Why That Phone Charger Took Two Years to Arrive – NYTimes.com

Designing and fabricating a basic prototype was much harder than they had expected, and they spoke wearily of the process of obtaining permission from Apple to sell the case as a licensed accessory.

I am glad I keep reading this articles. I am reminded many times that people underestimate the manufacturing end of the product. It is great fun designing, marketing and branding, but hey you finally have to make the thing since you promised to deliver it. That is where the fun really is. At the last New York Hardware Meetup it was a abundantly clear from the panel that the manufacturing planing was a key thing that was underestimated.

Manufacturing plan is very important. The other item left out is DFM (Design For Manufacturability). People have forgotten about this too. Not forgot, but did not know they need to know that this is part of the product development and manufacturing process. The DFM process makes sure that your product is manufacturable. Without it you have no way of knowing if your product is manufacturable. It is best to keep DFM in mind when you are prototyping your product. That being said, there are many variables when it comes to DFM. In a nutshell you need to work with a person that has the skills and experience working with a factory to know what those variables are.

via Why That Phone Charger Took Two Years to Arrive – NYTimes.com.

The 17th NY Hardware Meetup At the New Microsoft Space In Times Square

This month the meet up was at the new Microsoft corporate looking space. It was funny I walked in and thought about the times I worked at IBM. The space was huge. I would say that this space was at least three times the size when compared to the space at eBay. It was a welcomed relief not to be packed in like sardines.

Tom Kennedy (EnergyHub & Refactory) and Stephan von Muelhen (EnergyHub)

At this event we had two groups presenting. Tom Kennedy and Stephan von Muelhen first talked about their experiences at EnergyHub and what they learned a long the way about the manufacturing experience. They had some great pearls of wisdom that I totally agree with.

Tom Kennedy (EnergyHub & Refactory) and Stephan von Muelhen (EnergyHub)

The line from one of their slides said it best for me, “Process is product”. There are a lot of details that need taken care of when you are manufacturing a product. There a thousand things that can go wrong at any given time. Developing a great product means that you know the process from end to end. I can’t tell you how many times I talk with startups that refuse to embrace what needs doing from start to finish. “Embrace The Horror”. This does means that you have an understanding of what needs to get done and realize that there are things that will come up that you may not of thought of. Actually for startups it is not a matter of if, but when it will happen. Since most startups are new to manufacturing and process in general.

Tom Kennedy (EnergyHub & Refactory) and Stephan von Muelhen (EnergyHub)

Tom Kennedy introduced us to his next venture called ReFactory. So, in a nutshell, ReFactory wants to make the PCB/PCBA development and manufacturing process easy. They have many services ranging from design consulting to real PCBA. One main point is that the work is done in the USA in Brooklyn, New York.

Christina Mercando, founder of Ringly Presents

The next presenter was the fab Christina Mercando, founder of Ringly. I have to say that the product is great looking. It looks high end and wearable. Men’s version? It was great to hear her prospective on bringing a fashionable product to market. I have talked to people who have studied this and they say we are at the infancy of this. I think that Ringly has done some great execution. There are many obstacles to get a product like this to market such as look, electronics and battery size. It just can’t be to big and the battery must last for most of the day. The radios have to penetrate the casing for charging and for Bluetooth. It seems they have solved these problems. The ring is big, but it goes with the styling. Congrats on the great execution.

That was the last presentation. Another one was schedule, but they called to cancel.

Check it out. I have more pictures of the event below. Sorry for the low light conditions, but you should make out the slides and the speakers ok. I did my best to caption the images and make adjustments to the images. Enjoy.

