Kickstarter vaporware of the day, Lifx edition

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/09/18/kickstarter-vaporware-of-the-day-lifx-edition/

by justincormack • 14 years ago

226 178 14 years ago

blogs.reuters.com

braum3• 14 years ago

that's what I thought when I watched the video and looked at the prices they wanted and the expected ship date. I've already been burned by two kickstarters for $300+.

simias2• 14 years ago

May I ask which projects those were? Do we have any idea of the proportion of projects that get funded without any kind of result?

I know that technically you make a donation, but some of those "projects" feel like borderline scam. Can't the donors or even kickstarter themselves turn back on the project owners if they receive a huge amount of money and fail to deliver anything? Especially when they say they have working prototypes in the introduction video.

I'm really convinced that the average kickstarter donor sees their donation as a pre-order more than an "investment". I'm sure many of those who donated to a project that failed to deliver felt like they've been scammed, and that may hurt kickstarter in the long run.

calbear81• 14 years ago

I absolutely agree that instead of investing, it's really a pre-order system with zero liability. If I pre-order a product from a vendor and it doesn't get delivered, I can get my money back or contest the charges but here, because you're donating to a project, it's not really on commercial terms so there's nothing you can do but give negative feedback on the project.

regularfry4• 14 years ago

It's not even an investment. It's patronage, pure and simple.

braum3• 14 years ago

here is the one I consider dead and the backer is just hoping everyone will forget. I posted it last week on HN.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4523753

The 2nd one I'm still hoping the backers will come through or at least refund the backers. So I'll hold that one for now.

I have backed 16 projects and the first was TikTok Nano watch band which funded Dec 2010. Out of the 16 only 2 have me very concerned.

I just backed two more projects one for $1,299 which is a 3D Printer and the other $99 for 3D printer software. I will continue to back things but I look carefully at their estimated ship date. It must be within 60 days, and I will dispute any charge from a project that doesn't deliver within that window.

mtgx• 14 years ago

The best thing Kickstarter could do to stop people from being disappointed by getting a much worse product that they were expecting when they thought they "paid for it", is to not allow the people behind the project to say stuff like "for $99 you can get the product, too".

Basically, they shouldn't mention on their page at all that they will be getting the product. So whether you're donating $1 or $100 or $1000, it's just that - a donation to the cause. You're not "buying" anything. That should make things a lot more clear, although I expect the project donations to drop, but probably better than for Kickstarter to get its reputation ruined forever because most projects "don't deliver" the products people were "expecting", when they thought they bought it or "pre-ordered" it.

rjtavares• 14 years ago

I would rather have them display a standard warning sign saying that Kickstarter can't guarantee the successful delivery of products, and there is no money back policy. I quite like the pre-order style Kickstarters (like the recent Project Eternity by Obsidian), and as long as people are aware that you effectively donating money I don't see the problem with it.

AndrewDucker• 14 years ago

They do this. When you click to donate you get this (in the top right):

Kickstarter does not investigate a creator's ability to complete their project. The claims and responsibilities of this project are solely its creator's.

s_henry_paulson• 14 years ago

Kickstarter would never do this, because this would virtually eliminate the largest incentives for donation. Many people would never reach the goals they need for production, and kickstarter themselves would be out millions as well.

Smerity• 14 years ago

It's worse than that. Kickstarter have explicitly said they have no clue what they'd do that day. The fact they're either ignoring the (admittedly complicated) issue or are so naive as to think it's fine to only handle failed projects when they happen is disturbing.

Kickstarter is an amazing concept but the coming wave of failed projects is going to mark the cumulative jumps of the shark.

From an earlier interview with Kickstarter's founder[1], "I don't know. I mean, no, I don't think that we would. But certainly, the kind of thing you're talking about is not a bridge that has been crossed yet. Someday it will. And you know, I think if something did go awry, it would be — it wouldn't be my favorite day."

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4472776

robryan2• 14 years ago

Just make it clear that you only get the product if things pan out. The tricky bit is if the money is only there to deliver some of the products. Needs to be some protection as well on people taking the money and running, but apart from that users shouldn't feel like they didn't get what they paid for if it doesn't pan out.

Xylakant5• 14 years ago

But that's not what Kickstarter is about. Kickstarter is not a donation page, why would I donate to someone who's trying to start an enterprise or a product? I could imagine donating to an artist, but that's about it. Nobody donated for my company either.

So Kickstarter is a "It would be awesome if this product came to existence and I'm willing to buy the alpha version even if it doesn't exist yet and may never exist" kind of thing. It's the pledge that I buy one of those, unseen and unproven because it would be cool if I had one of those. You just need to be aware of the risk and you won't feel screwed over as badly. And don't go for kickstarters that just look too good.

It's a hard to solve problem, but I think the only thing that kickstarter can actually do is to better communicate the risk.

prawks• 14 years ago

The key word you used is "alpha". As the OP of this thread said, you're not buying a product, you're donating to someone (probably not a very large company with lots of resources) to develop and make something you're interested in, and in return you may get the 1.0 (or perhaps earlier) version of what you're donating for.

I don't believe it's Kickstarter's fault in any way if people view it otherwise.

JoeAltmaier4• 14 years ago

Kickstarter supports the arts. Many, many people support artistic endeavors solely for the tshirt and the satisfaction. Its the larger part of their base.

azundo• 14 years ago

I think Kickstarter could add a maximum cap in addition to the minimum funding requirements as some function of the minimum. This would minimize Kickstarter's risk of over-subscribed products (but would obviously make them less money in many cases) and push further sales into the regular retail world. This would keep Kickstarter closer to what I believe its true intention is - get products and art off the ground, not sell your first $10 million.

I the long term I also think this is better for the campaigns - a lot of hardware projects seem to struggle shipping if they get a significantly higher number of orders than predicted. I'm sure in the moment it's exciting to see how many orders you can pull in, but painful in the long run when it is difficult to deliver on your promise, especially if you're planning on building a long-term sustainable business.

Bjartr• 14 years ago

>why would I donate to someone who's trying to start an enterprise or a product?

In order to bring to market a product you want that is not currently available and would not be feasible to bring to market without first knowing there is a sufficient market for it.

Kickstarter is the ultimate fail-fast, it cuts out a huge chunk of market-research when trying to build a business around something. If people don't want to kickstart it, others are unlikely to buy it.

jaimebuelta• 14 years ago

Agree that the main problem in Kickstarter is communication. You should NEVER put money if you don't understand that you are betting on the product and the team. It is a high risk decision, which hopefully most of the times goes reasonable good (I got last week headphones by a Kickstarter project and everything went just fine)

But removing the possibility of offering a product seems too much. I think that, after a little while and a few big "unfortunate" projects, the process (specially for deliverable goods) will be more understood and there will be more pressure in showing the team skills, previous products, etc. Right now that's not very clear (though you can research on your own, of course)

pierrend• 14 years ago

OK they may not ship it. If I give money to them it is because I would like to have this kind of light at home one day. Best scenario: they ship it! Worse scenario: the world will have more experience trying to build these things.

reubensutton• 14 years ago

I think this is a refreshing and sensible outlook on the matter, but I don't think it's one that's shared by many backers.

shin_lao2• 14 years ago

What the article is saying is that they are either clueless or dishonnest.

