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Posted by chipweinberger 2 days ago

What I learned selling 2,500 MIDI recorders: Hardware is not so hard(chipweinberger.com)
548 points | 256 commentspage 4
hateful 1 day ago|
I have a old keyboard (Ensoniq SQ1-Plus) where the battery doesn't work right (even when changed) and I was going to put ML Studio on a Raspberry Pi or Mini PC with a USB MIDI device to record. But this thing is exactly what I'm looking for.

When I want to record for real, I'm going to use my DAW. But I want a way to quickly record tracks and this looks pretty great.

bjt12345 1 day ago||
Hardware's reputation derives from the reality that a lot of companies spin out the hardware before the software is even written - so all hardware bugs have to get fixed in software.
jstummbillig 1 day ago||
> Have a strong anti-counterfeit strategy. Don’t overlook this.

Would love to hear more on that but I suppose the omission is not an accident.

JimsonYang 1 day ago||
I thought 'hardware is hard' is a VC statement to apply a broad stroke for why its hard to make succesful hardware companies (that gives 100x returns)

For reasons other commentors have already mentioned-scale, logistics, revisions. And for reasons they havent mentioned-cash flow

neuralkoi 1 day ago||
I hope the author can break down the recommendations in a future post. I'd love to learn how to build this kind of hardware (what tools are needed), how to iterate on the results, how to find a supplier. Also it'd be interesting to know what the author means by having an counterfeit strategy.
iambateman 2 days ago||
This is cool! Thanks for sharing.

What understanding about hardware did you start with, and what tools did you use to learn what you didn’t already know?

chipweinberger 2 days ago|
I started with having watched ~100 hours of EEVBlog :)

Electronics, PCBs, CAD, injection molding was all new to me.

Intermernet 2 days ago||
I'm in the middle of my first hardware project right now and I can recommend the videos on the "Phil's Lab" channel on YT. He mostly uses Altium, but he has a few videos on KiCAD which really helped me. He also has generally good throwaway comments in his videos with regards to PCB design / component placement, as well as the order of operations for good PCB design.
nubinetwork 1 day ago||
The only problem I have with these tutorials is that they're already outdated... I don't think anyone covers kicad 10 yet, and its quite a bit different than 9. (Individual dialogs might not have changed, but where they're located etc might have)
stavros 2 days ago||
What was your anti-counterfeiting strategy? That sounds interesting.
chipweinberger 2 days ago|
I'm using an STSAFE chip - the same IC they use in StarLink terminals. Essentially the digital equivalent of a holographic barcode. I have some other protections too. e.g. Random 128-bit per-device IDs / product-keys. iMessage uses this strategy.

Maybe I'll write an article about that.

rustyhancock 2 days ago|||
Sounds like that'll be a great read.

This is (literally) none of my business, but would you consider a cut down or basic open source version (hardware and software, with open software running in the proper hardware). Yes it'll be cloned by factories, and yes it will cut into sales no matter what proponents claim. (And yes it's probably more work than I imagine it is).

But also yes, it'll be genuine open hardware and might out live your interest in the project.

c0nsumer 2 days ago||
Reading your comment it sounds like you're asking the author to do more work to potentially/likely undercut their own sales. They are already offering a quality device at a reasonable price without any untoward restrictions.

If you want a Free work-alike, why don't /you/ put in the work and make it happen?

stavros 2 days ago||||
Please do, that'd be very interesting. I imagine it's doable to use random per-device I'd when you're hand-flashing, but probably harder on a huge production run.
swiftcoder 2 days ago||
Almost all commercial devices need a unique ID, private key, etc burned in on the production line. For a big enough production run, you'd likely ship an HSM to the factory
chipweinberger 2 days ago|||
IMO it's better to ship preprogrammed ICs to the factory, so you can do your secure burning in-house.
swiftcoder 2 days ago||
Depends on where the ICs originally come from. No point shipping your ICs from China -> US, flashing them, shipping them back US -> China for assembly, and then ship them China -> US again to sell
Teknomadix 2 days ago|||
Yet people do this all the time. Ask me how I know.
thenthenthen 2 days ago|||
Can reply to the reply below but yeah, i have done that, lol
Hackbraten 2 days ago||||
> For a big enough production run, you'd likely ship an HSM to the factory

I figure that the factory is exactly the adversary in the whole threat model? So why give them the keys to the castle so they can moonlight their own genuine batch?

NBJack 2 days ago||
A few ways, if I understand them correctly. On-site people you employ (if you can afford it) auditing the process, connectivity to the HSM to record every key assigned (makes it easy to trace duplicated keys to their origin), and ideally assigning these keys at the very last possible step after the rest is assembled (to minimize 'defective' parts wandering off and being assembled elsewhere).
swiftcoder 2 days ago||
Yeah, it's important that your own people are doing regular inspections of the production line, keys get burned at the final station (use temp keys for QA stages before that point), and you retain software control of the HSM.

You probably aren't going to do this whole rigmarole for small runs of devices like in the OP.

chrismorgan 1 day ago|||
> Almost all commercial devices need a unique ID, private key, etc

Serious question: why?

swiftcoder 1 day ago||
You want a unique ID so that you can track which units are experiencing issues, you want private keys to be able to securely connect to your backend service and/or mobile companion app.

A local-only device with no telemetry can probably skip some of those

amelius 2 days ago||||
How do you verify the ID? In the software? What if the software is hacked? I'm curious how this can be safe.
_fw 2 days ago||||
Please do! Trying to imagine how this works.
Teknomadix 2 days ago||||
Yes, please do!
DANmode 2 days ago|||
Please!
ChrisMarshallNY 1 day ago||
As always, "It Depends™".

There was another post, a year or two ago, about someone that really tried to manufacture a webcam, and gave up.

I spent my career at hardware companies.

Glad this worked out, but past performance is no guarantee of future success...

desktopentree 1 day ago||
From a financial perspective, what were your biggest challenges? What was the working capital cycle like? Were you forced to do a certain level of minimum order quantities and did the cash constraint limit other decisions?
chipweinberger 1 day ago|
500 units was my first run, and it worked out really well. None of the suppliers complained about that order size. I recommend starting with a smaller quantity until you've validated the market. The "economies of scale" between 100, 500, or 1000, units are not all that dramatic. Perhaps 30% cost difference.

I was originally planning to do 4000 units as my first run. Boy I'm glad I started to run out of money and cut it way back. That would have been way too much as a first run.

Max-q 1 day ago|
The article doesn’t mention certification, which is expensive and demanding, but required for any product containing a radio to be legal to sell.
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