#358 – Mergers and People Acquisitions

Dave Jones: This is The Amp Hour Podcast. Released September 4th, 2017. Episode 358. Mergers and People Acquisitions.

Dave Jones: Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the EEV Blog.

Chris Gammell: And I'm Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics.

Dave Jones: We're back.

Chris Gammell: You're back, man.

Dave Jones: I'm back, sorry.

Chris Gammell: That's alright. Seems like it's been forever. Yeah, I had some travel stuff too, so that also, you know. Yeah, we have a couple of breaks here, here and there.

Dave Jones: We used a couple of our pre-recorded shows, right? Yeah, exactly. A couple of your pre-recorded shows, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Things happen. Things come up. We're good.

Dave Jones: Yep. No.

Chris Gammell: Don't worry, kids. We're not getting divorced.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Not yet. Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Speaking of divorces, let's lead off the show.

Chris Gammell: What a great segue, Dave, really.

Dave Jones: I know. That implies pain. This is why I'm a professional at this.

Chris Gammell: That implies pain and not good. I think this is all good things.

Dave Jones: And you'll have to excuse me because I am still sick, so I'm soldiering through this. And I'm sucking on these throat lozenges so I don't cough. So if you hear me chewing, it's not me being rude. Yeah. Anyway, tell us.

Chris Gammell: Yes.

Dave Jones: What's happening with you? It's big news.

Chris Gammell: So I have a life change. Yeah. I am going to be joining a new company.

Dave Jones: Woo. Woo. Not that there was anything wrong with your old one. You just...

Chris Gammell: No, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So supply... I was... You know, I'm out here actually in LA right now. Yep. Finishing up with Supply Frame. Helping, you know, plan some of the super conference stuff, which I'll still be at. And yeah. So I'm going to join a new company based in Chicago starting mid-September. And I'm really excited about it.

Dave Jones: Which is where you live now, by the way. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: Right. So it's called Hologram. It's hologram.io is the URL.

Dave Jones: Because they couldn't get hologram.com because, you know, they chose a generic name.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: Which, sorry, I think is lame.

Chris Gammell: Oh, I think it's great actually. It's better than like...

Dave Jones: If you can't buy the .com, no.

Chris Gammell: Ah, come on, man. You can't buy stuff with like...

Dave Jones: I'm still old school. Come on. .com. Oh, you're old school.

Chris Gammell: Right. Yeah. Well...

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: I don't know. But...

Dave Jones: Nice .io rubbish.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right. But yeah, I'm excited about it. Cool. So it's... A cell-connected company. So basically, it's... The way I kind of explain it to people is it's like...

Dave Jones: Come on, dude. It's Internet of Things. Come on.

Chris Gammell: I was going to hold off on that. I figured that's his own topic. But yeah, the way I explain it to people, it's kind of like Google Fi in that it like... It's a SIM card that allows you to connect to lots of different providers and towers and stuff like that. But then that SIM card can go into cell-connected devices. So of your own making. So if you've got like a device, you know, a development board with a cellular... Like one of those U-blocks cellular 3G modems or whatever is coming out soon. And basically, you can, you know, transfer data to the Internet and then connect your project anywhere, anytime you have a cell signal, which is pretty common. So...

Dave Jones: Yeah. And what will you be doing there?

Chris Gammell: I will be doing hardware advocacy. So like it's called Developer Advocate.

Dave Jones: Is that your official title?

Chris Gammell: Hardware Advocate? It's like Developer Advocate. Yeah. That's like a common thing in software. So... Yeah, we don't have that as much as hardware.

Dave Jones: Have they done away with Evangelist now? Have they? They've done away with that?

Chris Gammell: I mean, I think that's the same kind of thing. I don't really go by titles anyways. Right. You know? If Chief Weirdo would be the... Yeah. But no, I mean like I'm talking to hardware people and, you know, helping them build projects with cellular stuff. So... So like a good example would be like a few... We talked about that stuff.

Dave Jones: You're almost like an apps... Yeah. You're almost like a field applications kind of guy.

Chris Gammell: Right. With no guarantee of technical success. That's the real thing. Right. Yeah, you're right. It's like trying to get people to use the platform if they're having issues, getting them up and running and connecting them to whomever they need. So yeah, that's probably the closest.

Dave Jones: So is it like if anyone dares fill out like their email address on your website or something, you just show up knocking on their door going, hey, let me show you how cool it is.

Chris Gammell: Have you ever had that where... I've actually... I think I mentioned that on the show a long time ago where I was looking at a data sheet. Right. I was looking at a data sheet on a site and I was logged in and then the sales guy called me. It was like, oh my God.

Dave Jones: I've never had an actual call. I've had many pop-ups and things like that, but...

Chris Gammell: Yeah, pop-ups, sure. But that's a web thing. Yeah, yeah. It was a crossover from web to phone that really freaked me out. Wow.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that's kind of... Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's fine. But no, I don't think I'll be doing that. It's more like talking to people at conferences. I'm probably going to Open Harbor Summit talking to people there who are working on...

