Kickstarter Introduces New Hardware and Product Design Project Guidelines 157
OakDragon writes "Kickstarter has introduced some more stringent guidelines and requirements specifically for the Hardware and Product Design categories. These new requirements are laid out in a blog post called 'Kickstarter Is Not a Store.' Simulations will now be prohibited. Video cannot show a proposed product, action, etc. — only a real product and what it does at the time. Product renderings and other simulated illustrations also will not be sufficient — the project creator will have to have photographs of a real prototype."
Netcraft confirms Kickstarter is dead? (Score:5, Insightful)
So basically, what this new rule says is that if you don't already have a working prototype, don't bother to use Kickstarter. Otherwise, you'll have nothing visual that you would be allowed to show, and nobody will take an interest in your project. The whole purpose of mock-ups and other things is to help people quickly see the potential of your idea. Without that, the amount of effort required to sort the wheat from the chaff is excessive, and most people won't bother to donate to anything.
Make no mistake, it can certainly get awkward if people show mock-ups that can do twenty things and end up with a final design that can only do three, or that otherwise fails to live up to the expectations set by the mock-ups, but I don't see how that's any different from a textual description of what you hope to accomplish. So all this rule change does is ensure that Kickstarter is only useful for projects near the end of their product design lifecycle. And if you're that far along, you really don't need something like Kickstarter to reach the end.
So what is the purpose of Kickstarter again? Because I can't see any useful purpose for the site anymore. At this point, the entire model is broken beyond repair.
Re:You can probably thank "Orbit" for this... (Score:4, Insightful)
Nearly a year after getting their funding, their product is nowhere in sight, promises made were not kept, the funders are upset, the project owners are MIA and all of it gives Kickstarter a black eye.
Maybe Kickstarter just needs to make this notice in large and blinking letters:
Kickstarter does not investigate a creator's ability to complete their project. Backers ultimately decide the validity and worthiness of a project by whether they decide to fund it..
I remember seeing that notice, but it isn't on the page you referenced (somewhere in the corner when you finalize backing/paying, but not shown you just browse projects).
Re:You can probably thank "Orbit" for this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks to me like they updated their page less than a month ago. $60k to fund something like is going to lead to delays.
Kickstarter is not buying a finished product, it is donating to get something hopefully created.
Re:Netcraft confirms Kickstarter is dead? (Score:5, Insightful)
From prototype to full production is a major undertaking. Just ask the Raspberry Pi folks.
Re:Netcraft confirms Kickstarter is dead? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Netcraft confirms Kickstarter is dead? (Score:4, Insightful)
If all you have to show for your work is 3D renderings, then your hardware project isn't ready to solicit for donations or funding of any sort, Kickstarter or otherwise. There's nothing wrong with Kickstarters model. These new rules simply bring it more in line with the rest of the funding world.
Re:Netcraft confirms Kickstarter is dead? (Score:4, Insightful)
You didn't understand him. 3D renders can be made such that it looks like a picture of a competed product which can be deceiving. No one will confuse a drawing with a picture of a completed product.
Re:Chip Design? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And Pebble and Touchfire and Brydge and... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hardware development is hard.
The below was written in respect of openspurcw mobile hardware.
To elaborate on why open-source hardware is hard.
Why open-source software works is:
Widely available repository of code.
Many people able to review it, or sections of it, and understand it.
Ease of submitting tested patches.
Hardware has problems that don't really fit well with this.
The open schematic is the trivially easy part, and not really a problem.
(though in practice, you need a schematic with copious links to design documents, which isn't well solved by open tools).
The number of people who can review it is rather smaller - as you can't
open up a c file, and see a clear error or awkwardness in code that can be edited.
For all but the most basic errors, you are going to have to sit down and
read several hundred pages of hardware documentation about how the chips in question work, in addition to having in-depth knowledge about the circuit design, and costings of likely changes.
Now, you've done this, and generated a patch that you think (for example) lowers the supply current by 1%.
Compile - test.
