobooks, podcasts and music and started a small private project, but this will take a while until it is ready to release something...

You may ask: Why an LG G5 H850? Well, its relatively small and cheap (about 50 - 80 bucks used) it has an audio Jack, USB-C, you can change the battery, it can hold up to 2TB microSD storage, has an HiFi Plus module for audio enthusiasts and a descent screen. Besides that it can run lineage os...

Note: I'm the author of the first two projects :-)

[1]: https://github.com/sandreas/m4b-tool

[2]: https://github.com/sandreas/tone

[3]: https://github.com/advplyr/audiobookshelf

[4]: https://jellyfin.org/

[5]: https://www.navidrome.org/

[6]: https://www.plex.tv

[7]: https://substreamerapp.com/

[8]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_G5

Yep. Standard search engines, with a wardialer level of persistence. Probably unhealthy, since it takes a lot of time....

I usually start with whatever the biggest name brand is that isn't Apple-ized(Made with lots of incompatibilities, a "think different" attitude, expensive, prioritizing "luxury craftsmanship" over high tech, etc).

I usually use a lot of quotes in searches. And I generally will always look for the more generalized versions.

In this case, my first search would be "Bluetooth" mp4 player "ogg" "opus" "flac" "type-c" which has some interesting results.

Related features are also helpful and can sometimes be used as proxies for features that aren't always clearly described. Most of the ones with FM radio also have a 3.5mm jack.

I'm not rich, and I generally trust mass produced tech, so I'm not really sure about the top of the pyramid or how to find it. Ideally I like name brands, but in general solid state stuff is a lot harder to mess up than older stuff. A bad record player might be truly bad, a bad mp3 player is probably just kind of OK. and will probably continue working for 10 years, just a bit annoyingly. A more midrange MP3 player is probably pretty great.

With a lot of things, there's only so much you can do. Playing MP3s is mostly solved, there's no reason a $30 device can't do it very well, if it has all the features.

I've never tried to find something like an MP3 player or any of those "Phones do it now" devices though. That might be a bit harder now that they are mostly a low end thing, and most(Myself included) just focus on making sure you have a great phone, and not bothering with dedicated gear.

Building my own is the one thing I try to almost never to. Yes, I generally describe my job title as embedded systems engineer. No, I do not want to add another custom project to my life.

What I might do if I was really dedicated is to look for something unrelated with moddable open firmware. Perhaps one of the keychain sized ESP32 game consoles.

Last resort, it is in fact totally reasonable to DIY things these days.... I just prefer to curate my projects list very aggressively and I'd rather just use a phone app.

My first thought was could you convert OGG and FLAC to MP3 and then you would be able to play them on any player player that supports MP3?

But then I realized maybe not because this would create friction / a speed bump impeding the direct playing of files acquired in those formats.

This shows a clear fail of Google to close the sale at the best possible moment. Instead of answering your question to the best of their abilities, Google just returns another pile of web spam wasting an opportunity.

I hate to add another bullet. and I don’t know if you care or not, but a lot of people take it for granted that Bluetooth music devices have stereo playback over bluetooth, when in fact many of them surprisingly do not.

Yes the content matters when deciding whether stereo helps or not; that is obvious… I was adding a point about stereo that is less obvious.

> How do you do it?

I don't. I find the closest thing that I already own (in this case perhaps an iPhone?) and make sure to use that for a while.

When something about the existing solution annoys me, I move to a product that solves that particular annoyance; At the same time I keep in mind that the search itself can be an effort and I make sure that the search isn't more annoying than the actual annoyance.

In the end it often turns out I can solve 90% of the problem with 10% of effort.

If you've already tried an iPhone, maybe pick a random used mp3 player, try using that for a while and see where this gets you?

Not an answer to your question but similarly, I've been searching for clothing lately and I have no idea how to search effectively. Example: I wanted to find a shirt I saw. It was a pretty straight forward mens long sleeve shirt with vertical red, white, and black stripes.

Putting that in Google, Google doesn't know what "vertical" means. It doesn't limit the search to "red+white+black" shirts. Of the first 60 hits only 4 actually match the search.

It's no better on etsy. first page of hits, (48 results, 3 matches that actually fit)

ebay has 2 matches of its first page of results and as for how bad it is, the 2nd results is for a woman's shirt. If the search engine had any smarts whatsoever it would prioritize "mens" over "womens" for a search for products with "mens" in the search string.

I know search must be hard but sometimes it feels from the outside that there's a ton of low-hanging fruit to be grabbed.

I try to find a comparison of a relatively large number of devices to get an overview first. Some sites do summary tables in which they list attributes similar to those you listed. Heise.de for example often does that in their product tests. If I'm lucky, there will even be a site that lets you filter down a list of products by checking boxes (like [1] for monitors) [2].

Even if not all my search criteria are listed in the tables/filters, it allows me to reduce the number of individual products that I need to take a closer look at afterwards. If I cannot find information on whether a specific product has a certain feature from the manufacturer's pages or an independent review, I check Reddit or similar forums.

An initial problem with discovering good comparison and overview sites is of course the amount of SEO spam out there. I've made good experiences with using Kagi [3] instead of Google in these cases.

[1] https://www.prad.de/test-kaufberatung/produktsuche/monitor-s...

[2] Idea: Someone should make an 'awesome' list of such product comparison sites, if it doesn't exist already.

[3] https://kagi.com/

A useful trick is to start with a known product/app and try those queries in Google: "alternative to <product name>" or "<product name> vs". I often do that to find software recommendations and usually end up on https://alternativeto.net/, but I suppose it could work for other types of products as well.

You are likely looking for a FiiO. Not sure about BT as that's not very common with audiophiles I guess.

My go to "trick" is just to slap Reddit or hacker news to the end of the search. And if something doesn't already have a post addressing the specific topic, go to the subreddit and query the community

Is this fits your requirement?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shanlingaudio/shanling-...

I've been building a product search engine that uses only organic indicators to rank products. I just tested with a query "mp3 device player" and the url mentioned above showed up.

I have this problem every time, and really what we need is some crowd-sourced open database that lets people add attributes to products. I mean Wikipedia already has great tables for comparing software, for example version control systems [1]. There are specialized sites for things like Android phones [2] or PC monitors [3]. Amazon and Google Shopping often let you filter by attributes, but since many products aren't comprehensively tagged, you'll miss a lot if you use the filter (something that crowd sourcing could solve). Looking online, there only seems to be one project like this called Datakick [4] but it's not very functional.

This kind of database would be a big win for smaller niche product manufacturers, who would be able to easily reach the customers looking for their feature set. And for contributors, the crowd-sourcing could be as simple as a browser extension that overlays on top of product websites (eg Amazon) and lets users easily tag products. I'm surprised something like this hasn't taken off yet.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_version-control_...

[2]: https://www.phonearena.com/phones

[3]: https://www.displayspecifications.com/en/display-finder

[4]: https://www.gtinsearch.org/

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AliExpress

Being UK-based, I would use PriceSpy to filter on all the relevant criteria it supports. For your MP3 player example that narrows it down to 6 devices. That's a small enough number that I can then just skim specs for each, and/or read the manuals.