Another android touchscreen for your switchbox (kickstarter)

az1324

Senior Member
I came across this project on Kickstarter and thought it may be interesting to discuss:
 
 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1696745118/hio-wallpad-drop-in-poe-in-wall-universal-android
 
 
 
Disclaimer:  This post is not an endorsement and poster has no connection to the project mentioned.  Supporting a crowdfunded project carries inherent risks and frequently results in significantly postponed delivery or failure to provide the promised goods/services.  Proceed at your own risk.
 
I'm honestly thinking about banning all crowd-sourced related posts, just to protect our forum membership.  I've personally lost money on two crowd sourced projects (Pressy and Ube) and I don't think other then one (Almond Plus I believe), have come to fruition that have been posted here.
 
Please, someone out there prove me wrong! :nutz:
 
I concur there BSR.
 
Basically here have only ever funded the Almond +.  I did that based on your stuff here.
 
I haven't thought yet of what to write about other than I have been able to connect all of the Zigbee devices provided and whatever I have here in Z-Wave devices.  Its still rather "raw"; works fine though.
 
Currently using the PFSense firewall in my testing of the Almond Plus these days. 
 
IE: it has its own LAN and WAN connection and I can still play with it on my regular home LANs. 
 
Note this is a "plug" for the use of PFSense.
 
I agree. I can't stand the fact that people don't go through the motions to generate their own funding for their own horrible ideas. BAN THEM!!!
 
This looks very promising, but it still has a long way to go in my opinion.  A $300 price point is incredibly high when a very capable android tablet w/ 7" screen can be had for right around $100.
 
I use wall-mounted Gen 1 Nexus 7's at about $130/each + $20 PoE adapters for power.  That's half the price of this proposed product with a much larger screen.
 
That said, I really hope they succeed and can deliver these wall-mounted controllers to the market.
 
The general rule is that one out of ten startups fail, probably more if you limit it to technical startups I guess. There's no reason to think that just because the money came from a non-traditional source that that fact is going to change much, that I can see anyway. Obviously that's an average over time and there are shorter term exceptions, but generally speaking you should assume some such rough ratio. It's just like investing in a more traditional way, you probably will lose. That's why the folks you go to to get the traditionally sourced bucks want so much for it, because it's the one out of ten that has to cover the losses.
 
It doesn't even matter if it's a good product, necessarily, since being a good product isn't what allows it to survive. It's selling the product that does, and often a good product still won't sell and they won't be able to sustain the effort. Or the market is so small that it quickly saturates and they can't generate any more revenues.
 
So I don't derail this thread, I think I will put up a poll asking if we should ban crowd-sourced funding projects from posting here and see what the membership thinks.
 
I'm not a fan of banning the mention of them.  But I'd definitely support seeing them segregated into a separate forum, one which had sticky messages regarding the risks (and examples of failures).
 
I think the notion of crowd support for stuff has merit.  The concept's got a lot of potential for scams and people deserve to be warned of that.  But I think it does stand as a reasonable way for innovative hacks to get some traction.  
 
Make no mistake, I don't view any expenditures on my part for something from one of the projects to be any sort of 'investment'.  But I do generally only contribute to ones that aim to actually deliver a given item for the contribution made.  If they manage to pull an 'Oculus Rift', that's OK, provided I'm still getting the unit for which I contributed. 
 
As I was reading down, I was thinking the exact same thing as wkearny.  I don't think they should be banned - I think they should have a specific subforum where people can post about ones that seem interesting, and the disclaimer at the top should point to a nice article (one that supports member comments) talking about the merits and risks of getting involved in crowdsourcing.  Those that wish to ignore the forum are welcome to.
 
I have only ever backed one kickstarter project (Neur.io), but I enjoy reading about them because they show what's happening in the marketplace and what sort of innovations are happening.   However, to me 99% of the kickstarter projects are fun to watch, but I won't give them a dime until I see a commercially shipped product that can be had in mainstream distribution so I know they won't vanish either before they ever make a delivery, or shortly thereafter.  The really interesting ones are the ones that eventually get picked up by larger companies.
 
So - if you're doing a poll, I guess the options should be 1) Ban them!; 2) Leave them alone; 3) Give them a dedicated subforum; my vote would be 3.
 
Regarding crowd-sourcing in general, I'd never in a million years consider it an investment that has any sort of return (if you're lucky you get the product; you don't get stock in the company) - most of the time you're just donating money to fund advancements in a particular area of interest and may get to play with some toys - to me this is R&D more than anything.
 
Sorry I know my quick post looks quite spammy, but I just threw it up here for general interest purposes.  I have no connection to the project.  I regularly check crowdfunding sites for interesting projects and only extremely rarely back them.  But it is valuable just to see what type of innovation is going on.  Added some text to the OP.
 
I do agree that posts intended for self-promotion should not be allowed.  A subforum or dedicated thread sounds like it would work.  Perhaps prevent new members from starting threads there.
 
az1324 said:
Maybe constrain everything to a single thread dedicated to home automation related crowdfunding projects?
 
Meh, I find single threads tedious over time.  
 
Sub-forums aren't all that much trouble to create.  Perhaps one for "Emerging tech and crowd-funded ideas".  Might end up being a ghost-town of few posts, but that's better than one thread extending to dozens of pages.   If something builds enough momentum then move it or start a new one over in hardware, software or mobile.
 
That and sub-forums are great for subscribing.  I think this is one of those undiscovered features most folks don't know about regarding forums.  It'd be convenient to have a way to subscribe to just the posts of new stuff.  Without having to get messages for all the replies that might follow under each post.  
 
I think a separate section makes sense. I have been involved in several and never had what I call a failure. Sure they all took twice as long as they said they would but I think they all honestly tried to deliver. BUT I DO have a problem with Kickstarter and similar web site because they appear too much like an on-line store, and they really aren't.  Its just too easy to Photoshop what you are working on and make it look like its much more complete than it is. 
 
I'd also like to hear more about Pressy and Ube, as it doesn't appear these are dead, just taking longer than expected. Maybe I don't understand things enough to know why they are considered "dead" or what the warning signs are or were. How did thy fail, or what did they do wrong? That could be very educational.
 
I vote for a subforum. I think banning threads would do a disservice to people who are looking for interesting upcoming HA products and gives us a place to discuss them and vet them ourselves. I think it would be quite valuable.
 
In specific regards to this product, this is exactly something I have been looking for. In fact we had already begun the discussion of other similar Kickstarter projects (The Bright Switch and Moonshine) here: http://cocoontech.com/forums/topic/26375-moonshine-lcd-touch-interactive-wall-switch-1-gang-back-on-the-spotlight/
 
While those two products are interesting, I'm looking for a PoE solution, which the Hio is. I saw it as soon as it came up on the Kickstarter page and was excited until I looked at the features.  The Bright Switch has every feature crammed in there you could want - camera, mic, speaker, proximity sensor, Zwave, Bluetooth for $100, but it's not PoE. The Hio doesn't have any of that.
 
I emailed the Hio team through Kickstarter and noticed like Tadr mentioned, that a $300 expected retail price point is way out of whack. For that price, I will just slap a tablet on the wall. So I basically noted they were on the right direction with a modular design, but was hesitant about the future pricing. I also had some questions about the hardware. The response...
 
Nothing.
 
So they are out unless something drastic changes. But these are the things that we should be discussing here.
 
Bright Switch - please make a PoE version for ~ $100 and I'd order a bunch of them. :)
 
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