Smart design: When the package is a functional part of the tool it’s carrying

https://www.core77.com/posts/107394/Smart-Design-When-the-Package-is-a-Functional-Part-of-the-Tool-Its-Carrying

by fortran77 • 5 years ago

95 52 5 years ago

rStar• 5 years ago

amazon could stop this easily if that was the decision that they made. instead, through their basics program, amazon decided to become “the best of” these types of scammers. or at least the largest scale.

SkyPuncher• 5 years ago

This isn't your typical co-mingling issue with Amazon. This is simply stealing images and building a fake site.

MauranKilom2• 5 years ago

I don't understand why this article was submitted under the current title ("The Orange Screw has fallen prey to Amazon bait-and-switch product pirates"). Surely the actual company post about exactly this [0] as linked in the article would have been a more appropriate basis for discussing this?

The point of this article is about one instance of product packaging also having a secondary function (after a roundabout way of describing applications). Why choose the parenthetical in the sub-heading as the main title for HN?

[0] https://www.orangescrew.com/blogs/news/scam-alert-this-is-no...

zadokshi• 5 years ago

(Aside from promoting someone’s blog?) I guess the main difference is do we want the story told from a personal/emotional narrative perspective or do we want the story told in a corporate Press release form.

Not sure??

Lio2• 5 years ago

Strangely enough when I first saw the Orange Screw site I didn't think it was real because the only product measurements given are in old style imperial units. Maybe real but not something I'd trust to order from.

It seemed suspicious to me that a site claiming to sell world wide with foreign currencies accepted wouldn't show metric units for their product.

I can't put my finger on why exactly but it just looked weird.

scoopertrooper• 5 years ago

Not defending US Customary Units, but is it unreasonable for a product to use the dominant form of measurement of the country in which it is manufactured and primarily marketed towards?

https://www.orangescrew.com/pages/where-to-buy

TheSwordsman• 5 years ago

The ending of that article was a major let-down...

cptskippy• 5 years ago

Yeah, and 7 clicks of the back button to return here.

jbverschoor• 5 years ago

Long live open in new tab.

C19is20• 5 years ago

I swiped left.

armatav• 5 years ago

This is a great advertisement for that screw system.

jbarrs• 5 years ago

By the end of the article I was really starting to wonder whether this was just marketing

Eric_WVGG• 5 years ago

Core77 is an industrial design blog. I’ve been reading it for over ten years. They cover hammers and screwdrivers the same way people in this site discuss Rust and hot new containers technologies. They are enthusiasts and are sometimes enthusiastic.

saint-loup• 5 years ago

"When the package is a functional part of the tool it’s carrying"

Exactly like the iPouch for the new Apple headphones, right?

londons_explore2• 5 years ago

Do not use an Orange screw.

Some snapped while being screwed into my rocky ground, and after just a few weeks holding down my tent the rest all started to fatigue snap.

Making that sort of thing out if plastic is just poor design. Screw threads are far better made of steel. You can use less steel for the same strength and it's more eco friendly when lost in the ground too.

This company is all marketing and very little engineering.

jiri• 5 years ago

This. And I think that we really should focus more on recyclable materials: like steel and aluminium instead of trying to use (unescessary) plastic everywhere.

cromulent• 5 years ago

They are made of 100% recycled material, have a lifetime breakage guarantee, and end-of-product-life recycling.

jodje• 5 years ago

is packaging really packaging if its not in any way useful. Why would the screw need a tube?

roland352• 5 years ago

My only idea of why you need a tube is to keep your bag clean from a dirty used screw?

