alt.hn

2/1/2026 at 8:01:00 PM

Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

 https://www.simonberens.com/p/lessons-learned-shipping-500-units

by sberens

2/4/2026 at 2:50:24 AM

This is really cool, and I saw the claim that it can "replicate the sun's spectrum". Do you have any measurements to share of the spectrum?

by manmtstream

2/3/2026 at 11:26:10 PM

This is super interesting, and I'd actually be quite interested in buying a 60K-Lumen lamp... but not at $1200.

Years ago, there was an HN article "You Need More Lumens"[1], which in turn led me down a rabbit hole.

I ended up purchasing:

   4 standard table lamps from Target,
  28 2000-lumen Cree LEDs bulbs[2] and,
   4 7-way splitters[3].
The end result is somewhere around 56,000 lumens. And I LOVE it. Makes me much happier in my home office, especially in the winter months.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10957614

[2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08H4RJQTT

[3] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FKIE6M4

by mmh0000

2/4/2026 at 2:49:57 AM

$1200 is a lot, and it would be a straight dealbreaker to me as well. But I also noticed it draws 580W, which is a lot too.

Besides not wanting to waste the money, I doubt the lamp will last 5 years (not 5 years of projected use of XX minutes per day…). 580W converted to heat on a small disk will take its toll.

by 404mm

2/4/2026 at 12:25:40 AM

I did something similar, but a slightly different approach. I installed grow lights in my ceiling conches: amazon.com/dp/B07BRKT56T?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1

In my office I have 6 of these, for a total of around 13,000 lumens. It effectively 6x'd my light output for around $150. Worked wonders, especially in the PNW winter.

by jjcm

2/3/2026 at 11:45:30 PM

Just a fun random fact from me: We do need more lumens. Not for normal (non-production) indoor lighting in most situations, however, I always want a bright light for my outside lights, and I find that most 100w-equivalent (1500 lumens) are just not quite enough. 2,000 lumens is almost there, however, 2,500 lumens would be beneficial. Both 2,000 and 2,500 lumen bulbs either don't last in temperature extremes, or are super expensive. The power on time (think hours per day of use) and color of the light matters as well. In my use case, I need a bulb that can withstand long periods of time being run from dusk till dawn. I am willing to pay a decent amount for a guaranteed warranty for X years, however most bulbs of ANY amount of lumens only guarantee 1-3 hours a day for 1-5 years. When you need 7-10 hours a day, well...

by eek2121

2/4/2026 at 12:05:42 AM

Have you seen the Philips TrueForce Core 40W LED bulbs? Not sure if they're sold in the US, but they're 4000 lumens, "last up to 15,000 hours" (whatever you make of that phrasing). They're quite huge but fit into a normal light socket. Not very expensive either.

by Nition

2/4/2026 at 12:20:08 AM

I have a pair of PAR38 LED bulbs from Cree Lighting (2100 lumens) that are rated for 25,000 hours. They're in a flood-light mounted under the eaves of my house.

I never got around to putting them on a dusk-to-dawn timer, so they've been burning 24/7 since I purchased them at the end of 2020 (except for the occasional power outage, of course). I paid $20/each for them.

Sample size of 1 (technically 2), but there are definitely products on the market that meet your criteria.

by Rychard

2/4/2026 at 1:02:58 AM

Don't know enough about your neighborhood, and I might have misread your comment (the "under the eaves" makes me think these are outdoor)

but as someone who appreciates darkness I'd be really upset to live near someone who did this.

Unless you can keep your light on your property (as in, you are extremely rural).

why are you lighting up outside unless you are outside in the light?

by mylifeandtimes

2/4/2026 at 1:19:21 AM

The lights are indeed outdoor, and cover most of my backyard. It's a neighborhood within a major metropolitan area, but the light doesn't bleed beyond my property lines.

As for the "why", the answer is security. If someone attempts to hide in my yard, they'll find it quite difficult to remain unseen.

Most of my neighbors have floodlights of their own (though mine are easily the brightest), and I've gotten no complaints in the years I've had them. If any of my neighbors voiced concerns about them, I would try to work with them to find a solution. I have to live next to them, so it only makes sense to stay on good terms.

by Rychard

2/4/2026 at 1:04:07 AM

Try looking into videography COBs. I would recommend something like the Zhiyun Molus G300, SmallRig RC 220B or similar.

The absolute cheapest lumens per dollar COB would be the GVM SD300D, although I highly question the reliability and light quality.

by Scene_Cast2

2/4/2026 at 12:28:59 AM

Relinking what I've already linked in a sibling comment, but I've just started having these die after 4 years of continuous use ~12hrs/day: amazon.com/dp/B07BRKT56T

Interestingly, 4 of the 6 that I had running all died in the same ~3mo period, but still I was pretty happy for 4 years of use for $25/ea.

by jjcm

2/4/2026 at 1:18:00 AM

Why do you need bright lights on outside all night?

by ungreased0675

2/4/2026 at 1:33:08 AM

In my case, I park a car in my driveway overnight. My lights also help deter anyone who might wander near my neighbor's open carport. I run GE daylight 100w equivalent bulbs purchased from Lowe's from dusk to dawn. They last for years and are cheap. Two bulbs at my driveway and two 60w equivalents on my porch.

by brewdad

2/4/2026 at 12:11:20 AM

I throw 200w led onto my garden. Enough to see where you are but a long way from daylight.

by hahahahhaah

2/3/2026 at 11:41:31 PM

Curious if LEDs can really match the black-body that is our sun (and therefore incandescents).

I would get/build such a thing for my mental health, but I worry the LED illumination will be counter-productive.

by JKCalhoun

2/4/2026 at 1:55:34 AM

Look for the CRI rating of bulbs that you buy. It's a measurement of how close to a blackbody spectrum the bulb is putting out, the highest fidelity being 100. Note that this is not the temperature measurement, and you can have e.g. 2700K or 5000K bulbs with high CRI.