They will never ship the bulb and you cannot fund such project based on a video.

jeremyjh2• 14 years ago

That is not the worst case

dmbass• 14 years ago

In the video, the guy literally says "For $69 dollars, you are essentially pre-ordering a LIFX smartbulb." (4:11) That's one of the major misconceptions people have about Kickstarter and these guys are playing right into it.

djt• 14 years ago

People buy an emotion, not a product.

Some of my friends know these guys and by the sound of it this is a case of a "overnight sensation" that has been years in the making.

smoyer2• 14 years ago

I think the problem is pretty clear ... Kickstarter optimizes reach so that the teams that are best at marketing win ... A team that's brilliant with engineering and design but can't produce slick photos and catchy videos doesn't stand a chance.

I tend to think that kickstarter is a fad and that if it survives at all, it will be in a much reduced and much more controlled form. How long will it be before the authorities decide they're complicit in a fraud?

EDIT: The ScanBox project looks like something I could make for $5 in parts and have fun doing over in an hour or so.

alexchamberlain• 14 years ago

Do we know if the ScanBoxes have shipped?

Edit: The shipping date is October 12[1].

[1] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/scanbox-turn-y...

robryan2• 14 years ago

October 12 according to the last kick starter update.

pothibo2• 14 years ago

What scares me is that they are starting a new kickstarter project when they didn't even finish the first one. I was backing this project but just ask for refund.

This actually makes me wonder: If one would want to scam Kickstarters, one could just create new project and PR their way into millions of dollars without having to deliver a single thing.

DanBC3• 14 years ago

It's unfortunate that him saying "scanbox" on the lifx video sounds very much like "scambox".

zyb09• 14 years ago

I can't believe ScanBox raised almost $200,000. People will throw their money at goddamn empty cardboard boxes if you make a nice marketing video.

pbhjpbhj2• 14 years ago

Re your edit - I just saw this and it's the ideal thing for me to adapt for my camera to do document images. Here's me thinking of making it out of wood or metal wire ... why didn't I think of cardboard first. Silly me!

smoyer2• 14 years ago

I didn't say that the ScanBox wasn't a cool idea ... but it looks more like something you'd find as a DIY article.

antr3• 14 years ago

After backing two projects (MySaver cables and Elevation Dock), I've given up on Kickstarter:

== MySaver ==

- Project was delayed for over 5 months.

- When I got the product it wasn't the colour I had requested.

- When I contacted the project leader he told me that they didn't have any more products of that colour, so he chose the one he thought convenient.

- False statements: "The MySaver is the only cable protector that we know of and we fully-assemble it on a OEM quality replacement dock connector to USB cable". I can't insist how false this statement is. The cables I received where assembled using some kind of industrial glue gun - by no means "OEM quality" - and they are now falling apart.

- Contacted Kickstarter about this issue and said that "if the project gets fully funded it must be a legit business/product"

== Elevation Dock ==

- Backed in February 2012, still waiting for the product.

- I will be changing my iPhone 3GS to iPhone 5, but guess what? It's a different dock connector. Yes, partly my fault, but its been 8 months since funding closed and 9 months since everybody knew this project was already 100% funded.

== Conclusion ==

Many projects (primarily hardware) are very poorly managed. Project leaders, instead of being rational from a production capacity/constraint point of view, they simply want to "beat all records", and be at the top of the Kickstart funding list. This is just bad entrepreneurship and management skills. These guys are risking production, product quality and customer satisfaction over a "vanity" metric: How much is the maximum I can raise?

I've given up, I'm not backing any more projects, I'm not going to be anyone's guinea pig. I'd rather wait for the products to be available in stores at a higher retail price, where I can see their "quality" finish. I'll judge then.

speg2• 14 years ago

If it's any consolation, the Elevation dock guys planned for the new connector and you will be able to swap a new one in.

forrestthewoods2• 14 years ago

I have many friends who backed and received their Elevation Docks. It's anything but vaporware. They asked for 75,000 and got 1,464,000. Scaling up that much and that fast is incredibly difficult and can't be done overnight. The system seems fine to me.

smackfu• 14 years ago

Products should really consider capping their number of backers, rather than just saying "as many as people want!" and possibly losing money on every one.

danso• 14 years ago

I just got my elevation dock last week. I've left it in the box until I figure out the iPhone 5 situation. Might just keep it as a paperweight. But I agree with you, it was ridiculously delayed

malsme• 14 years ago

I see Kickstarter as more of a service to get well established businesses to focus on difficult, specialist, low margin projects, particularly computer games. Most of these design-focused hardware projects ring alarm bells in my head.

X-Istence2• 14 years ago

I have received my Elevation Dock. Also, the guys over at Elevation Dock have mentioned that once they get the new connector documentation that you will be able to swap out the current board with a new board that contains the new connector.

Having taken the elevation dock apart, it is entirely do-able.

cowpewter• 14 years ago

I'm actually pretty happy with my MySaver cable. Granted, I didn't get the wrong color, but it rides around in my purse unprotected and has held up better than either the cable that came with my 3GS (frayed right where the cable meets the connector in under a month; it was a complete piece of crap), or the cheap monoprice cables I originally replaced my cable with (bought a 3-pack, good thing, only one held up past 3 months). I never took the MySaver off it to inspect the build quality of the actual cable, but it seems to be fairly well constructed to me. Better than the OEM one at least.

Now the very first Kickstarter I ever backed... it was to cover the editing and production costs of a documentary that was supposedly already completely filmed, it just needed to be put together. Funded in early Feb 2011 and not a single update on the project or comment from the creator since that day either. Still bummed about that one - I genuinely wanted to see the documentary, and my pledge was supposed to get me a copy of the DVD.

Alexx• 14 years ago

I spent some time a few months ago researching integrated smart technologies like this. (I've commented before on similar topics)[1]

I very skeptical it's possible to deliver these at those price points.

Just consider as a hacker the master bulb;

They gloss over how you actually connect it to your home wifi network; it either has to interface with your laptop or phone via a cable for the initial setup, or it has to be able to create it's own wireless network you can hook onto, to then in turn tell it which is your home network, so it can hook onto that, and then relay to all other bulbs. That's a hell of a lot of technology to pack inside a groundbreaking lightbulb that's going to be running at high temperatures, at a $70 price point.

The 'smart bulb' stuff aside, a decent plain white LED bulb sets you back around $30. Have you ever tried those colour-change LED light sets you get for garden decking or under the kitchen units? Even those cost more per unit that this, and they light they put out is harsh and well bellow 10 watts; hence why they're just used for ambient highlights.

In my opinion the companies best positioned to deliver these kind of technologies are the likes of NEST[2]. They already have a constantly powered, integrated master device, it has a zigbee chip (which makes much more sense than wifi), an API, large processing power, and lots of data on the household. All they need to do is update their firmware (which they can do automatically already) and publish an API. Then any licensed 3rd party vendor from China can now deliver 'slave bulbs' using whatever technology and price points they desire. A ground up solution proposed here is short sighted, and realistically in the long run more expensive.

[1]http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3558304

[2]http://www.nest.com/

maxerickson• 14 years ago

Insteon is shipping $30 smart bulbs. They integrate with insteon's control stuff though, so the cost of using 1 of them is a minimum of ~$70-$80 (that's a bulb plus ~$45 for a simple switch pad).

They don't seem to have much interest in pushing for wide adoption (at least, they seem to want to sell $400 controllers, not $50 controllers).

raverbashing4• 14 years ago

Wifi on a lamp? Really?