MauranKilom2• 5 years ago

But the tube is open, no?

culturestate4• 5 years ago

Why would the screw need a tube

It needs some kind of retail packaging (the name of the product, a place to put a UPC sticker, etc) and the end seems pretty pointy, so there's probably a little safety mitigation there, too. Add in the functional piece and you can kill three birds with one plastic tube.

jacobr1• 5 years ago

One of the things I like about going to my local agricultural supply store is that they don't seem to have the need for retail packaging. There are large boxes and creates (clearly labeled most the time) that contain each item. No need to individual package each part. Even the big-box hardware stores do this for things like screws. There are many items that can do with much less packaging.

tonylemesmer• 5 years ago

Yeah, should really just be a smallest cardboard tag if something is really necessary. Can display the barcode and hang it from a peg in the shop. The tube seems like a massive waste.

ruste• 5 years ago

The tube goes through the hole in the top of the screw and acts as a handle/lever to use when driving it into the ground. It serves a useful and well defined purpose.

renewiltord• 5 years ago

Indeed, so it's a screw handle that comes affixed to the screw. OP presents it as dual-use: handle and packaging. But it appears to only have the former use since the latter use is unnecessary.

benjaminjosephw• 5 years ago

Great title for a blog about glue programming.

Pretending that's what this is instead - is the increase in the amount of glue programing job (i.e. assembling software where most of the work is really done by libraries and frameworks) really just a sign that we're missing a layer of abstraction with more appropriate tools?

(bonus question: is a comment unrelated to the posted content still off-topic if it brings the conversation away from discussion about a blatant marketing post?)

roland352• 5 years ago

The ending of this post (lots of cheap knock-offs exist after someone finds a good idea) shows the challenges of designing a hardware product. Just having a cool idea, ie screw-tent-stake, isn't good enough because even if you were able to get a patent there is no way you could slow the tide of cheap knock-off copy-cats.

I believe hardware is still a great opportunity though, you just need to integrate the hardware into a bigger business plan. Have a family of products, software/firmware component, subscription model, etc.

chii• 5 years ago

The thing is that intellectual property can only be enforced for so long (if it's even enforcible). The wheel is a great invention - but nobody got paid for it!

If the cheap chinese knockoff works just as well, then the value proposition of your more expensive production method just isn't justifiable to the end consumer. If the knockoffs don't work well, then you have a business case (to educate your customers).

yarcob• 5 years ago

The problem is that the chinese knockoffs don't work as well, don't even look similar, but are advertised by fraudsters with marketing materials stolen from the original product.

This is not a case of someone making a cheaper version, this is someone defrauding customers.

bellyfullofbac• 5 years ago

The way the article ends is very odd. If you click on the link about the scam products, you can see a pic of the imitation screws, and they don't even have the hole/handle on top, nor the pipe, to be used to screw the thing in.

The article could've highlighted this and then (since it's apparently an ad piece) end with "So to make sure you get the functionality you want, buy at the official blahblah online store."...

starky• 5 years ago

Exactly, I work on the mechanical hardware side of tech. I've long said that any company making physical products in the consumer space has to have something proprietary that cannot be easily copied, typically a software ecosystem.

It doesn't help that $7 for a piece of molded plastic that size is absolutely insane. Of course someone is going to copy it when they can make a good profit selling it for half the price in a country where you have no chance of defending your patents against copycats.

dranka• 5 years ago

This "article" is just an ad.

Vvector• 5 years ago

and it says so right at the top of the article:

Core77 is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

dmd• 5 years ago

So it's always, invariably far away at some random spot on the property; it "lives" by the latest location where I've felled a storm-damaged tree to be cut up into firewood, which could be anywhere.

In other words, this person treats their tools worse than my 6 year old, and we're supposed to trust their judgement on tools?

h2odragon• 5 years ago

If you're worrying about the "natural" curl of the fence, you're not putting tension on it when you put it up; and the fence will not function well.

"I'm always walking around picking tools up from the last place I left them"... Totally unsurprising. The old guys yell at people for that for a reason too, it wastes time, it wastes tools, and it advertises that attitude on behalf of a whole crew.

Finally, the tent stake needing packaging is one of the sillier things I've ever encountered.

notananthem• 5 years ago

What even is this article? When did Core77 hire lazy farmers to write product reviews of crappy products?

Saris• 5 years ago

That screw looks like it'll snap in half the first time it gets used in clay or any other hard ground. Why not make it out of metal?

Smart design: When the package is a functional part of the tool it’s carrying

Related Stories