Dave Jones: So you'll still be going to conferences and stuff. So you're still doing a similar sort of thing there.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah. I'm excited about that. And it's talking to hardware people, but also meeting a lot more software people too. And that's really what I was most excited about is like meeting software people who are interested in hardware. You know, I get some of that... Some of the people listening to this show are like that. And I'm... Of course. ...about that. Yep. But also, you know, people that are probably don't listen to the show or might not even know much about hardware yet, but are still interested. And just kind of meeting that group of people, I'm really excited about that. So there's a lot of opportunities for education and, you know, getting connected, stuff like that. So... Got it. Yeah. I'm really pumped.

Dave Jones: So a hologram a startup?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. They're a startup. I don't know how many people it is yet, but it's pretty small. They raise some money and stuff, so...

Dave Jones: Groovy. Groovy. Yeah. Well, I hope it works out. How long have you been at Supply Frame now?

Chris Gammell: It's been three and a half years, actually. Wow. It was right after my course launched. I joined Supply Frame. Oh, I was talking to Supply Frame, then I joined later. And then, yeah. So it's been a while. Wow, that's scary. It's been great. No, it's been great, though. It's been really great. I mean, I've met so many good people from it. I get to do the meetups. That's been really good. And it's, you know, it's been really a positive experience.

Dave Jones: So what is the average time you stay at the company now?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it probably is about three years. Because I was at, like, Keith Lee for, like, five years. And then ABV for two years. And Samsung for two years. Supply Frame for three years. So, yeah, probably about three years. I'm a millennial, right? Right. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, it's good. Now, I think the big thing that you pointed out, though, is Internet of Things. Let's get that all out there. Come on, of course it is. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So I can just rib you every week. Internet of Things. Mercifully.

Chris Gammell: Internet of Things. Yeah, you can. Excellent. The thing is, like, so the thing that I've talked to some people about at Hologram is, like, that term is kind of loaded down with a lot of BS. You know, a lot of people are like, oh, well, this is, like, an Internet of Things thing.

Dave Jones: No, the Internet of Things is bullshit. Who would have known? I know. Right.

Chris Gammell: It's not like there's a whole Twitter account for it, right? No, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. But, no, it's kind of just, okay, so, like, hardware people are out there. They know they want their projects connected. I was looking through my project list of, like, you know, build someday. And, like, half of them, yeah, of course, is talking to the Internet, you know? Yeah, yeah. And so, okay, so the baseline assumption is you want to connect something at some point. Great. Right? You did that recently, right? You did that for your YouTube counter, right?

Dave Jones: Oh, yes. Yes, that's right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And so, like, it's about, like, getting stuff online easily and then making sure it's connected. And I think that the cellular play is interesting because it's, you know, you don't have to worry about Wi-Fi. You don't have to get it configured. You just plug it in. It pretty much just starts spouting data to the network. And then it's just about collecting that data and pushing it wherever you want it to go online. So that's why I'm really excited about it. And like I said, when I talked to Akiba a couple weeks ago, his was a great example of, like, he – so we were talking about that Rice project, if you remember it?

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So it's like, you know, 3G backhaul and then, like, 802.15.4 radios. So, yeah, it's just, like, stuff that's, like, out in the field and it's ag tech and it's, you know – oh, crud, I forget his name. Is it not Gerald? The guy – the Sivionics person. I forget his name. I feel really bad about that. Maybe it was Gerald. But Sivionics, anyways, he was doing that in – like, in, like, car plants, right? Remember he was talking about monitoring huge –

Dave Jones: Oh, yes, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: The stamping things. And he talked about doing that with 3G, right? That's the same kind of thing where it's, like, he didn't know – I remember that. – how the connection will work, but it was just a good starting point. Maybe Wi-Fi is a good option, too. But I think for prototyping and stuff, it's a great option. So –

Dave Jones: I'm curious to see the power difference – differences between a cellular – a continuous cellular – by continuous, I mean, you know, maybe updating once a second or something like that – cellular connection and a Wi-Fi connection.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that is a good question. I'll have to do some stuff with that because I've – Yep.

Dave Jones: Well, that's – I've never really done it. That sort of stuff – well, because that's – if you turn up at my door knocking, hey, hello, you put a – filled out an email thing on our website, and the first thing I'm going to ask is, how much current does it take? You know? Right, right. Like, it's – yeah, grumpy engineers. Like, how much current does it take?

Chris Gammell: That's a great question, too. And I think that, yeah, maybe – I'm sure that there's lots of different options that are out there, too. Like, there's other – Yeah. There's other new low-power, like, you know, wide area network type, you know, connection options. Like, and I'm sure that they all have their places. So what I want to see –

Dave Jones: What I want to see after your first week on the job is a graph on your website. An assignment, huh? An assignment. An assignment. I'm giving you your first task. You've been tasked. Okay. A graph of – a parametric graph of data update rate versus power consumption for both Wi-Fi and 3G, your little whiz-bang hologram 3G cellular module.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Well, so hologram doesn't actually make the modules either, though. So it's like – Oh, okay. It's a Ublox thing, right? So Ublox makes those modules. They're like 2G and 3G. They have types.

