RGB LED $0.06 shipper from China in qty. $0.155 with controller built in to LED. (WS2811, not USB.)
Chinese knockoff could be $5 including PCB, slow boat shipping, most likely. Certainly true in qty >= 10. * Drew Van Zandt Cam # US2010035593 (M:Liam Hopkins R: Bastian Rotgeld) Domain Coordinator, MA-003-D. Masquerade aVST * On Sun, Dec 23, 2012 at 2:46 AM, Tom Metro <[email protected]>wrote: > Federico Lucifredi wrote: > > I am playing with the Blink(1), an USB-connected RGB LED that > > kickstarter seeded a few months ago: > > http://thingm.com/products/blink-1.html > > Nice. > > It's trivially simple (in terms of outward functionality), and yet I can > imagine several uses for it. It's one of the few Kickstarter projects > I've seen that struck me as practical and useful. > > > > Also, the ability to create color animations or blinking patterns > > makes it even more flexible than a plain "Red Alert" signal. > > Sure, but is it worth $30? Probably not. At least not for most typical > applications. If it is successful, no doubt there will be a Chinese > knock-off for $5 that just uses a simple single-color LED, instead of an > RGB LED with the ability to do fancy color fades. Unfortunate for the > developers, as they deserve to get the sales themselves, but you have to > match your price point to your application. I think at a $5 to $10 price > point they'd sell in excess of 3 to 6 times what they'll sell at $30. > > Some of their other products seem more worthy of the price points. For > example, they seem to be heading in the direction of offering tiny > battery powered RGB LEDs which can be remotely controlled via IR. (They > sort of have the pieces to do this, but currently you have to plug > together several separate products.) With that product I can see someone > using it for decorations and theatrical set pieces where the color and > blink pattern control would be important. > > > > Quite nice if you want a rack of machines to signal you something, > > and they don't have a built in light for this purpose. > > Yes. Assuming your server has a USB port mounted somewhere that you'll > be able to see it. Though I suppose a short USB pigtail cable will > remedy that if you don't. > > The USB parallel port adapter, which I wrote about previously, I traded > for a USB serial adapter, which is no longer needed for the intended > project (found a better solution), so I was actually thinking of > repurposing it as a Blink(1) equivalent. It will be far simpler. Likely > just a single one-color LED. > > I wonder why they chose the HID USB profile, rather than serial? Vendors > of oddball stuff often seem to use HID and say they do because it is > more universally supported and doesn't require drivers, but isn't that > also true for serial? (For example, the first generation of Zwave USB > interfaces used serial, and I think all of the current generation use HID.) > > -Tom > _______________________________________________ > Hardwarehacking mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/hardwarehacking >
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