This screams "We have no idea what we are doing"

(And those buying into the project certainly don't know a lot about it as well)

This is like saying "We are building an electric car... with shiny paint", whereas the real problem is "building an electric car!"

They probably tried to fit a RaspberryPi inside first

huhtenberg• 14 years ago

They could've OEM'd the lamp, for example, from Phillips. And a tiny-factor WiFi gadgets is hardly a rocket science, products like EyeFi has been around for several years. There's really nothing in the project that screams what you say it does.

[0] http://www.eye.fi

raverbashing4• 14 years ago

I reread their product description and I still stand by my opinion

And even the article says (and they agree it's an OEM lamp):

"The Lifx is priced at $49 per bulb, which means that you’re basically buying a basic WeMo switch and getting the LED bulb — and all the technology merging the two into one bulb-sized piece of hardware — for free. It just doesn’t seem likely."

They can prove me wrong, sure, by shipping the product.

veemjeem• 14 years ago

I'm curious how their device might be configured. The eyefi includes a usb dongle that require you to use a computer to configure the wifi settings with. They could do something like the electric imp where you configure it via sending it data via light. I don't think this is as easy as you make it sound -- there are definitely engineering challenges to make it easy for the end user.

nitrogen• 14 years ago

That's essentially what the mysteriously vanished Android@Home was.

MartinCron• 14 years ago

Wifi on a lamp? Really?

Wifi is probably overkill on a lamp, but it's not completely without precedent. High-end LED aquarium lighting setups (the kind you need to grow exotic corals) often have wireless interfaces and/or dedicated controllers.

If money were no object, I would have these panels all over my house. http://ecotechmarine.com/products/radion/

shadowmint2• 14 years ago

The problem here is that Kickstarter is complicity allowing this sort of scam-project* to run.

They're not stupid. They know this is happening, and they're _hoping_ that it'll all magically sort itself out; that people will be smart enough _not_ to believe in the $50-you-get-a-lamborghini pledges.

I mean, it's a great scam right? If you're a con artist, you make your money in one of two ways;

1) Steal someones money and make them too embarrassed to do anything about it (classic porn on the credit card)

2) Steal a little bit of money from a lot of people, all of whom can't be bothered to do anything about it. <--- Kickstarter.

Realistically, this is going to continue until someone sues Kickstarter for being complicit in mail fraud. That'll be a sad day, but you can already see it coming on the horizon.

* Actual project may not be a scam, but honestly there's not a huge difference between a poorly organised project that takes everyones money, tries to make something and fails, and an actual scam. If you're selling something, you're a merchant. There are laws around that.

JoeAltmaier4• 14 years ago

Scam implies some sort of intent. There's actually a huge difference. When burned, you might call someone a dipshit. But to actually BE a dipshit, their intent matters.

shadowmint2• 14 years ago

Intent is difficult to measure.

Money on the other hand, is very easy to measure. So are your legal obligation as a merchant.

If you sell something online, and the person on the other side never receives it, that's mail fraud. No matter what your intensions were.

caveat: As a merchant you also have legal protections in this case, which is where refunds, reshipping, etc. come in.

shardling2• 14 years ago

Kickstarter is not in some bizzarro pocket universe where the normal protections against fraud don't apply.

If someone truly takes the money and runs, that's a criminal offense. Kickstarter doesn't need special policies to make it so, and I'm sure they'd cooperate with a criminal investigation. I think they've even said as much!

xefer• 14 years ago

I'm not sure it's fraud per se. Kickstarter seems like a way of monetizing up-votes. They have various sized up-arrows that are tied to a bucket of electronic chits over a PayPal. I sometimes wonder if people back projects with the same forethought they bring to up voting a good story.

DanBC3• 14 years ago

Really?

(http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/schuyler/lockpicks-by-op...)

Wanted $6,000; got $87,000; completed funding in sept 2010; backers still waiting. Cheapest pledge to get product was $20.

Someone else has taken on the project. A few people have got "practice sets", but that's not what they wanted. They wanted the picks.

lifeisstillgood• 14 years ago

I do not think Kickstarter projects can be viewed under legal framework of merchants and consumer protection.

A project much more like an investment prospectus than it is a sales offering.

So I would be interested in knowing if the SEC has already had a look at the Kickstarter legal setup, and if not, it may well be the next step (ie not suing Kickstarter, but refering them to SEC)

The laws around prospectus and offerings are setup very explicitly to avoid your situaton 2) - so I would be very surprised if kickstarter projects are not somehow explicitly avoiding those regulations - or if they are in fact compliant

cube13• 14 years ago

Kickstarter is not an investment. You're buying the rewards for the tier that you choose.

In the Kickstarter TOS, there is the following line:

  Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill.

wpietri2• 14 years ago

Nope. Investments mean you own a piece of the business. Kickstarter doesn't allow that.

Legally, Kickstarter is just a channel for contributions. If you want, and if the project offers it, you can sometimes pre-order goods in exchange for your contributions. But you get no interest in the business beyond your pre-order, so it's not a security.

AJ007• 14 years ago

The worst case for kickstarter is that they fall under both consumer protection laws and investment regulations.

There is no question that they fall under consumer protection laws, products are being advertised and offered, and anyone can "buy" them. I'm sure the FTC already has an open investigation or investigations.

If you create a kickstarter project, pull in $1m+, spend it all legitimately and fail to deliver the project, you could end up being named in a civil suit. In the future there will be people who lose their houses over this. Just because you made the project in 2011 doesn't mean you won't get sued in 2014.

If you create a kickstarter project, pull in $1m+, spend it all illegitimately, on personal expenses, expect to go to jail. I predict this will happen to at least 1 person.

The larger question to me is what liability kickstarter themselves have. Whatever that amount ends up being, I think they can absorb it as a cost of doing business, as long as it remains on the civil side of the law.

I like kickstarter. So far I've stuck to using it for pen and paper RPGs, something I know can be delivered on. I think the core concept around kickstarter is going to radically change the world of consumer products. Its just too new to have much of a reputation system yet (but its coming.) May be kickstarter isn't the facebook/google of pre-funding projects. If they look like they are going to take a big hit, be ready to step up.

As someone who designs business projects the whole thing sounds like a personal nightmare to me. I know first hand how the simplest of projects on paper can take 5-10x longer than estimated to complete. Add in bells and whistles to make it look attractive to a bunch of people, ouch. Easier said than done applies very much here.

cdmoyer2• 14 years ago

This comment stuck in my craw a bit, and I'm trying to disect the comment and why it bothered me.

I have backed several kickstarter project, received the results of a couple, funded a project via kickstarter and promoted several projects. You could say, I'm a fan of the kickstarter model.

On the other hand, I've been predicting that one of these high-profile (likely physical hardware) projects in going to dramatically fail, and then we'll see the fallout.

I guess what stuck in my craw is "complicity allowing this sort of scam-project". Mainly because this feels like an unwarranted accusation.

To try and reassess my feelings, I visited the Kickstarter page to read the copy and get a feel for how protective they are of the backers.

How it Works "Every project is independently crafted, put to all-or- nothing funding, and supported by friends, fans, and the public in return for rewards." (Ok, so, explicitly stating that the funding is in exchange for rewards.)

  "The filmmakers, musicians, artists, and designers you see  
  on Kickstarter have complete control and responsibility 
  over their own projects."