Dave Jones: So it's hologram like a back end.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So a lot of this is, you know, using the SIM card and then pushing the data to the back end. And then what do you do with the data then, right? So not necessarily having to go through even hologram servers, but like – And again, I'm still learning a lot of this stuff. So some of this might change. But like the – but yeah. So basically what do you do with the data then? Where does it go? Where does – you know, like how do you get it connected to like a – you know, your server or, you know, having like an AWS instance or anything like that.

Dave Jones: So, yeah.

Dave Jones: Groovy. Yeah. Anything that helps with AWS, I'm big for. Yeah. Right. Because I like AWS and I use a couple of AWS services. Oh, yeah. What for? But – oh, well, for backup. Oh, Sendy. Sendy and other stuff. Right. But it's got to be for a dumbass like me. Right. Right.

Chris Gammell: Like Sendy is a great example where – It is. That's a mail program that Dave and I both use. It's like this really – it's not like super fancy UI, but it's nice enough. No, no. Yeah, but it's good. And it's way simpler to use the Amazon SES where we pay a dollar for every 10,000 emails instead of – Yeah, exactly. You know, 30 bucks a month for MailChimp.

Dave Jones: With MailChimp or whatever it is. Yeah. Right. Yeah, exactly. It's much cheaper. And I love it. But it was actually a lot of effort getting it in store. There are a lot of steps which I never would have figured out on my own. Right. Oh, yeah. Exactly. A million years. Right? Yep, yep, yep, yep. And there were so many different weird things to set up. You know, acronyms I've never heard of and, you know, rigid things.

Speaker ?: Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Like DKIMs and stuff like that.

Speaker ?: Oh, God.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. I never, you know. Yeah. And – but they had a step-by-step list and I went through it and it worked. Right. Well, no, it didn't. I think I had to –

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's a little easier now, actually. At first. I really do like it. Yep. But, yeah. And if you listen to – so, Rick was on the show last week. You know, Rick was really interesting because he was talking about – we were talking about server stuff and, like, large-scale implementations. But it was kind of like that really, like, that, you know, top to bottom, like, internet traffic talking all the way down to silicon, right? And now this is kind of taken on the other – obviously, much lower scale, much lower power, everything. But it's that same thing of, like, going from, you know, blinking an LED on a board or, more likely, a sensor, you know, some kind of sensor input to a chip. How do you get that all the way up to your server? Because that's really what they care about. Most people care about. Yeah. And there's going to be a lot of custom pieces in there. You could buy an off-the-shelf solution all the way through, right? So, like, Brandon from – I don't think he's there anymore – at Electric Imp, right? Electric Imp was kind of like, all right, we'll build this entire piece in the middle for you, right? And it was just scripting on one end and hardware on the other. And that's cool.

Dave Jones: It was almost a turnkey solution, almost.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, exactly. And then you could, like, kind of piece and buy different things there. And, like, it's interesting. Like, that was a great solution, too. But the thing was then taking that into production, that's when you really start to – it's like, oh, well, how do we get this chip? How do we get that chip? How do we implement this on our servers versus your servers? Like, we've talked about that on the show. You and I have. It's like, if you don't control the whole data flow, do you really own – you know, like, you don't own the process, right? We say that – we said that about embed. We've said that about server hardware and stuff like that – or not – sorry, server programs, stuff like that. And so it's just that –

Dave Jones: It could be PCB design software, anything. Sure. Yeah, exactly. Anything web-based, you know. Right, exactly.

Chris Gammell: And so it's, like, it's that balance point of, like, convenience versus ownership versus whatever. And I think that this new stuff that I'll be working on is, you know, yeah, you could say that some pieces are, obviously, proprietary chips or proprietary cell networks that, you know, you don't own. But some of that's unavoidable anyway. So it's, like, you know, how much of the process do you want to control? And I think there's going to be some interesting questions in there, especially moving towards production. Right. Yeah, that's what I'll be figuring out. Okay. Mr. Evangelist, keep us updated. Right. Exactly. I will. On your list, you just talked about server-based PCB stuff. Maybe we should talk about that.

Dave Jones: Maybe we should. Well, this brings us to our news segment of the show. Yep. Comes out of the teletype still.

Chris Gammell: Yes.

Dave Jones: Yes. Let's start with Altium have bought Upverter.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Disgust. Congrats to the Upverter team. We had the Upverter team on the show. We did.

Dave Jones: You can listen to that. We'll link it in.

Chris Gammell: Four years ago?

Dave Jones: Something like that. Scary. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It feels like longer, honestly. Mostly because if you look at the picture, I still know Zach, and I see him once in a while. And Zach looks so young in that picture that we use there. Right. That's really what I think about. Right. Yeah. That was a great show. And it was interesting hearing how they kind of talk through all that stuff. Obviously, in the meantime, we've always said that it's tough if you don't own the software there. Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I think this is going to be a good move because in the best case scenario, this service is around for a long time. Whoever's designs are there.

Dave Jones: And it's now free. Right. You used to pay for a pro version of Upverter. It is now free. Since Altium bought it, bam, it's instantly free. Yep. I think Circuit Maker is going to get the boot. I can't see.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, probably. I don't know if anyone's even using that. Right. I think probably more people are using Upverter than Circuit Maker.

Speaker ?: No.

