I'm not in the tech community, but I have an idea for a device I want to get made (just for my own convenience; nothing commercial or for an organization). Is there an existing platform for soliciting someone to build an electronic gadget for me?
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How much money are you willing to spend? It's likely 2 orders of magnitude lower than what it will cost
Also, if someone offers to build it for just one order of magnitude more than you're willing to spend… they might be incompetent and be unable to actually finish the project. And they likely won't start at all until you pay a substantial upfront deposit.
Depending on the complexity, you could look at something as simple as a raspberry pi pico or Arduino to a full SBC like the raspberry pi 4 (or 5 when that releases)
What's the project? Just curious.
I think it would help answering this question quite a bit if we knew what it was. Is OP worried someone will take their idea or something?
“Electronic device” could mean anything.
I suspect that may be the issue. They're playing the idea close to the chest, which means they may want to prototype an invention then produce it for a profit.
The issue is, if they're asking such basic questions on "how to get an electronic device made", then likely they don't have the expertise to really understand the device well enough to get it made or improve on it in any meaningful way or provide real support. They probably also lack the insight to invent something really useful that the DIY community doesn't already have designs for. Whatever they make will probably suck for all these reasons.
My advice would be that ideas are cheap, implementation is hard, and if you want to get away with throwing out a bunch of ideas with engineers at your beck and call to make it all happen then you need access to VC funding and a dearth of morals. In other words you need to be Steve Jobs several decades ago.
Every technical person has heard "I have an idea for something can you make it we'll be rich" and none of them with any real talent has ever been interested.
Unless they come back with "no I just want a basic device to do something simple just for me", in which case it probably already exists and they'll get a lot further by asking direct questions.
Bingo. Ideas are worth nothing. Literally. I’ve heard a lot of people’s ideas for products or services in the industry where I work, and they’re almost never even well thought out as ideas. Just “this would be cool.” No thought to how it would get maintained, if the cost to make it is going to be anywhere close to the price people would pay for it. Would it require any special data to function, and where are you going to get that? Blah blah on and on. Manufacturing technology is so available now that simple ideas for “this would be cool” are either snapped up already OR will be stolen by Chinese copycats the second you make it. I really have no patience for “this would be cool” ideas anymore.
Hey, wow this blew up! I should turn notifications on. I want a programmable IR volume knob. Just a big, chunky knob to set on the table or couch to control my home theater receiver. No Bluetooth or Wifi or zigbee or anything like that. That's all.
Gotcha. The tricky part with that is gonna be that it's specific to the model of your entertainment system.
Means that if whoever you have working on it is non-local, they'll need to find a duplicate of your entertainment system to test on to make sure it works, which is obviously not super feasible.
If a local buddy asked me to build something like that, I had the time, and I charged fair market value for the work, you're probably looking at a couple grand.
If it was a good buddy and I only charged for parts, it'd probably be only a hundred bucks or so?
I wouldn't even really consider doing it as a remote job, as getting a copy of your receiver is more trouble than it's worth I think. Depends on the receiver to some degree though I guess.
That's insightful, thanks. Not knowing the subtleties of it, I imagined they would just need to make sure the thing has an IR receiver and is programmable, which they can test with whatever remotes and associated devices they have around. Then I could program the finished thing with my remote at home.
I (tried to) send you a message, there doesn't seem to be a 'Sent' box on Lemmy so I can't verify it sent successfully. Let me know if you didn't get it.
Fair. That's a clever solution to getting around the problem of needing to duplicate your set up.
It is a big step up in complexity though, as you now need an IR receiver as well as an IR blaster, some sort of physical button(s) on the device that puts it into "learning" mode to detect what signal it needs to duplicate (and indicate if it's learning volume up or down), and all the additional development overhead each of those entails.
You'd probably see a good jump in the parts cost too. Especially as, when adding more controls and sensors, it increases the complexity of the enclosure you'd put all this in, meaning you probably would need some CAD work done as well. Or someone willing to do some precision woodworking.
All told it's probably about three to five times harder than just knowing the correct IR sequences up front and baking them into the product, so you'd see a commensurate increase in price.
It really depends how complex the gadget is. Each step will be at least an order of magnitude more expensive than the last.
- Something that already exists that you can buy off the shelf
- An off the shelf device setup with off the shelf software
- A custom device made using easily obtainable parts
- A fully custom piece of hardware
It's not really meant for soliciting, but Tindie is the closest thing I can think of what you're looking for. https://www.tindie.com/ You could find something in the same ballpark of what you're looking for and contact the person who made it and ask if they would be interested in doing custom projects.
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What about a watch that have a foldable pen inside it?
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I'd also like to hear what your idea is. I don't know of a platform to solicit someone building your device at a price you'll be wanting to pay, but there are forums to help you learn how to do it yourself if you're motivated enough.
If it's cool enough to pique interest, you could try posting the concept in an electronics community and seeing if anyone's interested in the challenge, or an ideas community and just floating it for people to choose to run with.
It's also possible the device already exists and someone can suggest an easy option for you
Maybe on Fiverr? How complex is it?