Hardware Meetup Organizer Haytham Elhawary

This me presenting for MakeSimply

The Crowd at the NY Hardware Meetup

Hardware Meetup Organizer Haytham Elhawary Talks About Changes in VC’s and Angel Investing

Tom Kennedy (EnergyHub & Refactory) and Stephan von Muelhen (EnergyHub)

Christina Mercando, founder of Ringly Presents

The 16th NY Hardware Meetup and 17th MakeIt NYC Meetup Join Forces For “Hardware Making Cities Better” Competition Sponsored by Mini

This week the event hosted at eBay. Nice space, but the event is out growing the space and the do not allow us to stay there and network after the event ends. When the event ends we have to leave. It is damn hot there. They need to turn on some AC when an event is happening there.

BMW Mini

Mini sponsored a hardware presentation competition in partnership with the NY Hardware Meetup. Last month contestants submitted product ideas that focused on improving life in the city using connected devices, infrastructure and services that make life enjoyable, more secure or more sustainable.

The finalists presented at the event. Here they are:

Birdi: A smoke detector that not only protects your fire it is also a smart air monitor for your home

Radiator Labs: A cover for your radiator that can solve the overheating problems in your steam-heated NY apartment. No more opening up the windows.

Hevo: Wireless electrical charging for commercial vehicles.

eKick: Charge your battery while cruising on your long board skate board.

Enertiv: Provides a hardware and software solution that is inexpensive and smart that monitors electricity usage in your home or building. They use the data they collect to recommend ways to save energy and improve ROI.

Hevo Power

First up was Steven Monks, COO of Hevo Power. I have met these guys before, but have never seen them present. The presentation was good, but I wish you could see a live demo of their product.

Birdi

Next up was Jess Seilheimer, Strategy & Marketing of Birdi. Birdi is an interesting product that is a combination air quality monitoring system and fire alarm system. In the long run Birdi wants to give you knowledge from the information they gather. Such as open a window you have too much Co2 in the air. They are in direct competition with Nest’s Nest Protect product. I have met the founders before and it was great to see their progress and their presentation. It would have been great to have seen a demo up close. They did show a video, but I like the live demos better.

Enertiv

Pavel Khodorkovskiy Co-Founder of Enertiv was up next. Enertiv is part of the R/GA TechStars Connected Devices Accelerator . Wow his presentation was amazing. His execution was perfect. The graphics and animation were subtle and yet place at the right time. After the event I asked Pavel about it. R/GA helped put the presentation together and he had some great coaching from TechStars. It really pays off. Again it was flawless.

Radiator Labs

Next up was Meg Sutton Data Scientist from Radiator Labs. She gave a nice statistical presentation that had graphs showing the before and after of using their product. I like the idea of the product, but when asked how much it costs, $270, I thought it cost too much money. Their competition is the ease of opening a window, which cost tenants nothing. Most, if not all, rentals in NYC include the heat and hot water. So why spend that amount of money on a rental. If however you owned the property and using the product would save you money on the heating bills, then yeah buy it. I have seen products like this before. The problem they face is convincing the landlords to get the tenants to use the product. All in all I like the idea and technology behind it, but it is not cheap when compared to fans and opening up a window. It would have been nice to have seen the product up close.

eKick

The last presentation was from Ivan Estevez and Aulio Diaz from eKick. I talked with them after the presentation. They are undergrad engineering students at City College and this was their first time presenting their product. They did a great job. I could not believe it was their first time. The crowd loved them. To my surprise they have working prototypes with them to show. Very cool.

Now the crowd was asked to choose the winners. I wish they used a product like EasyPoll. People were voting twice and in some cases three times. They used the old manual counting of the hands method. It was fun and jovial, but not exact. There was a tie between eKick and Hevo Power. They asked everyone to vote again. The winner of the “Hardware Making Cities Better” Competition Sponsored by Mini was…eKick. Wow a first time presenting team won. That was awesome. I have to say I was a little biased because the eKick guys are from NYC. The Bronx. Home town team has done good.

The winners

Haytham Intro

RGA

NY Hardware Meetup March 2014

MakeSimply Presents

Mini BMW

BMW Mini

Hevo Power

Birdi

Enertiv

Enertiv

Radiator Labs

eKick

The Winners

The 15th NY Hardware Meetup and 16th MakeIt NYC Meetup Join Forces For a Blow Out Event!