Dave Jones: I think the uptake on Circuit Maker, they just did it wrong. It was nice. Circuit Maker was very nice. It's just like tiny little things.

Chris Gammell: Well, maybe that's a good balance point too. Right. So like both of those, you had to be connected to the server, like that your designs lived on their server. So in that case, is it better to have everything online or is it, I think just in terms of execution, the Upverter stuff was better. Right. Because there's also tools in the Upverter flow that were beneficial. Sure. So not enough to like, you know, overcome that activation energy for me to switch away from KiCad or for you to switch away from Designer. But still interesting. Maybe starting from scratch, it was interesting enough.

Dave Jones: Now, one thing I like about Upverter, I just saw this the other day. I didn't know this existed, but I really liked the concept of it. And it's got me thinking. They have a service called PCB Concierge. EE Concierge. EE Concierge, right? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I don't remember if we announced that on here when it happened. I mean, I talked to Zach about it, but.

Dave Jones: Anyway, what it is, is they, it's basically the, it's like, you know, Fiverr.com. What are the other services? Oh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Like Upwork and.

Dave Jones: Upwork and all the other, you know, you can just go pay someone to do.

Chris Gammell: Virtual assistant type stuff. Yeah. Right.

Dave Jones: But it's built into the PCB engine. Not only that, but you can apparently, I haven't tried it, watch them do the layout live. Oh, I didn't know that actually. Because it's all web-based. Yeah. So you can watch them, because it's all live on the web. So they, they're doing their web-based layout. Are you sure about that? I think so.

Chris Gammell: I don't think so. But either way.

Dave Jones: If they don't, it's a brilliant concept. And my, my check's in the mail. If they don't. Sorry, my invoice is in the mail. If they don't have that, then my invoice is in the mail for the feature. Oh, you mean that, oh, you want some. Yeah, I want some coin, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Right, I see. Bitcoin, please. Dogecoin.

Dave Jones: I accept Bitcoin, Ethereum, anything. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Bitcash. Bitcash, anything. Yeah, right. Library IO credits I'm into.

Chris Gammell: It's weird.

Dave Jones: Which you haven't heard of, you know? No. No, exactly.

Chris Gammell: Okay, well, either way, however, I don't, so what's the benefit to actually seeing it done live? I don't get it.

Dave Jones: Is that you can see that, A, when they're working on it, B, what they're actually doing. Are they working fast at it? You know, even, even though you might not know anything about PCB layout, that's why you're hiring someone to do the layout for you, right? You can at least see that they're working on it right now. You know, you can see, oh, things are changing.

Dave Jones: I think we're talking about different things.

Chris Gammell: EEConcierge right now is doing just footprints and schematics and stuff.

Dave Jones: Oh.

Chris Gammell: I think that they were talking about maybe doing the other stuff. I don't think they actually were, though.

Dave Jones: Okay, well, I visited the website and that's the gist I got, so I don't know where I got that information from.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Maybe it was in the press release or something? It first had started with just part requests, right? So basically the idea was you want to make sure that you have a verified part. So say you're used to downloading from a library or you have a part library. Basically, this is like having a part librarian, right? So you've had part librarians in the past or you've been a part librarian? I don't know. Both. But basically a part librarian would be, I used to have one. She was great. She basically would verify the footprint was absolutely right in terms of, you know, matching the dimensions on the data sheet following, you know, the, what's the spec? Not IEC. The 60, what's the footprint spread? The IPC standard. IPC, yeah, okay, yeah. Oh, I was saying IEC, yeah, IPC standard. Yeah, so like following that and then, you know, getting the 3D model, making sure all the pins are correct on the symbol, stuff like that. That's what a good librarian does and then, you know, actually maintains that library. Usually, you know, so like for Altium, it would be in the vault, right? And this, you know, Eagles can, you know, have separate libraries. You can have, Kaikai can have folders, stuff like that. So this is basically taking that concept and then hiring it out so you don't actually have someone internally. You say, I'm going to pay, you know, 50, 100 bucks for a part, which people might balk at, but like we think about it, if it takes two hours to build a footprint, which is possible sometimes, it's worth it.

Speaker ?: So.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, I thought that was really interesting.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I think it's great. And I think that, so I had sent some questions back about eConcierge as well. And basically because they were also working on converters and stuff like that. And so they said eventually they're hoping to be able to do like other formats, not just Altium formats, but maybe Cadence, Mentor, Eagle, stuff like that. No Kaikad. He didn't mention Kaikad, so. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. And then I was also asking about migration paths. Obviously that's a concern given the Circuit Maker, Circuit Studio, Altium Designer thing. And so they're, you know, they're talking about putting it, being able to go back and forth. So yeah, that sounds good.

Dave Jones: Groovy. So there you go. Another, well, that's one of our acquisitions today.

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, congrats to the team. It's been several weeks. That's great. I'm really, I'm glad that they, yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, that was probably the only, I mean, you know, we, you know, you could see that coming years in advance, right? Who are they going to sell to? Either they're going to make it on their own or they're going to, or who are they going to get bought by? Well, yeah. There's only a couple of names. So.

Chris Gammell: Well, it could have been, I mean, like the distributors keep buying everyone. So. Right. Okay. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I guess every distributor's got their own PCB package now, haven't they? That's true. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So.

Dave Jones: DigiKey have one. Mouser have one.

Chris Gammell: Speaking of, we, we have, we have a bit of news on that too. A former guest, another former guest actually. Do we? Yeah. Dragon Innovation was bought by Avnet. So. We had Scott, Scott Miller. I didn't know that. Right. Yeah. So. Bought by who? Bought by Avnet. So the distributor. Oh, Avnet.

Dave Jones: Oh, the distributor. Avnet.

Speaker ?: Right.

Dave Jones: Wow. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So Avnet's been on a tear. They, I mean, so they own, uh, Hackster. They own Dragon now. They bought Element 14. Um. That's right. Jeez. They own.

Dave Jones: That wasn't small, was it?

Chris Gammell: What was the other one? They own something else. Uh. I think they own like a media arm now too. I forget who it was. Arrow had bought Aspen Labs, which was like the.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But.

Chris Gammell: Oh no.

Dave Jones: Where do we see them? Where do we. Like, like Avnet is so not anywhere on, on my radar.

Chris Gammell: That's because you're not manufacturing though. That's the thing. Like you're not making big stuff. Like if you were, I mean, yeah. Believe me.

Dave Jones: If I was back in the day. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Right. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. What was your distributor experience like back in the day? Did you have? I mean, cause you were doing like Aussie distributors too, I'm sure. And it was military stuff. Oh yeah.

Dave Jones: But we were, um, we were doing, uh, we, we would had.

Chris Gammell: Your cell phone ringing. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Sorry.

Chris Gammell: That's a great ringtone, man. That's the back to the future noise, right?

Dave Jones: That's the back to the future thing. Yeah. I should have just let it go.

Chris Gammell: I like it. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yes. We were, um, no, we had like a purchasing, purchasing department who handled all that.

Chris Gammell: Oh, got it. Okay.

Dave Jones: Fairly much, you know. Yeah. We would have some involvement ourselves. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Like get, I mean, like I just think about like FAs dropping by and stuff like that. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The data books in your day, huh? Yeah.

Dave Jones: That's it.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Yep.

Dave Jones: Yep. And the useless bottles of wine at Christmas time. Oh, well, you know, some people use them, Dave. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, uh, congrats to Scott and the whole team. I think they were, they were had like 12 or 15 people, I think at this point. Right. Wow. So, yeah. So that's great. Cool. Um, and I think that the, Avnet was talking about that they're still going to operate independently. So people that are already using them going to keep, like basically there'll be like a consulting house inside of Avnet, you know, helping people take designs overseas. I'm guessing if they aren't overseas or even if they are overseas, what do you know? Avnet will be right there. Yeah. All right. And we're not done yet, folks. No, no, no. Not done yet.

Dave Jones: No. Ixis. Ixis.

Chris Gammell: I was wondering how you were going to say that. How would you say it? I said Ixis.

Dave Jones: Yeah, Ixis.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it's probably Ixis. You're right.

Dave Jones: Ixis, mate. Yeah. I-X-Y-S.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Ixis. Yep. Anyway, they make like, you know, power traddies and stuff like that. Yeah. I'm sure they make a bunch of other stuff, but that's what I kind of know them for. That's exactly what I know them for. Yep. Right.

Chris Gammell: Big trench fets and stuff.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big power, big, you know, grunty MOSFETs. Yep. Anyway, they've been bought by Little Fuse.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Big stuff being bought by Little Fuse. Big, big power MOSFET company bought by Little Fuse. Right.

Chris Gammell: Little Fuse. Yeah, right, yeah. Which is based out of Chicago.

Dave Jones: Oh, are they? I didn't know that.

Chris Gammell: I sent it to a friend and I said, yeah, Chicago got a ship company.

Dave Jones: I didn't know. There you go.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Ixis is out of San Jose or something like that. And I think they do mostly fabless these days.

Dave Jones: Oh, that would, I'm sure they don't have their own fab. Well, no, because, you know, power transistors and stuff, you could run those on old fabs and still make it. Yeah, you can, but it's, you know.

Chris Gammell: I don't know.

Dave Jones: Anyway.

Chris Gammell: But yeah, that's a bit of dough, actually. It's more than I would have guessed. I don't really know.

Dave Jones: 750 million bucks. There's a lot of money in power trainees, apparently.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So, who knew?

Chris Gammell: I think a lot of these companies, like, with TI, right? So, like, TI has, like, a, you know, the power division, then they have the logic division, or the analog division, the logic division, and stuff like that. But, like, you know, I think the analog stuff just kind of keeps growing. You know, it's just, like, it's really small silicon. Not always with the trench fed stuff, but, like, you know, like, you have repeatable business. You know, everybody needs transistors. Everybody needs, you know, switch converters, stuff like that. But it's just, yeah, it's, like, consistent business. It's not as much, like, oh, we got designed into an Alexa or an Amazon Echo or something. You know what I mean? Like, it's just not those huge swings. Or this part got into an iPhone, you know, whatever.