Newer LED phosphors are typically 90+ CRI, and I commonly find 93 CRI bulbs available off the shelf.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index

by syncsynchalt

2/4/2026 at 2:45:43 AM

Interesting. The Wikipedia entry mentions SPD and I think that is where I think LEDs fall down—having a skewed and/or incomplete spectrum. Even though it may make certain target colors look correct.

by JKCalhoun

2/4/2026 at 2:03:34 AM

Sunlight diverges significantly from a black-body spectrum because the atmosphere absorbs so many wavelengths.

by hollerith

2/3/2026 at 11:52:55 PM

I've found that a 250w incandescent bulb (can be had for ~$10) paired with a 4000 lumen LED produced decent results on a budget. Search for "reptile" or "chicken" lamps, they are usually red. You can feel the HEAT from a 250w light bulb.

The only thing to watch out for is that the lamp base you're using can support the high wattage.

by jedbrooke

2/4/2026 at 1:01:41 AM

This is the second article about hardware supply from China I've read and it reads very much the same, albiet in a different niche (the other one was about SBC construction) -Anything you don't specify will be done least cost, and there is no amount of "least" which cannot be chased in manufacture.

The other one noted if you don't specify the density of plastic for bags, or paper for bags and packing, you get clingfilm thinner than you thought existed, and paper which is almost tissue in its weakness. You don't even get boxes to put the boxes in, if you don't specify boxes to be delivered in boxes. So now wrapping a pallet becomes a nightmare if they don't stack. And if you don't specify how many to stack, and how to pad the stack, they won't do unit height stacking if it costs labour time. Your risk.

Some of this like the casting mistake, or the knob thing, could happen anywhere and you have to be close to final manufacture spec to find out e.g. the metal coating impinges on the knob at the free space you specified, because your test rig didn't have powder coating. Or, that a design feature you need like the light entry holes, is used by the casting engineer as pour points because it looked like you'd specified mould pour points not functional holes.

But other things like "yea, you didn't spec how long to make the tails so we cut the tails as close as we could" is just the cheapening above: if you don't SAY its a 10cm tail for the connector, it will be 2cm, if saving 8cm of cable saves money for them.

I've read some stuff which says the cost of 5 SBC boards with pre-applied SMD is now so low, you might as well order 5 so you get at least 1 which works. That means they will wind up working out your tolerance for failure, and produce goods to meet that: if 1 in 5 is viable, thats what they'll target.

by ggm

2/4/2026 at 1:11:04 AM

Do you happen to remember where you read that article about SBC construction? I’d be interested in reading it

by paul_n

2/4/2026 at 1:13:56 AM

It was a HN post several years ago. I will try and find it.

I think it was one of the many threads off "Bunnie Huang's Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen" because the specific incident I can't find.

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=guide+shenzhen

by ggm

2/4/2026 at 12:33:45 AM

As a MechE turned SWE, always a fun read when SWE try hardware.

> Blink and you’ll get a different measurement.

This means your environment is not controlled enough. Also quality control is usually done in terms of statistics. You might want to read something called gauge R&R. That being said, you should be proud of being able to ship a physical product!

As for quality checks, software quality teams pales in comparison to hardware quality teams. Mainly as you said, there’s a lot checks you can do in software. For hardware, bigger companies have to have their vendors qualified. The vendors have to follow their customer guidelines and do outgoing inspection. Then the company has a division to do incoming inspection. There’s a traveler that follows the kit (of parts) and there’s usually subassembly quality checks. Then final full build checks before it leaves the door.

by syntaxing

2/4/2026 at 2:38:57 AM

Hardware startups are such a pain in the ass

One recent run fun issue I had was a pneumatic timer that worked fine in testing in the shop and outside my house

But once in the field the sun heated up the tube enough to trigger the sensor and get stuck in an on state requiring a plug on one end with a hole big enough to let the pressure out but small enough to let pressure trigger the sensor

by winrid

2/3/2026 at 11:19:09 PM

> Due to a miscommunication with the factory, the injection pins were moved inside the heatsink fins, causing the cylindrical extrusions below.

What happened after this? the factory have to replace the casting mold at their own expense or you have to pay for it?

by huydotnet

2/4/2026 at 12:19:44 AM

We had to remake half the mold, and I split it 50/50 with the factory.

by sberens

2/4/2026 at 2:31:49 AM

Since you’re already done creating your hardware product instead of thinking of a new product to follow up with, I would suggest a new business model: there are probably a non-zero number of people on HN that have a vision about making a hardware product. You can offer your services so the don’t have to learn all these lessons the hard way!

by marai2

2/4/2026 at 12:58:49 AM

Oh hey, I have one of these! I really like it. It's quite a unique design. People (especially where it snows and gets gloomy) should have more lumens, and I'd recommend this lamp for others.

One downside is that the active fan cooling design is questionable - the air goes over the top of the LEDs, and there aren't any dedicated exit holes so the air is just squeezing through the very small gap between the glass and the heatsink. There are also blotches of paint that worsen the TIM contact between the PCB and the heatsink. I used a rotary tool to remove those blotches.

by Scene_Cast2

2/4/2026 at 2:10:34 AM

Glad you like it - we're working on improving the airflow right now actually! Thanks for the feedback on the paint.

by sberens

2/4/2026 at 1:57:19 AM

I have one of these - it's awesome, I love it and I think it's an incredible success for a first hardware product. My takeaway from reading this is that caring about building a great product made a huge difference in how your first 500 units landed. Now the next batch gets to come with all those learnings.

I'm sure there will be more challenges as well but as long as you keep focusing on the experience you're delivering, I'm sure you'll continue to get past them

by andershaig

2/4/2026 at 2:08:51 AM

Thanks so much for the kind words and being an early supporter <3

by sberens

2/4/2026 at 12:55:32 AM

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why SaaS investors don’t understand how to invest in deeptech/hardtech, despite current trends. Like this guy, they have no clue about the differences in business model, except they’re not founders so they don’t go through the pain and they mostly don’t learn.