(Ok, this suggests that kickstarter isn't guaranteeing success... but does feel more like ass-covering.)

  "Rewards are things like a copy of what's being made, a   
  limited edition, or a custom experience related to the 
  project. This isn't Best Buy — rewards aren't shrink-
  wrapped and ready to ship. Once the project is funded, the 
  journey to bring them to life begins."

(Another really... hedged statement. This just implies that it might take a while to get the rewards, not that they may not be delivered.)

Clicking "Back this Project" on Lifx

  FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
  Who is responsible for fulfilling the promises of this project?
  Kickstarter does not investigate a creator's ability to  
  complete their project. The claims and responsibilities of 
  this project are solely its creator's.

(This is interesting, and prominent on the backing page.)

Guidelines

  Are creators legally obligated to fulfill the promises of 
  their projects?
  Yes. Kickstarter's Terms of Use require creators to 
  fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer 
  whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. (This[1] is what 
  creators see before they launch.) We crafted these terms 
  to create a legal requirement for creators to follow 
  through on their projects, and to give backers a recourse 
  if they don't. We hope that backers will consider using 
  this provision only in cases where they feel that a 
  creator has not made a good faith effort to complete the 
  project and fulfill.

(Now, that was really interesting to me, as I had never seen that. It's pretty explicit.)

So, basically, whether kickstarter is complicit comes down to a couple questions in my mind: 1) How much responsibility do they bear to vette each project for likeliness of funding? 2) Are they messaging backers well enough about everybody's responsibilities in these scenarios?

... And I don't know the answer to either. The information is there on the site, but a little hidden and the recourse for failed projects seems non-existant. Most of these larger projects are new LLCs set up for the project, and if all the money is gone, suing them is likely going to be fruitless.

(So... yeah, I've got no answers. Just some exploration.)

[1]https://ksr-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/creator-responsibility.p...

jeremyjh2• 14 years ago

The only recourse would be through the courts and I am quite sure Kickstarter will not be paying anyone's legal bills. They do have this language so that they or their Backers could take legal recourse if required. They do not have this language because they promise to ever do such a thing.

michaelt3• 14 years ago

For kickstarter, this isn't only a question of strict legality and having the right weasel-words in their small print. It's also a question of reputation.

There's already a bunch of stories in the press about projects failing to deliver, and the more backers get shafted the worse this will get. If no-one wants to invest in Kickstarter projects that'll be bad for kickstarter.

There's a whole bunch of different things Kickstarter could do about hardware projects failing to deliver. Why they aren't taking action yet is a mystery to me.

ChuckMcM6• 14 years ago

Ok,so there is a difference when the person making the pitch really believes (perhaps foolishly) that they can do what they say they can. Its one of those "That doesn't look to hard ..." kind of situations.

That said, investors do serious due diligence (usually) before investing and ask hard questions. We don't see those questions on Kickstarter so you cannot make a more reasoned choice about investing or not investing.

adgar2• 14 years ago

Do you think that it is possible that the kickstarter model leads to press-than-sufficient sure diligence by lowering the barriers to investment that have traditionally driven larger investors to do more sure diligence?

Is it possible that kickstarter might be predicated on lowering inhibitions to invest below the levels necessary to consistently make sound, rational judgments?

coffeeaddicted• 14 years ago

One of the first thing I do in Hacker News or Reddit when seeing sensational headlines (cancer can be cured!) is checking the posts to find out what's wrong with the claim. In most cases it's the highest voted comment. I think Kickstarter would profit from a similar moderation system. Posts where users can add flags like "will work" "won't work" and some voting system so you can easily see the highest voted comment(s) with one of those flags. Or alternatively a normal forum to allow real discussions about projects would also be a major improvement. Although there needs to be a careful decision then who can cleanup spam as you wouldn't want project moderators to allow removing all critics without any consequences.

The currently used comment system there is just horribly insufficient - it's basically impossible to have any real discussion there.

tvon• 14 years ago

> So my feeling is that both Kickstarter and the tech blogosphere should start being a lot more skeptical about the claims made in Kickstarter videos, where anybody can say pretty much anything.

Isn't the problem more along the lines of "amateur investors making amateur investments"? Is it Kickstarter's fault if people believe the "pretty much anything" that can be said in a video?

saraid216• 14 years ago

No, in this case it's actually the tech news journalists' fault for believing pretty much anything that can be said in a video. I didn't see anything asking Kickstarter to shape up; the call to action was for the reporters.

And he's right. This article should have been written by, say, GigaOm. I'd want a Wired article to go into more technical depth than this one does. I'd guess that, if I found the articles that pointed to the Kickstarter, they don't.

rbellio• 14 years ago

I generally agree with everything in the article, but there was a statement that caught me up, "I can’t believe that Lifx has managed to solve the enormous problems that many huge companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying — and generally failing — to fix."

I don't believe that large companies with hundreds of millions of dollars are always the right people to find the solution. Isn't this something we tackle a lot of the time? Being the small fish in the big pond? I do think that we should be wary of the snakewater salesmen of the world, but don't discount someone just because they don't have a large, bureaucratic organization backing them.

That being said, it would be really nice for some sort of rating system to be put into place. Force these inventors to generate brand loyalty even if it is to them as a person.

EwanToo2• 14 years ago

Kickstarter could significantly improve things by imposing a cap on the amount of money taken above the original request.

This is similar to what Groupon have had to do, because it was killing their reputation. People are estimating "Well, we could make about 500 of these", then receiving orders (and the money) for 50,000 of them. Suddenly the predicted ship dates go out 2 or 3 times as long, and people get upset.

Bakkot• 14 years ago

They could, but honestly they should just be more insistent that project founders make more use of the existing tools. They provide a way to say there's a limited number of awards available at a given tier; if you're not going to be able to scale past ten thousand quickly, then don't let more than ten thousand people sign up to receive the product - at least not from the first round.

EwanToo2• 14 years ago

Perhaps yeah, it'd have a very similar effect.

It would perhaps also drive up orders early in the cycle, as people can't wait until the last few minutes when they see a project has been funded.

Personally I think the simplest option would be allowing a 10% "overshoot" fund, and beyond that the project automatically closes to new backers - this should ensure that despite the various reasons why the money wouldn't come through from individuals (credit card rejected, etc), a funded project would get it's full amount.

forgottenpaswrd• 14 years ago

"'Kickstarter could significantly improve things by imposing a cap on the amount of money taken above the original request."

That is your opinion, in my opinion this would be bad for KS.

I don't know why some grow ups people need someone else to put limits on the money the can spend on something, like they are dependent children who need to be controlled what they do with their own money.

Or worse, they want to tell other people what they can spend. They are totalitarian in the inside.

powera• 14 years ago

Well, perhaps most people want to use a website that gives some sort of sense that a large portion of their projects aren't over-hyped vaporware.

ck2• 14 years ago

Kickstarter needs to have a rule that the rewards cannot be the item being proposed.