Dave Jones: Oh! I'm on their website. Ixys' website. Did you know? I didn't. You probably didn't. You probably don't even know what these are, being a young whippersnapper. But the Z8. Ixys are the ones who ended up with the Zilog Z8. Family of micros. So they do the micro control. It looks like they still make the Z8 encores.

Chris Gammell: I did know that because that popped up a lot on, like, parts.io and stuff. So I never used to see that a bunch. Right.

Dave Jones: Right. Is anyone still using the Z8 encore? Because they were, they made a big splash when they were, when they first came out. They were pretty jazzy little parts. And everyone was thinking they were the duck's guts.

Chris Gammell: Why? Because, you know, back in the 90s or something. Not because they're vintage or because they're...

Dave Jones: No. Just because they had some nice little novel, you know...

Chris Gammell: Peripherals?

Dave Jones: Peripheral stuff and whatnot. You know. They were just, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Hmm.

Dave Jones: No jazzy little parts. Anyway, like, now they're, like, you know, yawn-worthy.

Speaker ?: Right.

Dave Jones: But that's just the march of, march of progress there. But anyway... Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, I, like, I assume that this stuff... Wait, there's... Yeah, there's... Oh, okay. Yeah, that's Zilog, right? They bought, they bought Zilog, right? That's the Z8? Or no?

Dave Jones: Yes. Zilog. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Z8. Bloody Americans. Z8.

Chris Gammell: No. Z80. Oh, I'm sorry. Your delicate sensibilities. You can't take it if I say Z. No, I can't take it. No. Okay.

Dave Jones: It's wrong.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Okay.

Dave Jones: Anyway, they do a whole bunch of stuff. They do lead drivers, they do opto couplers, telecoms, ICs, gate drivers, of course. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Opto isolators, power management stuff, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I mean, the power stuff, too, with, like, the... I mean, the IGPT stuff, like, you know, you sell just those in... Especially with, like, electric cars rising in popularity, I'm sure that that's...

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, they're probably, you know, they probably own half that market.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. That wouldn't surprise me at all. Yeah. 3,600 volt. Ravang. I know, I didn't... I'm just... I'm being bombarded with ads here. 3,600 volt. Reverse conducting IGBTs. Whoa. Yeah, well suited for... Oh, no, the ad's gone. Oh, bloody hell. Anyway. I was quite... Anyway, yes, they do have pictures of electric cars in the ads, so obviously there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I mean, this stuff's great for making stuff move, right? Yeah. So... Right. Yeah, cool. Well, congrats to Little Fuse. I'm sure that not... I don't think much will actually come to Chicago, unfortunately. I'm sure it'll be a holding company type thing, but... Little Fuse makes fuses, if you don't know. Yeah, they make fuses.

Dave Jones: Do they do anything more than that? I haven't visited their website in a year or something. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Thyristors. Like, protection devices in general, I think. Yeah, yeah. Sensors, looks like.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right. I don't know. Like, these days, like, when I think about, like, shopping for parts, too, like, okay, yeah, if I go to buy a fuse, you know, there's Little Fuse is a big one, right? But, like...

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Do I really care? I'm almost always... I have very little brand loyalty. I think I've always said that.

Dave Jones: No, I didn't. I was looking. I resell fuses. Thanks for asking. Oh, yeah. That's right for the DMMs, right? I resell, because they're notoriously expensive, these DMMs.

Speaker ?: Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: And I thought, you know, like, I wanted spares to be able to sell some spares for my meters. Sure, that makes sense. Meters that I sell. And, you know, so I was going to all the biggies, you know. I was going to the Bussmans, and I was going to the Little Fuses, and I was going to all of them, trying to get, you know, like, real wholesale quotes, like, you know, give me a price on a thousand fuses. That's wholesale? Well, you know. Oh, Dave. Oh, darling. These things are normally $10, $20 each.

Dave Jones: Really? That much?

Dave Jones: Retail, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Whoa.

Dave Jones: Go and buy a... And have an amp genuine Bussman fuse from eBay. Right, right, right.

Chris Gammell: And what's that format called, too, the large scale? It's bigger than the 4x20, or the 5x20s, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah, yes, it's bigger than the 5x20s. It's the 30mm cartridge fuses.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, okay. Yeah, like the metal, well, the brass ends or something?

Dave Jones: The ones with the metal cap ends and this ceramic sand field. Oh, it's sand field. Okay, interesting.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Yep. Anyway, so you couldn't get the quotes or what?

Dave Jones: Anyway, they're normally very expensive. And so I finally found a Japanese company who I'd never really heard of. That, you know, that manufactured the equivalent ones and the same specs, same ratings, you know, made in Japan and everything. And they were quite... All the best stuff made in Japan. It is.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And they were like one-fifth the price. I went, beauty, I'm going with those ones. I'm not brand loyal to Bussman. No. Screw you.

Chris Gammell: Did you do testing on them? Like, how do you get verified for that kind of thing? I mean...

Dave Jones: Oh, I trust them that they're, you know... This company just makes fuses, pretty much. Like, they know what they're doing. They're all independently certified, independently tested by UL and the whole world. Got it. You know, so...

Chris Gammell: Got it.

Dave Jones: Yep. Yep.

Chris Gammell: That's great. That's great.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So, that way. Yeah, so I'm sitting on like thousands of fuses here. Trying to offload.

Chris Gammell: They make regular chairs, Dave. I don't know if you know. Oh, right. Okay. It's like office chairs you can buy.

Dave Jones: A throne of HRC. Yeah, right, right, right. Sure. Anyway, so, yeah. Yeah, so I sell like a pack of like eight of those or something for $20 odd.

Chris Gammell: Oh, that's a great deal, actually. Because I was... I mean, I just made a video about people getting started. And I was just like, just buy them so you have them around. Because nothing's worse than when you're like, you need your DMM. And you happen to blow a fuse. And you're blowing the arse of the fuse. And then you're like, oh, well, I guess I'll get the penny out and short this thing. No bad idea. Yeah, no. So, yeah. Make sure you have a couple of spares.

Dave Jones: Yep, yep. So, groovy.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And they just so happen to be compatible with my new 121 GW meter coming out, too. Oh, yeah, when's that coming out?

Chris Gammell: Speaking of that, Doc.

Dave Jones: October 20th.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah, you're going to have a big launch party.

Dave Jones: But not for the public. Not for the public. There's only a very limited, very small number of units that will go to supporters first. Nice. They'll be able to buy it first at a discount.

Chris Gammell: Nice.

Dave Jones: Yep. Hmm.

Chris Gammell: How does one get on that list?

Dave Jones: You... The mailing list or is that the full form? You support me on Patreon or get on my mailing list, on my website mailing list. Yes. Okay. Send me. There you go.

Chris Gammell: Bring it all home, man. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So, there you go. Yes, there will be units available. So, and there will be not enough units for people who want them. So...

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, so, yeah, you'll do it in runs. You're doing it, like, in runs, basically.

Dave Jones: Oh, well, I'll do... This is like a pre-production pilot run thing. Oh, it's like that.

Chris Gammell: So, it's almost like a Kickstarter without the Kickstarter.

Dave Jones: It's a Kickstarter without... And then, following that, we'll be the Kickstarter, and then that's where I'll be taking the large...

Chris Gammell: Oh, you're going to do the Kickstarter. Oh, wow.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, awesome. It'll be another Kickstarter.

Chris Gammell: Are you going to do Kickstarter gold? Are you going to do that?

Dave Jones: Oh, what's a Kickstarter gold? I didn't know about Kickstarter gold.

Chris Gammell: Oh, you didn't listen to our show when I had Zach on.

Dave Jones: No. No, sorry.

Chris Gammell: I'll link that in if people didn't hear it.

Dave Jones: Obviously, the only way to stay informed in the industry is to listen to the amp album.

Chris Gammell: It sounds like it, yeah. Right. It's almost like you should do it once in a while. You're right. Dave's very busy, folks. He's building meters. Yeah, so Zach was talking about that when he was on, and his project actually was going back... It's actually just went through that. He did the one-station radio. I forget what it's called. It was like a mason jar radio, and just tuned... Oh, the public radio, it's called. And so that was because...

Dave Jones: Oh, it's just tuned to one station?

Chris Gammell: It's just tuned to one station. So, you could change what station it is on the EEPROM, but yeah. Oh, right. The idea is just like a really simple device for... Right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I think we said for hipsters. I think it was pretty well verified it was for hipsters. Right. Got it. But like the nicest hipsters who like radio. Anyways, yeah. So, that was the second time they did it, and it was part of Kickstarter Gold. So, you should check that out. It was basically like...

Dave Jones: Are you going to give us the...

Chris Gammell: Oh, sorry. It's like successful projects that are like... What's it called? I keep thinking correlated. It's not correlated. It is...

Dave Jones: Do you have to have a previous successful Kickstarter?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, you need to have a previous successful Kickstarter. Well, I've got one of those. Curated. That's the word I was looking for. Curated. So, you have to basically be chosen by them. It's like a chosen. Oh, right. You must be the chosen one, Dave. So... But, you know, you know somebody, so maybe you can get a contact.

Dave Jones: Oh, well. And then... Yeah, obviously, I'm going to get all those public sales that I really wanted, right? Well, no, he was talking about that, too.

Chris Gammell: He said there was actually... There was more than you'd expect. Maybe not on your campaign, but on other campaigns.

Dave Jones: Okay.

Chris Gammell: So, just make the meter a little bit more...

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Put some avocado toast on the back of it, Dave. Right. You'll get all the millennials. Right. Oh, man. All these are rough on those millennials, I got to say. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, goodness. Good old... Yep. Avocado toast. So, we were talking about, with Ixis, the Power Fets, and I was thinking about that in terms of this... Did you happen to see this video? Or, actually, there's a video, but then also, it was a Motherboard.Vice article about DIY Powerwalls?

Dave Jones: No. Oh, man. These things are great.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, basically, they go to recycling centers.

Dave Jones: This... This is... No, they're great ideas. No. No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. Doing a self-power wall is not a good idea. No. I mean, yes, there is a potential for danger.

Speaker ?: Come on.

Dave Jones: You're an engineer. You understand the thermal and safety implications of something like that. Sure.