Hats off to the author for making it through! What a start to the journey!

by EdNutting

2/1/2026 at 9:03:20 PM

Well-written and valuable for insight whether you have similar personal experience or not. As someone who does hardware and software as well, I relate to the challenges of making something you can hold; it's very easy to underestimate the challenge difference between the two. Your Murphy's law references are spot on; I feel comforted reading I'm not the only one this happens to! Misery does love company, and it's important to hang on that I think, so that you don't lose hope :)

by mircerlancerous

2/2/2026 at 2:50:26 AM

Thanks :) It turns out "hardware is hard" isn't an exaggeration!

by sberens

2/3/2026 at 11:23:00 PM

Congrats on the first batch shipment! What an accomplishment. As someone who just crossed 10 years as a first time foray into HW, I'd like to tell you it gets easier. It doesn't but keep going anyway! Good luck.

https://blog.iotdef.com/celebrating-10-years/

by kingforaday

2/2/2026 at 10:44:07 AM

When I read the "I had no prior experience in hardware; I was counting on being able to pick it up quickly with the help of a couple of mechanical/electrical/firmware engineers" I was ready to curl up into a foetal position... the fact that the author actually got something like this manufactured and shipped is nothing short of miraculous, it's not just a board off JLPCB and a plastic case, this involves custom manufacturing of metal parts and whatnot, and I take my hat off to him for managing it.

This is also why so many crowdfunded projects fail, people go into it with no idea of how hard it is to get something to market and waaaay underestimate the time and cost. Years ago for the first project we did we took an absolute worst-case estimate, then doubled the time and cost on that. We came in on time and under budget, but only just.

by pseudohadamard

2/3/2026 at 10:46:03 PM

Looking back I agree it was miraculous lol, I don't know if I'd do it again...

by sberens

2/4/2026 at 12:14:30 AM

Selling a product you haven’t tested or built yet to members of the public, classic.

by MagicMoonlight

2/4/2026 at 2:16:18 AM

That's a pretty ungenerous take. Pushing timelines back doesn't solve the fundamental issue that you don't know what you're going to get when you submit that first large order. I've seen many situations where the samples and the manufacturing are completely different, even produced in different factories.

They didn't do everything perfectly, but this looks like a normal learning curve for product manufacturing. Textile manufacturing would be even steeper.

by AlotOfReading

2/3/2026 at 11:18:51 PM

> As someone who generally stays out of politics, I didn’t know much about the incoming administration’s stance towards tariffs, though I don’t think anyone could have predicted such drastic hikes.

I have an appreciation for very bright lamps, and the project is neat, but that stuck out to me.

I'm always fascinated by people who both feel comfortable ignoring maybe the single most impactful society-determining apparatus but will also say "no one could have seen that coming", where that is whatever they were unaware of because they chose to check out. I find the stance so fascinating because for myself, it would be impossible to not try and understand why the world is the way it is.

Everything is downstream of politics whether people want to recognize that or not, and choosing to ignore it is, in fact, a political choice.

by cwal37

2/3/2026 at 11:42:34 PM

In Athens, an "idiotes" was a citizen who focused only on private matters rather than participating in the polis (city-state). Because civic participation was considered a duty, this term carried a negative connotation of being socially irresponsible or uninvolved.

This term evolved into the modern "idiot" which we are familiar with.

by ihaveajob

2/4/2026 at 1:04:34 AM

And as a fellow Greek man said, "Just because you do not take an interest in politics, it does not mean politics won't take an interest in you".

by esafak

2/4/2026 at 1:28:24 AM

You could equally say "just because you take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics will take an interest in you".

by IncreasePosts

2/4/2026 at 2:19:49 AM

What does this even mean?

by overfeed

2/4/2026 at 2:26:40 AM

It means just because you now have an interest in politics, it doesn't mean you will be able to convince anyone of your points of view, or have any impact in whatever level of politics you're joining.

by IncreasePosts

2/4/2026 at 2:37:40 AM

Neither does baking a cake mean you'll get to eat any - but it's clearly a better cake-obtaining strategy than deciding not to bake a cake.

by danielheath

2/4/2026 at 12:06:39 AM

Well wasnt that a good thing?

After the extermination of Melos they could credibly say they were less responsible for the actions of the polis.

And had a higher chance of deflecting the inevitable revenge on to the non idiotes Athenians.

by MichaelZuo

2/4/2026 at 12:15:33 AM

If one civilization is taking revenge on another I don’t think they would show that much nuance.

For one thing, wouldn’t everyone claim they were against their old polis? How would the invaders have any idea who was an idiote?

I just don’t believe it’s at all easy to avoid the fate of your nation , and I especially doubt that the politically ignorant have a better chance of avoiding that fate than the well informed.

by landryraccoon

2/4/2026 at 12:25:24 AM

I did say higher chance, not guaranteed to avoid it.

The counter extermination was only 5% of Athens total population, or so historians say, so it seems like a lot of nuance was shown.

by MichaelZuo

2/4/2026 at 1:59:49 AM

> The counter extermination was only 5% of Athens total population, or so historians say, so it seems like a lot of nuance was shown.

That fact alone doesn't demonstrate nuance. It's possible that 5% of the population was innocent and treated as scapegoats, or chosen randomly, or that anyone high profile regardless of guilt was chosen to die.

Unless there's data on who was actually innocent or guilty, the mere fact that extermination was selective doesn't mean it was in any way accurate.

by landryraccoon

2/4/2026 at 12:24:53 AM

Funny seeing people pushing for other people becoming more active in politics with the assumption that “being more involved” means with their political fights, then get worried when the other side grows or intensifies.

by janderson215

2/4/2026 at 12:16:58 AM

I find the "no one could have seen it coming" crowd extremely tiring, they usually always say that about something anyone who paid a tiny bit of attention could see coming.

It's genuinely baffling to me why business owners pay so little attention to the politics that will directly impact their business.

The entire tariffs thing was incredible obvious to me (I am Australian) and I only check in on US politics for 10 min a couple of times a month, any less and it would be zero.

by chillfox

2/4/2026 at 2:33:53 AM

Did you buy options to trade on it?

by carabiner

2/4/2026 at 1:15:59 AM

Trump in 1987 in a full page ad in the New York Times: "It's time for us to end our vast deficits by making Japan, and others who can afford it, pay. Our world protection is worth hundreds of billions of dollars to these countries, and their stake in their protection is far greater than ours. ... Tax these wealthy nations, not America. End our huge deficits, reduce our taxes, and let America's economy grow unencumbered by the cost of defending those who can easily afford to pay us for the defense of their freedom. Let's not let our great country be laughed at anymore."

Trump in 1989 talking to Diane Sawyer: "he would impose a 15% to 20% tariff on Japanese imports".

Trump in 2011 in his book "Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again": "I want foreign countries to finally start forking over cash in order to have access to our markets. So here’s the deal: any foreign country shipping goods into the United States pays a 20 percent tax. If they want a piece of the American market, they’re going to pay for it. No more free admission into the biggest show in town — and that especially includes China."

Trump at a rally in Vegas in 2011, referring to China: "Listen, you motherfuckers, we’re going to tax you 25%!"

Trump in 2018: If the Europeans are "not going to treat us fairly... then we're going to tax all those beautiful Mercedes-Benzes that are coming in."

Anyone who didn't think tariffs were coming is a fucking moron.

by munificent

2/4/2026 at 1:45:20 AM

Too harsh. Trump was president once before, and didn't impose 150% tariffs on anybody. You don't have to be a fucking moron to assume he'll behave similarly in his second presidency. Trump says a LOT of things that he doesn't end up doing.

by bjt

2/4/2026 at 2:37:17 AM

Tariffs were a huge point of debate in his first administration. The government had to pay $30 billion to farmers to offset the impact of tariffs.

> China implemented retaliatory tariffs equivalent to the $34 billion tariff imposed on it by the U.S. In July 2018, the Trump administration announced it would use a Great Depression-era program, the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), to pay farmers up to $12 billion, increasing the transfers to farmers to $ 28 billion in May 2019. The USDA estimated that aid payments constituted more than one-third of total farm income in 2019 and 2020.

by rockinghigh

2/4/2026 at 12:06:26 AM

I had a university friend who spent hundreds of hours on his YouTube channel whilst the rest of spent hundreds of hours arguing about politics.

He’s now unimaginably successful at YouTube but at least I’m better at predicting the content of tomorrow’s newspapers.

by spacebanana7

2/4/2026 at 1:01:28 AM

> Everything is downstream of politics whether people want to recognize that or not

I'd argue it's the other way around. Politics is downstream of everything else. In other words, it's easier to predict the politics of tomorrow based on the culture today than it is to predict the culture of tomorrow based on the politics of today. I'd go as far as to argue that political details are almost irrelevant except in the most extreme cases where political figures change culture (Constantine or Hitler for example). The current political climate is the result of the cultural climate, and if it wasn't, the people in office would have never been elected in the first place.

National politics doesn't teach you any more about how the world works than the politics of your workplace or your school.

by unclad5968

2/4/2026 at 2:07:13 AM

Exactly. How many times have we seen politics adapt to the new realities of the day? Everything is really downstream of technology.

A few examples:

- The Printing Press

- The Steam Engine

- Factories

- The Internal Combustion Engine

- The Internet

- "Smart" Phones

- Social Networks

- Bitcoin (the orange site loves this one)

by ahnick

2/4/2026 at 1:37:42 AM

All the main retailers like Walmart, Costco, Home Depot/Lowes etc. should band together and pull out the tariff costs as a separate payment line on the bill like sales tax. They shouldn’t include it in the bill and pull it out to be paid at time of sale.

by dyauspitr

2/4/2026 at 1:48:43 AM

The Trump administration has made it very clear on multiple occasions that any company that does that will find that every law that affects them and has some amount of administrative discretion will suddenly be interpreted maximally against them.

https://www.morningbrew.com/stories/2025/04/30/amazon-wont-b...

by Bratmon

2/4/2026 at 2:15:54 AM

They couldn’t realistically take on Walmart, Amazon, Target, Lowe’s, and major grocers all at once. They’re just not organized enough. We’ve already seen them give up or flop in court when challenged.

by ch4s3

2/3/2026 at 11:32:56 PM

Realistically, everyone always seems to think everything was predictable but I have maybe a handful of friends who sold the Russell 2000 futures short and then rebounded long who made millions off the various tariff trades. Ironically, Ukrainian and Russian. Ex-HFT but just doing very normal click trading. So I don't get it. Why isn't everyone who can predict the future so accurately a (deca-)millionaire?

by renewiltord

2/4/2026 at 1:15:15 AM

There are two different kind of “prediction” mixed up here.

The thing which was easy to predict is that Trump is going to continue his trade war against China. It is also easy to predict that in a trade war companies who manufacture some product in China and sell it in the USA will suffer.

That prediction is enough for one to stay out of that kind of business. But it is not enough to do trades and profit from it.

If you could predict that Trump is going to announce x tarrifs on y tomorrow at z time that is much more likely to lead to succesfull trades. That is hard to predict.

by krisoft

2/4/2026 at 12:07:48 AM

It would have been very hard to find a counterparty that didn’t think Donald Trump was going to raise tariffs prior to his inauguration. He was very transparent about this (though the exact amount has fluctuated pretty wildly). Hard to make money when nobody else is taking the other side of the bet.

by derektank

2/4/2026 at 12:30:50 AM

Plenty of things are predictable in the sense that one can bucket them. Tariffs were very predictable because we know the pedo has that unilateral lever and talks about wielding it. But who would have predicted that out of all the stupid tariff things that might happen, it would be things like tariffing allies, tariffing uninhabited islands, TACO tariffs, or a giant board with “reciprocal tariffs”? It requires not only predicting specific stupidity, but taking an aggressive position.