My how much the community has grown. The NY Hardware Meetup is at it’s 15th meetup. The MakeIt NYC is at it’s 16th meetup. All the meetups have been chock full of interesting stories coming from the trenches of the hardware scene in NYC. This one is no different except that the attendance was through the roof (see image above of standing room only crowd). By the way the back of the head in the foreground is Jonathan Hirschman organizer of the MakeIt NYC Meetup. If you wanted to know.

This event was a joint event between the NY Hardware Meetup and MakeIt NYC Meetup. Four entrepreneurs presented. After the announcements, next year predictions and sponsor pitches the audience was treated to some great startup stories.

Patrick Raymond presented his Curvit product and the two-year journey from it’s conception to national retail. Curvit solves one of life’s annoyances – it stops “shower cling”, and gives you more space for your daily spritz at the same time. Patrick is the founder of the Inventors Association of Manhattan, and he has hosted of Food Network’s Invention Hunters. It was great to see his progress and he started a Indiegogo campaign.

Coming off of their successful Dragon Innovation crowdfunding effort, Hammerhead Piet Morgan, Laurence Wattrus, and Raveen Beemsingh told the story of how they started. I wish I had a picture of the slide they showed of the iterations of their product. They started out in a apartment in New Jersey. LIving together, sharing space and creating a great product. It was great to hear about their problems they faced and the direction they want to take the company. Motorcycle support is next! They are in the R/GA Connect Devices Accelerator.

Next up was Kurt Workman‘s and Jacob Colvin‘s story about their Owlet product. The product takes baby monitoring to a whole new level. The Owlet Vital Monitor collects heart rate, oxygen and sleep data, and helps keep parents aware of possible indicators of danger. It was great to hear their story. As parents or would be parents themselves they were their own first customer. Their presentation was great and very warm feeling. Showing baby faces on the screen made people say awe. They fielded questions expertly such as “What about the RF signal? Would cause the baby hard”. Their answer was two fold. They said that doctors say the risks out way the value you get from the information and how Bluetooth LE has at least 10 times less power then cellular RF. Their knowledge showed through. Way to go guys. They are also in the R/GA Connect Devices Accelerator.

Next and not least was Ben Melinger. He tells us two stories. The first one was about Smash Cup, a cool green, clean collapsible travel tumbler. I could use this product. I would make coffee at home and then take it with me. Clean it, collapse the cup and through it in my bag. Done. My bag is small so it would fit nicely collapsed. The other product story we heard was bout Fyll, a fashion-forward, tough glass water bottle that keeps water from being flavor enhanced (in a negative way) by plastic or metal flavors. Ben talked about his journey from beginner to pro. He gave the MakeSimply X Education program a shout out. Thx Ben. His story continued by discussing the hurdles he had to over come to get his products to the state they are today. One such hurdle was having to learn SolidWorks. For those that don’t know SolidWorks is a very popular CAD tool that is used to render complex solid 3D drawings and helps you move toward an engineering drawing. The type of drawing that factories want to see. He discussed the huge cost of entry it is to buy this product. He wishes there was a cheaper solution out there that is just as popular. Thanks Ben for your great insights.

All in all it was a great event. We have defiantly outgrown that space. I can’t wait for the next meetup.

Disclaimer MakeSimply, a company I am co-founder of is co-sponsor of this event.

The Tech Chronicles

A blog about startups, business, hardware and Science. Just about anything business and technology related — Really.

NY Hardware Meetup

Why That Phone Charger Took Two Years to Arrive – NYTimes.com

The 17th NY Hardware Meetup At the New Microsoft Space In Times Square

The 16th NY Hardware Meetup and 17th MakeIt NYC Meetup Join Forces For “Hardware Making Cities Better” Competition Sponsored by Mini

The 15th NY Hardware Meetup and 16th MakeIt NYC Meetup Join Forces For a Blow Out Event!

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: