Currently in the works are a digital sand timer which can be used to track pomodoros (or any sequence of time intervals), and a Jovian orrery which displays the positions of Jupiter’s moons on a strip of addressable LEDs.
I've been making and selling my electronic social battery pin badges for a while now (https://hortus.dev/products/social-battery) and I'm expanding the range with seasonal versions like a Christmas mood badge, and a halloween themed ghost badge that's coming soon. I'm lucky enough that these projects have gone down well and are making enough money to fund some more complicated (and expensive) projects that I wouldn't have otherwise had the guts to try. Currently I'm working on an RGB digital sand timer with customizable timing sequences so that you can use it for things like the pomodoro technique - I have a working prototype and at the moment I'm experimenting with interfaces for setting the sequences. I wanted to use a combination of buttons and an accelerometer for this but it's not as intuitive as I'd like so I may end up making a small smartphone app to configure it.
I'm making and selling a couple of LED pin badges on my site https://hortus.dev.
I wrote about my experience doing these last year (previous hn post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38904255) and since then it has really taken off! Not enough to live off, but certainly enough to sustain itself and fund some more projects in the future.
I never expected it to turn into anything more serious than a novelty and I've learned a tonne about running a small business as a result. I'm really looking forward to (hopefully) learning how to grow this into something bigger over 2025!
How will you address the product safety issues related to coin cell batteries?
We also manufacture STEM/edu electronics and have encountered product safety regulations concerning coin cell batteries in Australia. Similar laws were introduced in the US and Europe in 2023.
I haven't had any problems with it yet and I've sent enough abroad now that someone would have complained by now if there were issues (I hope!). I'm just using the basic Royal Mail international postage option which is DDU (delivery duty unpaid - something else I learned through doing this!) so tax is the responsibility of the buyer.
Customs is the part I found most stressful trying to work out. I have to attach a declaration which has an HS code[0] on it. Working out the 'correct' code was a bit of a guessing game. I've gone with '853120' which is for 'Indicator panels incorporating liquid crystal devices (LCD) or light-emitting diodes (LED)' and that seems to do the job!
Having said that, I may pay to send a couple of international orders tracked just so I can see how long it takes and if there are any hold-ups I should be aware of.
I've had the store up since around the start of December and I've averaged a little over one sale per day since then. The bulk of these have come from the facebook ads and whilst the cost of these isn't great, I'm selling enough that I am making a profit still. I'm also trying to compete with all the results for regular enamel badges on Google by paying a small amount to promote my link. I've got some traffic but no sales yet via that channel - although I only started this week so it's early days. Over the course of the year I'm hoping to grow some consistent organic traffic and sales so that I can rely less on paid ads.
Something that took me by surprise is how much fun it is seeing people interact with my content on facebook. A lot of people are just comenting and tagging their friends because they think it's a funny idea. Whilst I am kind of paying for the ego boost it's really nice seeing people enjoying my project even though they don't necessarily follow through and buy one.
Awesome, best of luck. I could see this in gadget mags esp around xmas, they often look for lower cost items to contrast the £500 phones and £1k laptops ;)
Hah, I did consider sticking a microphone on these and making them steadily tick down as people talk to you but I decided that might come across as being a bit passive aggressive... (although I have been told that pressing the button to reduce the level mid-conversation is a very effective way of getting people to leave you alone!)
Yeah I'd love to know. Although a part of me is glad that I wasn't able to follow the path of least resistance here. It was frustrating and dissapointing to be rejected with barely any explanation, but ultimately I've learned more by having to sell these by myself (and I get to keep a much bigger cut of the sales than I would have on Etsy!)
Thanks for the feedback! My original plan was to let users provide a location and get customised advice - I may well do that still, but I wanted to keep things simple (and keep costs down) on this first pass so I just generated static content for the UK.
As far as factualness goes, I think you’re right to be sceptical. I’ve read most of the content now and it seems broadly correct, however there are some things that I want to go back and fact check/update! GPT-4 definitely seems to be a lot better that GPT-3/3.5 for this though.
Customised advice for a given location would be a very cool feature, but I understand why you would like to keep things simple (and costs down), and also: you would not be able to “proof read” data the way you can with a static site. So there are pros and cons.
Knowing that the site was generated with the UK in mind makes me understand the advices much better as UK — at least the mid to Southern parts — has a warmer climate than Denmark.
https://hortus.dev/s/badges
Currently in the works are a digital sand timer which can be used to track pomodoros (or any sequence of time intervals), and a Jovian orrery which displays the positions of Jupiter’s moons on a strip of addressable LEDs.