Whoever was holding aggressive poly market positions on “POTUS poops pants at presser” is a millionaire now. We all know he wears diapers and has massive flatulence, but who would have predicted that specific thing?

by ohyoutravel

2/3/2026 at 11:57:25 PM

What I find particularly galling is that he failed to learn perhaps the most important lesson: Maybe he wouldn't have these kind of problems if he hadn't outsourced his manufacturing to China but kept in on-shore instead.

by EarlKing

2/4/2026 at 12:20:44 AM

I did wonder how many less issues would have popped up if the lamp wasn’t manufactured in China. Was a little surprised it wasn’t addressed.

by ungreased0675

2/4/2026 at 1:11:16 AM

The product would be perfect and he would lose $10 with every sale.

by y-curious

2/4/2026 at 12:39:02 AM

Last Trump term, a small business making PC cases locally in california went out of business because of steel tariffs. I'm not sure that local manufacturing in small batches is much safer given there's aluminum and other material tariffs this time too?

by nemomarx

2/4/2026 at 1:19:54 AM

Cost was not the only issue addressed by OP.

by EarlKing

2/4/2026 at 1:29:01 AM

Other than the back and forth / lead time issues on checking issues, what do you think a local manufacturer shop in the US would do better? If the takeaway was needing to specify stuff in the design phase earlier that's kind of a universal manufacturing lesson I think.

by nemomarx

2/4/2026 at 1:56:52 AM

> what do you think a local manufacturer shop in the US would do better?

The post documents issues like some assembly workers stuffing so much wire into the post that not enough protruded to make a connection. I will hope that in the US the workers are paid enough that they notice/care that the result can be connected. Or the managers.

Do you want documented experiences of Chinese manufacturing repeatedly attempting to cut corners? Like substituting inferior goods to increase their profit margin even after the initial product line is running smoothly.

by fn-mote

2/4/2026 at 2:07:32 AM

The example - the cable not extending far enough from the post to make a connection - was explained in the article as something he failed to specify properly. Not a failure of the manufacturing partner.

For this not to be a problem a worker would have to notice it and put two and two together, then investigate further and then persuade their supervisor to raise it with the customer and get a change made to the spec.

While enjoying your faith in the rigour and attention to detail of the US assembly line worker, I think this example tells exactly the story the article says it does - that you have to specify everything.

by abraae

2/4/2026 at 12:08:57 AM

Classic hindsight bias. In fact, you could be paying a lot of attention to politics and still think tariffs were not going to go so high. Here's [1] a betting market that regularly was below 5% chance of tariffs above 40% on Chinese imports in first 100 days of Trump's second term.

https://polymarket.com/event/trump-imposes-40-blanket-tariff...

by seizethecheese

2/4/2026 at 12:15:53 AM

Polymarket isn’t a source for this, lol. Maybe google trends, since there’s no reason to manipulate it. There were also reasons to anticipate the amount of the tariffs, and the absolute stupidity of the tariffs (still reeling from the Heard and McDonald islands tariffs lmao).

by ohyoutravel

2/4/2026 at 2:10:23 AM

If you're so much of a better predictor than Polymarket, then why don't you put your money where your mouth is and make a killing off those manipulators?

by Bratmon

2/4/2026 at 12:26:48 AM

This is a strange position to take. Sure, Polymarket has warts, but that doesn't mean it's not a very good source for consensus opinions about the future from the past. Do you think this market was manipulated?

by seizethecheese

2/4/2026 at 12:37:05 AM

Search “Polymarket manipulated” or similar and examples are legion. You can even do that on hacker news. There’s a lot of incentive to do so.

by ohyoutravel

2/4/2026 at 1:31:10 AM

Sure, but that’s not likely in this specific market, at least in enough size to make a difference to the main point here.

by seizethecheese

2/4/2026 at 1:39:21 AM

Open, public non-academic prediction markets basically exist to be manipulated by people with insider knowledge.

Filter out all the noise of people random ass guessing what will happen in the future and focus on people making big bets late in the game. That's your important "prediction".

See: Anonymous person who made $400,000 betting on Maduro being out of office, etc.

I'd be surprised if there weren't already people running HFT-like setups to look for these anomalously large late stage trades to piggyback their own bets on the insider information.

by georgemcbay

2/4/2026 at 1:17:52 AM

Nobody saw this coming. Trump's first term might have been crazy inside US, but outside... it's the least interfering US govt we've had in a while for the world. So as far as geopolitics is concerned, he is right.

by burnermore

2/4/2026 at 1:27:17 AM

“Nobody saw it coming” is a blanket people wrap themselves in that socializes their failure to see it coming.

by Waterluvian

2/4/2026 at 1:31:59 AM

> Nobody saw this coming.

That simply isn't true. Here's a PDF from December 2024 (before Trump was elected) by the US Senate Joint Economic Committee:

https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/5c392e02-9eb0...

Throughout 2024, Donald Trump has proposed a series of tariffs on all goods coming from outside the U.S. or on goods from specific countries. His recent proposals include:

• An across-the-board 10 percent tariff on all products imported from other countries.

• An across-the-board 20 percent tariff on all products imported from other countries.

• A 60 percent tariff—“or higher”—on all goods imported from China.

• An additional 10% above any additional tariffs on imports from China.

• A 25% tariff on products imported to the United States from Mexico and Canada.

Yes, everbody who was paying any attention at all saw this coming.

by js2

2/4/2026 at 1:24:34 AM

First term Trump didn't quite have as many toadies willing to follow him no matter where he takes them. They also weren't quite so willing to blatantly violate the law and dare someone to do anything about it.

