Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

Posted by sberens 2 days ago

Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product(www.simonberens.com)

325 points | 170 commentspage 3

nicoburns 6 hours ago|

Oh boy, I want one of these. This would absolutely perfect for winter depression (I suspect much better than the "SAD lamps" marketed for this purpose which are bright not even close to this bright). But £889 is a lot of money for a lamp!

riotnrrd 5 hours ago||

If you're not afraid of DIY and it looking (much) uglier than these lamps, you can buy extremely bright "cob lights" and make something yourself: https://meaningness.com/sad-light-lumens

egypturnash 5 hours ago||

Find a garden shop, a 2' square full-spectrum light from "The Indoor Sun Shop" was very important to my mental health when I lived in Seattle and cost a lot less than this. Especially after I added a mechanical timer so I could never be too depressed to turn it on in the morning.

stack_framer 4 hours ago||

What a great idea; good luck! Also, it's nice to read a hardware story on HN (we need more breaks from AI this and AI that).

camel_gopher 3 hours ago||

Dang 560 watt draw. About the same ratio as other LED options at 90 limens per watt though.

bigwheels 3 hours ago||

I wonder what the end financial scenario was - did the product produce any extra money after all the errors and redone work, or was it a net loss?

arjie 4 hours ago||

Appreciate the war stories. Is the product still available? I'd love to get one, though fortunately the first false spring of San Francisco will hopefully be followed soon by a true one.

The store is still online so I assume it must be. Let me run this by my wife haha.

robertvc 4 hours ago||

Great post, I really want to see more stuff like this on HN. And congrats on shipping!

killbot5000 2 hours ago||

That lamp is a nightmare to someone with migraines.

fix4fun 5 hours ago||

50k lm is quite high. What electric power consumption does it have ? I estimate around 500 Watt, am I right ?

thomascountz 5 hours ago||

580W

https://getbrighter.com/

sberens 5 hours ago|||

It's 60k lumens now, and it draws 580W off the wall

michaelt 4 hours ago|||

Am I right in thinking you're dissipating that 580W using passive cooling only?

Impressive if so - every time I've designed something approaching that power level I've ended up needing forced air cooling.

genezeta 4 hours ago||

> Q: Does it get hot/how is it cooled?

> A: It's cooled through our large heatsink and ultra quiet Noctua fan. The fan only turns on above 75% brightness. At max power, the heatsink is cool enough to put your hands on it for a couple of seconds.

christkv 5 hours ago|||

Whats the expected life for the leds at that power draw level?

sberens 5 hours ago||

LEDs are pretty insane these days - the ones we use have an L90 (time until they hit 90% brightness) of >50,000 hours (17 years if you use it every day 8 hours a day).

ceroxylon 5 hours ago||

Good estimate, the official website for the lamp says 580W

numbers 3 hours ago|

I want a bright lamp like this but not for $1200...any suggestions?

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