This will perfectly enforce the realization that it's INVESTMENT with risk and not a purchase of the item.

timpeterson• 14 years ago

99 Kickstarter Problems but getting the product isn't one: Problem #1: NOT getting the product. Problems #2-#99) 98 emails updating you on the product you will never receive.

driverdan• 14 years ago

I'm really surprised there haven't been any class action law suits against Kickstarter projects and/or Kickstarter. For most projects Kickstarter isn't a feel-good donation system, it's a way of pre-purchasing a product. If you promise to provide an item for someone's money and don't deliver you've broken the law.

davidpayne11• 14 years ago

These people aren’t just being seduced by a clever sales pitch: they’re being shepherded there by lots of very high-profile blogs, such as Wired and TechCrunch and Mashable and GigaOm.

Its funny that reuters is writing this, because, they were shepherding a lot of people on an inferior product too, The iPhone 5.

drats• 14 years ago

>so far there’s zero evidence that it’s a good way of providing startup capital for would-be businesses

Flagged immediately for this statement. Troll journalism.

cristianpascu• 14 years ago

Yeah, my feeling exactly. Whenever I hear/read "there's absolutely/zero no evidence", it smell either ignorance or malevolence.

netcan2• 14 years ago

Some old fella I knew who was a young professional as woman joined the ranks in the 60s & 70s had this useful saying: "toilet excuses" which was the whole laundry list of nonsense reasons why women couldn't be building inspectors or firemen or whatnot. "Every building site would need another toilet block and the costs would be tremendous, all to allow one dipshit 21 year old to work for 1 year, get pregnant then leave."

There is something about Kickstarter that makes HN irritable, hoping for failure. I'm not sure what it is exactly and its out of character. I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt but I can smell toilet excuses.

I'm sure that kickstarter has issues and maybe its not a big thing in the long term. But, its a nice idea. It seems to be working. Why is this mob so cranky?

jdlshore• 14 years ago

I agree. Something about Kickstarter seems to inspire a lot of negativity here on HN. Perhaps because it's an alternative to the VC funding model that's such a part of the HN identity?

Personally, I love Kickstarter. I've funded a project with it myself. It's has great potential for an individual or small team with "1000 true fans" to make a living, and I think we'll see a lot of success stories come out of it.

And some notable failures, of course. But I don't see that as an indictment of the Kickstarter model. Personally, I wouldn't back Lifx. It's expensive, I'm skeptical of its ability to ship, and I don't need color-changing light bulbs. But if someone wants to spend $70 to take a flyer on something cool, more power to them.

netcan2• 14 years ago

I agree. Occasional failures don't discredit the whole thing. Fraud might, but failure doesn't.

prawn2• 14 years ago

Entrepreneurs using Kickstarter are pitching an idea and often getting money before they've executed more than a video and description.

The typical entrepreneurs of Hacker News are consistently told that an idea has little value and that actual execution is so much more. You must almost always build out at least a basic product before you have a hope of money trickling in or gaining investment.

I think any crankiness might be related to that.

rabidsnail• 14 years ago

I think a web-of-trust-style reputation system would work well here, since "votes" cost money.

The reputation of a buyer is the mean of the reputations of the projects they've backed (times some confidence metric).

The reputation of a project six months after it started is 1 if they kept their promises (as measured by confirmation emails sent to the backers) and -1 otherwise.

The reputation of a project before six months is the mean of (the mean of the reputations of its backers (again times some confidence)) and the reputation of the person who started the project.

fmax30• 14 years ago

Seems as though the only thing one needs to earn money on the internet is to make a video with good cameras and be good at Computer generated 3D models of products that will never be completed. I too think that the kickstarter should stop project starters from giving out material things.

meiji• 14 years ago

I'm not sure why this is any sort of surprise. Ever since Kickstarter began there have been lots of great ideas, lots of awful ideas. Some of the great ideas have been clearly way too ambitious for small teams but people happily donate money. Given this isn't an investment and what you're doing is giving someone money to follow their dream, to my mind it's almost irrelevant if at the end you don't get your $30 lightbulb. You've lived vicariously through the Lifehacker in question and got to see something go to market or crash and burn.

mixmax• 14 years ago

Hardware development is hard, but if it's doable. Even on a budget.

A Ten years ago I started a hardware company that developed an advertising sign based on LED's. It was basically a motor with a stick of RGB LED's attached like a propeller. When you spun the stick and modulated the LED's just right you could paint full color disc shaped picture seemingly in free air. An FPGA would control and modulate the LED's (at the time it was the only affordable thing that could modulate a LED 400.000 times a second) The whole thing was online via an OEM phone module and would automatically update with ads, weather, etc. from a server where customers could buy campaigns online. Campaigns could of course be customised wo that you could get your ad only on the displays you wanted. I was in charge of getting this whole bandoogle from an idea to a product, and while it was hard I managed develop and bring it to market for around $200.000. Remember this was ten years ago where you had to tap directly into the a carriers network and hack around just to get an IP address, and five years before the iphone.

The point of the story is that sometimes small nimble companies that are set on doing something actually succeed. I'm not saying that these guys have solved all the problems, indeed it sounds from the article that there are some huge obstacles. I'm just saying that you should never underestimate the power of a small team whose only goal in life is to make something happen.

ajaimk• 14 years ago

First off, their goals are possible in the fact they are not hoping to build an energy efficient LED bulb but a wifi controllable one.

Also it is a little too early to be calling this VaporWare. Give them a chance to prove themselves.

marklittlewood• 14 years ago

Is it just me or is there something very odd about the video presentation? Phil Bosua uses just about every trick in the NLP book to persuade and cajole. Even though the project is almost certainly impossible to deliver, I ended up wanting to believe it and thinking that if I did contribute, I would be making something amazing happen. I almost felt like I was being hypnotised.

If they can deliver what they say with $100,000 then the fact that they now have 10x that probably means you don;t need to contribute to see the benefit.

Mea culpa.

runako• 14 years ago

I don't know if the Lifx guys in particular are naive, deceptive, or six-sigma outliers.

But I'm actually surprised that projects like Lifx are able to get any funding at all. A cursory thought in the direction of the project would reveal that the pitch is essentially a) others with tons of experience have invested lots of hard money in this space b) to no real success so far but c) we have the answer and only need a hundred grand to make it large. And d) actually, we don't even need $100k, it's more like $25k plus materials, so as you can see this project is really 99% done now.

This is classic hucksterism; you will see it at any business meetup in any town. Somebody has built a better mousetrap in his garage, leaping over giants, and only needs $25k/$50k/$100k to get to market. The key is they never need large sums of money, only relatively small sums to get to market; a larger sum would indicate that the project is not 99% done, which I assure you it is.

The obvious question: if you have built a better mousetrap and only need $100k to take over a major industry like lighting, why not go max out your credit cards and just build it? Or show a prototype to anyone over 50 who might be able to connect you with an angel investor? Occam's answer: because you haven't a clue how to make it work.

Again, I don't know if the Lifx guys are hucksters. But their pitch follows a classic huckster pitch to the letter.

lifeformed• 14 years ago

Well, I don't think people turn to Kickstarter funding solely for the money. It's a pretty decent way to do some cheap marketing, too. If you can get $100,000 from a bank, or $100,000 from 1,000 people in your target market, it makes sense to do the latter.

I have no idea if this is or isn't the case with Lifx, but I always viewed Kickstarter as a funding/marketing package.

DanBC3• 14 years ago

They're using multicolour LEDs. That's weird. Most people don't want blue or green lights. That's a niche market for accent lighting. Most people want a nice bright light for lamps and spotlights.

Spending money on getting that nice warm colour would be money well spent.

Also, the video mentions photographers. I'm not sure, but I'd have thought that multiplexed LEDs would be a horrible idea for some photography.

mbreese• 14 years ago

In theory, by using RGB LEDs, you can mix the colors to produce a more pleasant color of light. I doubt they'll have only blue or green light.

WildCat69• 14 years ago

The color changing aspect of this bulb is a cool idea, but in reality would end up as a just something neat show off. On the other hand, if they can also accurately mimic the warmth and brightness of an incandescent using this approach, I'd buy it.

robomartin5• 14 years ago

I've backed a number of technology as well as art projects on Kickstarter. So far all have delivered. Only one was a disappointment. Not because they did not deliver as promised but rather because the product really wasn't as good of an idea as I thought it would be. No big deal.

Perhaps my results with tech have been good because I am an engineer with lots of experience designing and manufacturing hardware/software products. I have seen projects on Kickstarter that have me question whether or not the person fully understands what it takes to take a project from concept or prototype to a finished product. Needless to say, I don't back such projects.

The article gives a sense that making hardware products is hard and expensive. The author is most-definitely correct. A product like this light bulb could easily burn-up above US $100K in regulatory testing (UL, FCC, CE, TUV, etc.). This is particularly true if the designer isn't well versed in this area.

The article looses a little authority in my eyes when the author says things like:

> The heat sink is crucial, especially if you want to put lots of wifi electronics into the bulb.

Which is complete and utter nonsense. WiFi has nothing to do with the requirement for a massive heatsink. If it did, you iPhone would be a huge block of aluminum with fins. No, the heatsink is required because 80% (or more) of the energy going into an LED is converted into heat, not light. This data is from a few years ago, but I suspect it hasn't gotten much better than that. Most of the power you shove into an LED converts to heat that you have to manage, hence the large heat-sink.

I did a project a while ago that managed more than one thousand one Watt LEDs in a very small space. I was personally responsible for the design of the electronics, mechanics, optics and thermal management. Thermal management alone took about six months of FEA simulations and validation through prototypes before converging on a solution. I had to design the thermal management system to handle over one thousand Watts. It was safer to assume that all input energy (and more) was converted into heat in order to have some operating margin for derating the cooling system.

I went on reading the article and thinking that, while I agreed that multi-disciplinary hardware projects are hard, this guy was being a little mean-spirited. After all, he was right in that this project required having an understanding of electronic design, mechanical design, thermal management, optical design and the myriad of manufacturing and regulatory disciplines that come with bringing something like this to market.

The author's incorrect statement about the reason for having a heatsink created a negative reaction in my mind that carried over as I continued reading the article. I knew I was biased. I tried to ignore that and continued reading. Then I came to the point in the article where he told us that the project originator was also behind another project that amounted to not much more than some folded carboard. A project that was supposed to ship in July and, as of four hours ago, hasn't started shipping yet. That was enough to change my mindset. I was, at that point, aligned with the author in sharing his skepticism. If this guy (or guys) can't deliver a cardboard box in nearly three months I can't see any hope of delivering a complex product such as the LED light bulb in six.

Keep in mind that I have always been a believer that small motivated teams can run circles around large companies with lots of money and people. Projects like this don't cost ten million dollars at a large company because that's what it costs to design the product. They cost that much because such organizations burn a lot more cash per unit of time than a small team. They have a lot more people, resources and infrastructure to support. A large R&D organization could burn a million dollars a day whether they stand still or are working on something. In sharp contrast to that, a small focused team working out of a garage or a modest environment could do the same or very similar work for hundreds or thousands of dollars per day, depending on the nature of the project.

This to say that I am not skeptical of their probability for success because the project is difficult. My skepticism comes simply from the fact that they/he have another fully funded project on Kickstarter, one that my teenage kid could probably --with some some help from dad-- execute on in a month, and they have not delivered yet. It's like proposing that you can build a house when you haven't even demonstrated that you can build a tent.

The question here is more one of execution rather than anything else. I'll estimate that if you are really frugal and have to design this from scratch you are looking at a cost of about $500K. This means real design for manufacturing, thermal design, testing, testing, testing (did I say "testing") --which includes environmental testing-- tooling, certifications, procurement, etc.

That means that, at the current funding level of $780K for a little more than 13,000 light bulbs, they have about $20 per bulb left over to manufacture, test, package and ship. Ouch.

Even if my design cost estimate is off by 100% and they can get this ready for manufacturing for $250K, that means that you only have about $40 per bulb to manufacture, test, package and ship. I am not sure that's enough unless you commit to manufacturing tens of thousands of these per month. One thing is for sure, nobody is making a dime on this one.

Remember, business costs and overhead don't stop at manufacturing. There's far more below the tip of that iceberg.

EDIT: I could say a lot more about the nature of bringing such products to market. Here's an important point that I felt warranted an edit: A product like this can burn down your house. It is imperative that its design take no shortcuts. Testing before release must be extensive and thorough. This could take dozens of iterations until a solid and reliable design is converged upon. This, again, takes money and expertise.

robert-boehnke• 14 years ago

> WiFi has nothing to do with the requirement for a massive heatsink. If it did, you iPhone would be a huge block of aluminum with fins. No, the heatsink is required because 80% (or more) of the energy going into an LED is converted into heat

I believe the author meant that without proper cooling, the excess heat would fry the WiFi controller

That being said, I have no clue what the operating temperatures of today's WiFi systems are

guan• 14 years ago

Most are available in models that are rated up to 85°C.

You probably wouldn’t want your LED lights to be much hotter than that (with heatsink) for maximum life. I looked up the most powerful white LED that my local electronics distributor sells, and it’s a 24 watt Cree. It’s rated for up to 150°C, so I guess with Wi-Fi you might need to cool it more than you otherwise would. Most of these lightbulbs are controlled by microcontrollers or other ICs that max out at around 125°C anyway.

frisco• 14 years ago

  >> The heat sink is crucial, especially if you want to put
     lots of wifi electronics into the bulb.
   > Which is complete and utter nonsense. WiFi has nothing to
     do with the requirement for a massive heatsink. If it 
     did, you iPhone would be a huge block of aluminum with fins.

Maybe they're saying that the WiFi components are temperature sensitive, and that the LED element generates tons of heat (more than, say, the iPhone)?

robomartin5• 14 years ago

I suppose it could be seen that way. Then again, he said " lots of wifi electronics into the bulb" which is a weird statement in and of itself. Lots? More like one chip with supporting components.

Yes, the embedded system inside this lightbulb will need to be rated to operate at higher than usual temperatures when compared to, say, the electronics inside your VCR.

Typical commercial-grade integrated circuits are rated for a range from 0 to about 70 degrees C (32 to 158 degrees Farenheit). Industrial components typically push the upper limit to 85 deg. C (185 deg. F).

ChuckMcM6• 14 years ago

Did you have any opinion on the guy's previous kickstarter which has slipped 6 months and consisted of a cardboard box?

Yes that is a bit uncharitable to call this: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/scanbox-turn-y... a foldable cardboard box, but it is a whole lot simpler than putting together a light bulb that out performs every other bulb in the market for less money.