Second term plans were all written down for anyone to read but still far too many didn't believe it.

by brewdad

2/4/2026 at 2:43:30 AM

This is a great point. It makes sense now. All you gotta do is come to power. It's not strings attached.

by burnermore

2/3/2026 at 11:28:09 PM

I'm doubtful that knowing how much politics matters, but only in a vague way, would have been enough to help them. Could someone who was obsessed with following the Trump administration's every move have predicted the tariffs in advance? I don't think financial markets priced them in?

by skybrian

2/3/2026 at 11:40:28 PM

This isn't about timing the market by being clairvoyant about the timing of a madman's tariffs.

This is about taking reasonable risk calculations as a small business with extremely high tariff exposure, when a president who did a bunch of high tariffs last time wins and election and says he'll do it again.

Sure multi-trillion-dollar financial institutions didn't run for the hills because they get paid when it goes up and paid when it goes down.

by skrtskrt

2/3/2026 at 11:46:10 PM

It was extremely easy to see them coming, because he talked about the repeatedly.

The markets priced in him backing down repeatedly, which he has.

by straydusk

2/3/2026 at 11:32:44 PM

He literally said he was gonna:

"Trump vows massive new tariffs if elected, risking global economic war"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/22/trump-tra...

(https://archive.is/20231125045858/https://www.washingtonpost...)

EDIT - Found this after my post, a MUCH better "he said it":

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47/agenda47-president-tru...

by mmh0000

2/3/2026 at 11:35:20 PM

And he did it last time too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariffs_in_the_first_Trump_adm...

“Living under a rock” is the technical term, I believe.

by throwup238

2/3/2026 at 11:38:51 PM

Yep, in his first term he was called "tariff man" (among other things).

by JKCalhoun

2/3/2026 at 11:43:13 PM

He didn't do it the same way last time. Trump's second term is significantly different.

by skybrian

2/3/2026 at 11:39:44 PM

Yeah, I find it curiously delusional, but the reality seems to be a segment of the population just refuses to accept the drastic change in pace to political change.

by cyanydeez

2/3/2026 at 11:40:47 PM

No, knowing that Trump really likes tariffs is not enough to know specifically how he's going to do it. (And which laws he's going to break to get there.)

by skybrian

2/4/2026 at 12:16:20 AM

Well yeah, but the man is also a pathological liar. I would not blame anyone for not believing he was going to do anything that he said he would do.

by otikik

2/4/2026 at 12:10:06 AM

They were very much priced in, you had retailers purchasing a lot of imports in Q1 to prepare for them. What wasn’t priced in was the scale, which is what resulted in the initial sell off in April until the administration walked back the steepest rates

by derektank

2/3/2026 at 11:40:35 PM

let me guess... you don't follow politics either...

by swang

2/4/2026 at 12:33:00 AM

You could also say politics is downstream of other forces that are less global and more local. Some people choose to stay aware of their more local forces rather than the grand ones.

by polishdude20

2/4/2026 at 12:27:39 AM

Fascinating read. I didn't know $1,200 for a lamp was a thing but clearly there's a market for it and you priced it better than Coolest Cooler or I would have.

by mrbluecoat

2/3/2026 at 10:58:45 PM

Great read, thanks for sharing this. I'm also coming from software and have recently started making some hardware for personal use in my free time. The idea of selling it as an actual product has occurred to me, but the thought of dealing with all the logistics quickly makes me reconsider. Congrats on your launch!

by waerhert

2/3/2026 at 11:16:51 PM

Once you get your design polished, than consider partnering with a good Contract Manufacturer to do a trial run. Some will handle the ISO, CE, IC, UL and FCC paperwork for you. Make sure your Patents and Trademarks are locked down in both the manufacturing and marketed countries, or some ambitious folks will try to rip you off later. If your projected volumes attract profit sharing offers, than expect 10% to 14% of wholesale cost as a normal ask.

Tooling up a production line for even a toothbrush is well over $1.5m to get the first unit off the line. Building these factories is a different skill set, and everybody is bad at it at first.

Note hardware has a 1:6 success rate compared with service companies.

Best of luck, =3

by Joel_Mckay

2/4/2026 at 12:10:01 AM

The lack of UL approval is a concern. This thing draws over 500 watts and runs hot.

by Animats

2/4/2026 at 1:02:02 AM

Is it really not UL approved? Hard to call it a premium product in that case.

by wnissen

2/1/2026 at 8:02:10 PM

Author here, happy to answer any questions about the journey!

by sberens

2/3/2026 at 10:57:23 PM

Got a discount code for the HN family? ;-)

Congrats on shipping. I'm living in the EU working California hours (4pm-1am) and will definitely be buying one.

by dickfickling

2/2/2026 at 12:11:06 AM

Do you have any recommendations for FCC/CE testing providers?

by fxtentacle

2/3/2026 at 10:44:11 PM

What was your marketing strategy once you had the $10 deposit landing page setup?

by ishyfishyy

2/3/2026 at 10:56:44 PM

I definitely feel your pain. I own a company that makes custom process controls for industrial and commercial clients, and while we work from a large library of hardware and software designs from past jobs, every job has a lot of the same "start from the beginning" feel as what you went through. Especially, the one thing you didn't check is always the thing that is somehow screwed up, and the sleepless nights wondering halfway into the project if you're in deep trouble.

by technothrasher

2/4/2026 at 12:15:11 AM

Being 6'5" myself, I am worried I'd be blinded by the lamp when I stand up: to avoid adding a base under (an already bulky) base, is there a way to separate the lamp itself and have it wall/ceiling mounted (still pointing upwards)?

by necovek

2/4/2026 at 12:26:05 AM

Because the lamp is 6'3" it's only below eye level for people who are 6'7-8.