On a PC, this takes a couple of minutes.
For something of a smartphone class, a one-off PCB may cost several hundred dollars. Then the parts will cost another several hundred dollars in small quantities, as well as being difficult to obtain.
Now, you have to solder the parts onto the board, which is a decidedly nontrivial thing - and if you decide you want someone else to do this, it's probably another several hundred dollars.
So, you're at the thick end of a thousand dollars for a 'compile'.
Now, you boot the device, and it exhibits random hangs.
Neglecting the fact that you are going to need several hundred to several thousand dollars of test equipment, you now have to find
the bug.
Is it:
A) The fact that unlabled 0.5*1mm component C38 is in fact 20% over the designed value, as the assembly company put the wrong one in.
B) C38 has a tiny bridge of solder underneath it that is making intermittent contact.
C) The chipmaker for the main chip hasn't noticed that their chip doesn't quite do what they say it will do, and the datasheet is wrong.
D) You missed a tangential reference on page 384 of the datasheet to proper setup of the RAM chip, and it is pure coincidence that all models up till now have booted.
E) Because you're ordering small quantities, you had to resort to getting the chips from a distributor who diddn't watch their supply chain really carefully, and your main chip has in fact been desoldered from a broken cellphone.
F) Though the design of the circuit is correct, and the board you made matches that design, and all the parts are correct and work properly, the inherent undesired elements introduced by real life physics means it doesn't work.
G) A completely random failure of a part that could occur with even the best design, and best manufacture.
G - may mean that it's worthwhile making two or more of each revision - which of course boosts costs.
Hardware is nasty.
This gets a lot less painful of course for lower end hardware. For very limited circuits, which can be done on simple inexpensive PCBs, and be easily soldered at home - costs of a 'compile' can be in the tens of dollars, or even lower.
Kickstarter: Now more stringent that the USPTO ! (Score:5, Insightful)
You might not be able to scam people on Kickstarter.
But you can get a bogus patent without POC or a product and sue everybody who actually build stuff.
Oh the irony!
Re:Change borne out of bad publicity (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand what you're saying - but, again, their entire verbiage speaks against it.
Creative projects (I'll take this to be film, books, dance recitals, albums, photo projects, etc.) aren't affected by these new rules.
So what you have to look at is what KickStarter wants to be for the 'Hardware / Product Design' categories.
Their old rule was clarified in the 'accountability' post: deliver, or offer refunds. That makes it very much a 'sale' type platform.
Then the new rule changes - announced in a blog post saying that KickStarter is not a store - reinforce the idea that it actually is a store, by essentially making it so that you must have a finished product that merely needs mass production.
If they really want the whole 'risks and challenges' thing to fly, then Backers do, effectively, become donators and the 'deliver or offer refund' must not apply.
I'm not sure if people aren't 'getting' the threshold thing, by the way. Backers understand the threshold just fine - if the project doesn't meet the threshold, nothing happens (insofar as the KickStarter project goes). If it does meet the threshold, then things are supposed to take off.
Perhaps you mean that Creators don't quite get it - in that their threshold should be set realistically based on expected costs for development and manufacture + extra to be on the cautious side.
But then that's a failing in KickStarter's information supply. The 'risks and challenges' section may make Creators more aware by forcing them to think about it a little bit, but that should be seen entirely separately from how Backers believe KickStarter works or should work.
Mind you, I've always been a stern defender of the "KickStarter is not a store", and I live by that when pledging for projects myself. If a Creator were to offer a refund, I'd judge their (apparent) effort and decide based on that whether I want a refund or not. But legally speaking, it is very much looking like a store.
Re:You can probably thank "Orbit" for this... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see how these changes help in those cases at all. If you are simply copying another person's idea, having a prototype and showing how it works is trivial. It's only hard to do if you actually invent something.
The whole thing seems really puzzling, it wants to differentiate kickstarter from being a store by moving it closer to being a store. And if you want to develop something you can't show how you envision the final product to look like. Why is that useful?