So when someone who knows how tough putting something like this together is, sees folks buying into it, they twitch. Seems like the author of this piece twitched pretty hard.

robomartin5• 14 years ago

I don't think you read my entire post. I mention the folded cardboard project as a key indicator of just how unlikely it might be for this lightbulb to get off the ground. My immediate reaction is that Kickstarter ought to put the lightbulb project on hold until, at the very least, the other project sees completion.

evoxed• 14 years ago

Seems to me the guy should take a break from Kickstarter and start fielding offers from design/marketing shops. The combined funding to both projects is pretty impressive, even more so when you look at the first as just a foldable cardboard box.

tedivm• 14 years ago

Reading the updates makes it seem like the issue had more to do with Kickstarter and Amazon than anything else. The project was "funded" on July 8th, but the funding wasn't released to them until August 16h. Once that happened they continued giving updates, put together the box and electronics (yes, this was a little more complicated than just a box), took pictures of the items being produced and then announced when they'd ship it.

I think delays with this type of thing are to be expected, and by themselves are not the worst sign.

robomartin5• 14 years ago

Another thought.

This is what gets me about some of these Kickstarter projects:

A project like LIFX is, without a doubt, impossible to get done with $100,000. Not a chance in hell anyone could pull that off. At least not for a real product that passes all testing, safety and reliability requirements that go into making a consumer product.

What would have happened if they reached their $100K goal and maybe a little more? Say, $150K. It would have been a complete bust. No way to deliver.

Are these projects fraudulent from the start or are they simply innocent or uninformed wishful thinking? You are asking for $100K of other people's money. If you know full-well that it won't be enough, what does that mean? If you don't know how much it will cost, what business do you have even posting a project like this?

As it stands right now they are at about $800K. My guess is that, to do this right, you need about two million dollars.

To be open minded, this doesn't necessarily have to come out of Kickstarter. Maybe someone is willing to invest in these guys. Someone sees this as an MVP of sorts, comes in and puts $1.5 million on the table for a big chunk of the business. I wouldn't, but, hell, I probably wouldn't have invested in Facebook in the early days either. What the hell do I know.

toast76• 14 years ago

Perhaps someone already HAS invested in these guys? One of the team members listed (guy king) has had a very substantial exit ($90M) from a previous venture (retailmenot.com)

danboarder• 14 years ago

"A project like LIFX is, without a doubt, impossible to get done with $100,000. Not a chance in hell anyone could pull that off."

I wouldn't be so sure. There is a company here in LA called Oval Integration that has been doing stuff exactly like this, just hacking and integrating off-the-shelf electronics, see a demo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X6sHabSXwg .

If garage hackers can bootstrap it like this then why wouldn't a team with significant kickstarter funding be able to do the same? (edited to fix youtube URL above)

shin_lao2• 14 years ago

I don't know if you've seen the update on the article, but the response from LIFX seems to indicate something is off.

The author of the article had some very solid points and all they answered was something along the lines of "don't feed the troll".

I also think your $ 2,000,000 budget is extremly optimistic because it doesn't include the costs of building the lab (that they most likely don't have), legal fees, and just keeping the building afloat while they wait for certifications to pass.

armored_mammal• 14 years ago

Meh. I haven't had any major fails with the Kickstarters I've supported, though outside of the Ouya I don't think I've supported any hardware ones.

Some of the hardware ones I thought were the neat and obviously producible (like weird light fixtures/shades) in a short a time frame also either had stupid reward tiers, or, I guess, just weren't interesting to anyone else.

All that said, I don't really get the people who expect stuff in 6 months for hardware-based Kickstarters. Do you have any ideas about the product development lifecycle? Going from prototype to manufacturing can take quite a while, especially if you need to visit factories in China or some such.

When I back something that's more complex than 'I'll draw a picture' or 'I'll sing a song' I assume it might take a couple years, and that's been borne out at least once, though that level of expectation has also allowed me to be pleasantly surprised.

Despite the above, I'm not saying I think these LED lights are on the level - it seems like a very very poor idea to start a new project without finishing the first. But I also don't think they're as impossible to make as everyone is saying, though offhand I'd also think it'd make more sense to control the lamps with Bluetooth than with wifi.

But if I have this right, and they get the bulbs from someone else in bulk and just pop on a really cheap controller/wireless interface, it seems like the price works out, especially if they aren't worrying about making them 'secure.'

As for 'certifications' and such, I really don't expect they'll even get them, let alone know that they might need them or that they exist.

sequoia• 14 years ago

I wish someone from kickstarter would answer this question once and for all:

Is it a donation or is it a purchase?

This question comes up constantly ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4506601 e.g.) when kickstarter projects are featured here, TFA is actually about this topic more-or-less specifically. At the risk of sounding cynical: I think it's in kickstarter's financial to not answer this question- they're better off with the confusion & everyone seeing the fee-paid/donation as they want it. That way it's a payment for a product when you have your wallet out- it's a "donation" when the project fails and you are left with nothing. :)

bduerst4• 14 years ago

It's a donation, and you get a "prize" for donating a certain amount.

Dylan168074• 14 years ago

I would say the answer is "No.". You put in money. You get back one of the product if it succeeds in being produced. That is not a donation or a purchase. It's not exactly default-swap surgery; people can handle a hint of complexity in their trades.

jws• 14 years ago

Felix Salmon's screed is poorly informed about LED bulbs and the current state of the art in wifi.

First let's go over the current marketplace:

• There are very nice 60 watt equivalent bulbs available for <$25 in quantity one.[1] Without looking directly at the bulb you will not tell them from incandescent. Single color, using phosphors to shift blue LEDs down to nicer frequencies.

• At quantities >500 LED bulbs which look like the illustration on the kickstarter page are under $10. [2] This gives a rough estimate of cost of materials assembled.

• A thumbnail sized microcontroller module with wifi is <$30 in quantity one.[3]

It certainly looks like there is room for a $50 that includes a light and a wifi enabled microcontroller. The cost model gets easier though. Each customer only needs one master bulb with the wifi, the rest only have the cheaper 802.15.4 mesh radios.

Before we look at the article anymore, lets consider what is different about the Lifx than the $10 bulb above.

• More efficient. It needs to be a bit brighter to meet the Lifx specs. This adds cost to the LEDs to run more current within the thermal limits.

• Tri color. It is going to need at least three LED colors. Ideally the sum of them is going to be a pleasing white so you get a usable color at full brightness. The other colors are achieved by running some of the LEDs at lower duty cycle. Notice they chose a bulb with a diffuser. That keeps you from getting blotchy spot light effects.

• More power switching FETs. Their total power handling will be the same, but it will be a higher component count.

• A microcontroller and radio added to the circuit board.

• Software, a couple weeks for the bulb innards.

For that they get to roughly quintuple the sale price. Sounds doable to me.

Most of the article is just an "On no! The sky is falling!" piece on Kickstarter feeling like a store. He uses some other company that took a run at the "just like incandescent" market and apparently got beaten by Philips. For some reason, he has a side-by-side set of photos which the Lifx illustration bulb and possibly the ugliest LED bulb I've ever seen. (Said ugly bulb is proclaimed indistinguishable from incandescent when inside a lamp shade, so it has a use case. Just don't let anyone see it naked.)

As the article progresses it just gets embarrassing. He declares it impossible because other smart people haven't done it and confidently predicts every negative lightbulb attribute he can think of will afflict the bulb. He throws out some ridiculous straw men for the product and imagines a huge barrier for configuration of a UI free wifi device (hint: solved long ago by many products, e.g. Apple's Airport Express) and that somehow the 0.05 watts from the wifi will overheat the bulb which is dissipating ~10 watts already.