We had another 6'5" customer who was worried about the height but they said it was totally fine even with shoes on.

by sberens

2/4/2026 at 12:20:49 AM

How did you figure out how to price your product?

by stbtrax

2/3/2026 at 11:05:32 PM

Hello, nice write up. I'm curious about your deal with the factory and downstream suppliers.. did all these iterations and fixes cost more every time? Or it was a fixed contract? How does that all work

by niobe

2/3/2026 at 11:05:01 PM

Just curious about the frequency of the diodes and do they pulse simultaneously? Quite often I can perceive flicker in moving objects indoors.

by srtw

2/3/2026 at 11:05:49 PM

We use constant current reduction dimming so there's zero flicker!

by sberens

2/3/2026 at 11:16:16 PM

That’s great to hear and a big plus, but I’m actually curious about the undimmed full brightness refresh rate of the LEDs.

by srtw

2/3/2026 at 11:20:19 PM

If it’s constant current the “refresh rate” is infinite, or zero depending how you look at it.

by drum55

2/3/2026 at 11:30:20 PM

Didn’t realize how they actually function, looks like I need some new lights.

by srtw

2/1/2026 at 10:58:45 PM

So just to confirm, the actual cause for the controls not working is still unknown to the reader but the reason the measurements didn't make sense was swapped labels?

by Neywiny

2/2/2026 at 2:34:35 AM

The controls weren't working because we had wired them up according to the labels which were wrong (which is also why the measurements didn't make sense to us).

by sberens

2/2/2026 at 2:43:28 AM

Ah. A lesson from somebody who's built hardware that I'm sure you've now learned: make sure connectors can't plug into eachother unless they're supposed to. Even if they're different connectors, different keying, whatever, sometimes they can still be forced together.

by Neywiny

2/3/2026 at 11:13:08 PM

This is good advice for robust design, but I swear, 9 times out of 10, you will be the one who keys it the wrong way during CAD layout.

by sowbug

2/4/2026 at 1:00:50 AM

I've seen datacenter techs successfully force an SFP optic in an RJ45 port. So yeah, the shape needs to be very different.

by tuetuopay

2/3/2026 at 10:47:24 PM

I built a lot of Ikea last month. And I was just marveling how cleverly designed everything was so that it was quite difficult to put two wrong pieces together. Mostly, the only warnings in the manuals were to rotate a piece correctly.

by abdullahkhalids

2/3/2026 at 11:27:11 PM

I'm curious, what would be the engineering challenges (either hardware or software) in making it dimmable substantially below 2500 lumens, so that it could continue to work as a primary light source when winding down after the sun goes down, rather than switching to other light sources capable of getting dimmer?

by JoshTriplett

2/3/2026 at 11:04:28 PM

Miss posts like this on HN, thanks for the great write-up! I tried to launch a hardware thing like 10 years ago[1], but couldn't raise enough money. Fun experience nonetheless.

[1] https://www.pcgamer.com/introducing-gameref-the-anti-cheat-h...

by dvt

2/3/2026 at 11:18:09 PM

This is a great idea. What was your biggest blocker?

by nebezb

2/4/2026 at 1:10:32 AM

It's a damn fine lamp. Really makes a huge difference for feeling energetic and productive! I experienced exactly what the author mentioned with the white lamp, but the support was top notch. Glad to see the details!

by eutropia

2/3/2026 at 11:07:38 PM

> It was at this point I truly began to appreciate Murphy’s law. In my case, anything not precisely specified and tested would without fail go wrong

After 20 years of system engineering, I just expected this to always be the case. Until my most recent job with a bunch of startups, where people fly by the seat of their pants, there's no communication, documentation, protection or testing, for anything. I am pissed off daily that things don't go wrong, because people now think this is normal, and it goes against everything I've learned from experience. It seems I stumbled onto the corollary of Murphy's Law: when you expect everything to go wrong, nothing does.

by 0xbadcafebee

2/1/2026 at 11:30:52 PM

For someone who has no idea about light engineering or electronics if I stack two 25k Lm lamps next to each other does it make 50k Lm light?

I recently changed my car's headlamps to Chinese LED which claims to be about 37kLm and I don't know how much it is probably less than that.

Two of those lamps costee me around $24 on Amazon US (pretty sure under $10 in China).

What makes this $800+ ?

by atif089

2/2/2026 at 5:48:04 AM

Please don’t put in extra bright headlights on cars. Stock LED headlights being to bright for other drivers is already a massively common complaint — and then we have people installing even brighter ones? Please don’t.

by mint5

2/3/2026 at 11:35:48 PM

It is also illegal to use non-DOT approved lighting in the US. Was behind a jackass today with a receiver mounted accessory red light that was excessively bright and made it look like the brakes were applied.

by kevin_thibedeau

2/2/2026 at 12:16:53 AM

For colours to look natural you need your white light to contain lots of different wave lengths. It’s usually measured as Ra. Artificially looking LEDs are easily 10x cheaper than photography grade LEDs. Also, this guy is probably paying taxes and handling stuff the proper legal way. If you order from Alibaba, chances are you’ll not be paying taxes. Plus if they offer a 5 year warranty, they probably need to keep some money around for repairs.

by fxtentacle

2/3/2026 at 11:31:58 PM

In addition to the all the other stuff, including light spectrum differences, you can't just trust that a "37000 lumen" light (cheap from China ...) is such a thing. Some examples of "100,000 lumen" flashlights that ended providing more like 2000 to 3000 lumens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q_0wxzClkg

It's possible, they exist, many such LEDs are probably manufactured in China ... but the legit ones are probably more expensive, and you may need a more recognizable brand to do some QA, and keep pressure on the factory to not slip quality or inputs.