At least it was run as "Opinion" instead of "Fact".

Here's my opinion on Lifx: The masterbulb concept is a mistake. Too confusing. Have a controller that plugs in the wall. Keeps the confusion down but also keeps people from switching off the master bulb or having to have a battery in it. They may need to give a bit on the total brightness to keep the heat under control. If they try to grow to something large, they will probably be killed by a patent lawsuit. If they make it far enough to make a nice PAR20 version (diffusion is much harder), I will happily buy 30 of them.

EOM

[1] http://www.homedepot.com/Electrical-Light-Bulbs-LED-Light-Bu...

[2] http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/601830276/led_light_bulb_e... For ballpark reference only. Never trust the specs.

[3] https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11395

ChuckMcM6• 14 years ago

I think this is an excellent post. But perhaps not for the reasons jws thinks it is :-).

Look at that Phillips bulb, isn't it neat? When they won the L-prize for a bulb that could do 60W equivalent for 10W input, some of the coverage said that they had spent just over $28M developing that one bulb. They didn't open source anything they discovered in that process about making LED light bulbs. And granted LEDs have improved in the last 3 years since the Department of Energy ran its $10M 'kickstarter' campaign, the bulb linked is a 12W for 60W equivalent, and its only one color.

So one has to wonder, if it seems easy but the only one company was even able to complete and entry for the L-prize, what did they know that I don't?

I wonder if it is a form of suspended disbelief, if its far enough away from your direct expertise but seems practical and one really loves the concept, one can invest a level of belief into someone saying they can do what you want.

The one that will be interesting will be a Kickstarter to bring an herbal supplement to market that stops aging. I'm sure its coming, or a perpetual motion machine, maybe a project to get the Rossi cold-fusion machine into production. They keep saying if they have a million dollars they can build a functioning power plant.

[1] http://energy.gov/articles/department-energy-announces-phili...

jlgreco• 14 years ago

There is an interesting typo in the article:

    The bulb on the light is quite lovely

Obviously meant to be "right", but I had to read that sentence 3 times before I read it correctly and not as "left". Seems my brain was expecting "left" or "right" and saw "left" since they start with the same letter, instead of seeing "right", the much closer word.

Sorry to be offtopic, thought that was kind of interesting.

drumdance• 14 years ago

He's completely discounting the value of building a direct relationship to the customer that Kickstarter allows. For many startups that's at least as hard as the technology.

jdminhbg• 14 years ago

> so far there’s zero evidence that it’s a good way of providing startup capital for would-be businesses

This drives me nuts. There may be insufficient evidence to say that Kickstarter is "a good way of providing startup capital...", but there's not zero evidence. If you're trying to come off as the measured, realistic alternative, flailing hyperbole doesn't help.

TillE• 14 years ago

It's also a statement that's qualified in an absurd way: "would-be businesses".

Even then, there are at least a few very successful videogame projects that fit the bill, Al Lowe's Leisure Suit Larry and Jane Jensen's Pinkerton Road being the most prominent.

I think it's worth looking at Kickstarter for different industries in very very different ways. For hardware manufacturing (which seems to be the only thing discussed on HN), it's a huge risk. For just about everything else, it's well-established and fairly predictable.

james33• 14 years ago

Every great achievement was once considered impossible.

cfesta9• 14 years ago

I created something like this over the past year. I should have started a kickstarter! :) I do have questions on how lifx will execute this light bulb. Very interesting stuff. Check out the Arduino/Wireless LED lamp here http://charlesfesta.com/post/31814601314/say-hello-to-the-jo...

jwatte• 14 years ago

You can buy a full Android 4.0 tablet for $35. It has Wifi, backlight, screen, CPU, battery and case. The BOM for this lamp is totally doable for a dozen dollars. It's productization that's the challenge. Sometimes, a smart scrappy start-up can hit it right. The heat sink may be a concern for WiFi in the sense that a grounded metal enclosure is a concern for an antenna. Or maybe they turn the heat sink into an antenna? (Hmm, should I go patent that now? :-)

jamesaguilar• 14 years ago

Here's a kickstarter that did very well (launched, great game): http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/64409699/ftl-faster-than...

Personally I'm not worried about kickstarter being generally vaporware, although in some instances it will be.

bufferout• 14 years ago

The LiFX lead engineer had started answering questions here: http://tech.lifx.co/

tbull007• 14 years ago

I know three of the LiFX guys personally - they're all well connected and respected in the Melbourne startup scene.

Are they naive to the challenges of deploying a hardware project? At least some of them are, but the lead engineer has been in this field for a long time. Are they trying to defraud anyone? Absolutely not.

I hadn't heard of this project until I read this article, but knowing the team involved there's just no way these guys are putting their reputation on the line over something they don't personally believe can be done.

Must have missed the memo where the Hacker News community collectively decided to stop seeking funding and shooting for the stars. Reading the tone of these comments, we should now only tackle the problems that we... sorry, you the commentator... 100% know can be solved.

vosper• 14 years ago

If they're "naive to the challenges" (even some of them) then the chances of success are even lower than for companies who have vast expertise in this area. That they're trying to do it on a shoestring makes it even less likely to succeed - people are right to be critical.

Also, I think the major difference between funding in the usual HN startup sense and funding via Kickstarter is that startup funding is almost always classical investment whereby you get a share in the company and the rewards of their hopeful success - but Kickstart funding could well be money for nothing.

JumpCrisscross• 14 years ago

Felix Salmon is a noted writer in the financial world; it seems like the context is being missed.

A few years ago the U.S. investment universe could have been stylised as two mutually exclusive sets: regulated securities available to everyone, e.g. exchange traded stocks, and loosely regulated products for sophisticated investors, e.g. hedge funds. Common to both sets is that the agent, e.g. public company CEO or hedge fund manager, has a fiduciary obligation to act in the best interests of the principal, i.e. the investor. The JOBS Act muddied the line between sophisticated and unsophisticated investors but maintained what constitutes an investor protected by their fiduciary rights and what constitutes someone giving money away. Enter Kickstarter.

Kickstarter says its campaigns are donations and not investments. This is crucial as it keeps them from having to comply with securities regulations, which have a higher bar for fraud than consumer or donor regulation. For example, failing to deliver a promised product would be grounds for scrutiny into whether the company acted in "best interests" of its fiduciaries - presently, a Kickstarter campaign has loose to no fiduciary obligation to its donors. Felix Salmon argues that Kickstarter campaigns are closer to investments than not and so should be fiducially obligated to their donors/investors.

The greater debate is about who should be protected by fiduciary rights, who should be allowed to participate in what kind of investment, and how we trade off inclusion in capital gains against the risk of fraud and public disillusionment in the capital markets. Whether WiFi circuitry can reliably survive 85 degrees Celsius is a side, albeit still interesting, concern.

pbreit• 14 years ago

Felix Salmon is an a-hole and a moron. First of all, if you're going to title the missive "...of the day" there should be more than one example per quarter and such example should actually be vapor. Beyond that, Salmon gets almost everything wrong about small teams building products and Kickstarter in general. Small teams can have huge advantages over big companies specifically because they don't need to build hug quantities fo product. And Kickstarter has a fairly well-known reputation for products from manufacturers who don't have all the answers before they are asking for money.

Kickstarter vaporware of the day, Lifx edition

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