Consider the cheap screwdriver included with the lamp in this story: unexpectedly, many were more faulty than the cheapest $4 screwdriver you'd find in any hardware store. The more stories you read about manufacturing stuff in China, the more you'll see very strange things. It's not about nationality or anything, it's an extreme kind of optimization. If you didn't catch it already, maybe you didn't really need what you thought you asked for ... they're just checking/optimizing

by ploxiln

2/2/2026 at 2:47:26 AM

Yep lumens are additive (though your eyes perceive them logarithmically).

I don't know much about car headlights, but chatgpt says high beams are typically 25-45 watts, and assuming a generous 200lm/w that gives you 5000-9000 lm.

Roughly speaking, it's expensive because it's 50 lbs & tons of electrical components (that are much higher quality than $24 headlights).

by sberens

2/1/2026 at 11:32:54 PM

Just to add context those are just dumb lamps and I acknowledge that the product here has a lot more features including IoT support and the ability to change Hue.

Is it the ability to change Hue that makes this expensive?

by atif089

2/2/2026 at 2:54:10 AM

The main cost driver is the sheer size/weight/power. Dimmability, adjustable CCT, and smart home controls do add a decent chunk though.

by sberens

2/3/2026 at 11:52:25 PM

You designed and sold a lamp for $1500! You’ve won a lottery!!

by mandeepj

2/3/2026 at 10:51:14 PM

Super glad you found (and made!) a product that everyone wants. Hopefully you have brighter nights than this ..

> That was the worst period of my life; I would go to bed literally shaking with stress. In my opinion, Not Cool!

by OsrsNeedsf2P

2/3/2026 at 11:02:32 PM

Thanks! The ups and downs of startups are very real (maybe doubly so for hardware)

by sberens

2/3/2026 at 10:17:23 PM

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!

by nicoburns

2/3/2026 at 11:11:16 PM

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

by riotnrrd

2/3/2026 at 10:56:50 PM

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.

by egypturnash

2/3/2026 at 11:31:49 PM

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).

by stack_framer

2/4/2026 at 12:39:55 AM

I'm curious about the final financial outcome: after all the rework, mistakes, and learning costs, did the project end up net positive, or was it ultimately a loss?

by bigwheels

2/3/2026 at 11:48:34 PM

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.

by arjie

2/4/2026 at 1:18:04 AM

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

by camel_gopher

2/3/2026 at 11:33:08 PM

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

by robertvc

2/3/2026 at 10:34:35 PM

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

by fix4fun

2/3/2026 at 10:49:49 PM

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

by sberens

2/3/2026 at 11:38:40 PM

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.

by michaelt

2/4/2026 at 12:13:52 AM

> 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.

by genezeta

2/3/2026 at 10:54:25 PM

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

by christkv

2/3/2026 at 11:14:16 PM

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).

by sberens

2/3/2026 at 10:35:50 PM

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

by ceroxylon

2/4/2026 at 1:20:32 AM

That lamp is a nightmare to someone with migraines.

by killbot5000

2/4/2026 at 12:30:45 AM

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

by numbers

2/3/2026 at 11:08:45 PM

Great write-up! Thanks for sharing your journey

by ArcaneMoose

2/4/2026 at 12:33:32 AM

Great post. Thank you.

How/where did you find your suppliers/factories?

by wferrell

2/3/2026 at 11:44:36 PM

The $10 deposit validation approach before committing to manufacturing is underrated. So many hardware projects fail because founders fall in love with the build before confirming anyone will pay.

What stood out to me: the factory miscommunications and quality issues compound because you can't iterate as fast as software. Each mistake costs weeks and thousands of dollars.

For anyone considering hardware: if you're not getting deposits or strong signals of purchase intent before tooling up, you're basically gambling. The author's approach of getting commitments first is the right playbook.

by Soerensen

2/3/2026 at 11:15:15 PM

Congratulations on the successful launch and excellent write-up. Hardware is fun but also much more challenging.

by lastdong

2/4/2026 at 1:16:21 AM

There are hundreds of articles in this genre from years of failed Kickstarters and Maker-types selling DIY hardware kits.

How you get funding for a hardware startup without cursory research into this is staggering.

by relaxing

2/4/2026 at 1:13:33 AM

I bought one of these for my sister. They are well build and precisely as bright as promised. If you desire a very bright light source, this is it.

by dmitrygr

2/3/2026 at 11:18:25 PM

What a great article. It's amazing to see how many simple things can go wrong, and I'm sure there could have been more. Great work keeping your tenacity up and sticking through it.

by johng

2/4/2026 at 12:35:32 AM

I applaud his initiative for getting this through to production but as soon the market reaches sufficient size he will find multiple Chinese competitors selling an identical product at a fraction of the price. And could well be manufactured in the same factory.

by lazyeye

2/4/2026 at 12:10:01 AM

Love the intersection of geopolitics and hardware design lead times. Trade wars can be waited out why getting the design right.

by hahahahhaah

2/4/2026 at 12:07:41 AM

580 watts..... :D. Why not work on cheap solutions to bring in natural light into darker parts of the house?

by lofaszvanitt

2/3/2026 at 10:27:37 PM

Very interesting. I would like something like this, but not with LEDs.

by atentaten

2/3/2026 at 10:42:19 PM

Hydrargyrum medium-src iodide lamps are an alternative (artificial sun lights for movie sets), but you'll want a good AC unit in your office

by conormccarter

2/3/2026 at 10:48:57 PM

I thought hydragyrum was a made-up word, but it's the Latin word for mercury, which explains the Hg chemical symbol. (Just in case anyone finds this interesting.)

by kens

2/3/2026 at 10:51:47 PM

Very curious why you want to avoid LEDs

by MostlyStable

2/3/2026 at 11:24:07 PM

No infrared spectrum

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-35389-6

by piskov

2/4/2026 at 12:34:18 AM

You can buy IR and UV leds. All high end grow lights have these for plants. Low quality cheap led products won't include them but that is nothing to do with LEDs themselves that is just consumer preference and price conformance.

by carsoon