Chris Gammell: These are all fire-safe boxes. Okay. So, yes. There have been a couple of fires.

Dave Jones: Oh, put it in a fire-safe box. If it blows up, no worries. You know. Shoot me, right?

Chris Gammell: And put it in your garage, and, you know, make sure your garage is attached to your house. But, anyways, so there was a video... So, there's a video... I forget the guy's name. Where was it? Oh, it was... Daniel... No, no, no, no. What is his name? Anyways, there's a LinkedIn video with a guy. And he's actually... He goes over this... It's called My... It's Jehu? Jehu? Yehu? Garcia? But, anyways, basically, he was working on a DIY Powerwall. And he went and interviewed a guy who built one. And it's huge and awesome.

Dave Jones: Yeah. For the record, I think this is cool, right? I like do-it-yourself Powerwalls. But is it a good idea to encourage your average Joe to do that? No. A very bad idea.

Chris Gammell: That's a good question.

Dave Jones: Right? Here it is. I mean, they're just encouraging people to go in and going out and get in exothermic lithium-ion cylindrical cells in the thousands and wiring them all in parallel and series. Like, it's just... Like, no. I don't know, man. With copper bus bars. Come on. I mean, it's just... No. You've got to know what you're doing. That's just ridiculous.

Chris Gammell: I think there should be some kind of minimum of knowledge, but... I don't know. I think it's awesome. Anyways, yeah. I forget who it was. I met someone in New Zealand who was doing this as well. I forget. I remember he was writing a book about bikes, and he showed this, and he actually showed that... So he had a built-in... So each... He had built these 3D-printed brackets. There's like a whole community. They have 3D-printed brackets and stuff. And then it was like a grouping of these 18650s. And then each grouping had its own built-in meter, basically, that you could monitor. Right. They must have been... They must have been 3 in series, because it was like... Wait. No. It must have been just 1 in series. It must have just been they're all paralleled. Because I think it was around like 3.5 volts, so that would be paralleled, right?

Dave Jones: Yep. Oh, well, no. Series. To get 300 volts, you have to series...

Chris Gammell: No, I said 3.5. 3.5 volts. Oh. Right. So... Okay. Yes. Yeah. 3.5 volts would just be a bunch in parallel, because it would be like somewhere between 4.2 and 3 volts, so...

Dave Jones: That is correct.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So anyway, I don't know. It's interesting. And yes, I would hope people are safe. You can't protect people from themselves. And it's like what they're really... Well, and so like at the end of this video, which is a very good video, goes all through everything, right? Mm-hmm. But at the end of the video, he kind of adds up the cost. It's about $15,000 for a 30-kilowatt Powerwall, right?

Dave Jones: Jesus, you can almost buy a commercial one for that.

Chris Gammell: Well, you can.

Dave Jones: Maybe not that capacity, but that's sort of money.

Chris Gammell: Right. It's like a 20... It's like $15,000 or $20,000 for like a 7 to 10-kilowatt hour. So it's like you're getting three times your money, basically, if you build it yourself. However, I was thinking this as I was watching it. No, no.

Dave Jones: The Tesla Powerwall, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's a 10-kilowatt system, and it's only 10K.

Chris Gammell: Oh, I thought it was more. Okay. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I... Yeah.

Chris Gammell: These have changed. I think they've been upgrading them, too, though, so...

Dave Jones: Right. Okay, well...

Chris Gammell: I don't know where to find them.

Dave Jones: That's a lot of money to spend on a do-it-yourself recycled Powerwall. Sure. I'm just saying. That's like...

Chris Gammell: So here we go. Usable capacity, 13.5 kilowatts cost... I don't know. Price for power... What? That can't be right. Mm-hmm. But anyways, I think no matter what you're doing, right, what you're paying a Tesla or another company that does something similar, usually with, you know, I think they're recycled batteries as well, but you're paying for the assurance that it's not going to blow up. They're tested. They're guaranteed, right? If it does blow up or down your garage, you can go and sue Tesla, right? So...

Dave Jones: It's not just that, but they do the battery management properly, right, to ensure that you get optimum life out of this thing. Yeah, it may work now, but this thing may be completely cactus in three, four years' time. Sure. Right?

Chris Gammell: But I think the people that are...

Dave Jones: Well, then you've done your 15 grand, so it's not. It'll be better value to buy the commercial one that's properly engineered to keep going.

Chris Gammell: I don't agree with that. But it looks like it's only 6,200, it says on here. So... Interesting.

Dave Jones: David is screaming at me, cost of time. Cost of time as well. Sure, right.

Chris Gammell: And that's another reason that most people probably aren't doing it like that. And tell that David guy, man, wait, what is he, like a backseat driver here? What is this?

Dave Jones: He's a backseat driver on the air now.

Chris Gammell: He's getting exactly half the conversation. Tell him he should just call into the server now.

Dave Jones: Right, and he should actually listen. Yeah, right. He should just be sitting there on mute, and then he could do the little... Yeah.

Chris Gammell: He's like, no, guys, come on, you gotta...

Speaker ?: Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, there's a hilarious photo of the guy, I presume it's the guy's boot of his car. Yeah. Sorry, trunk for you, Yanks. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Oh, my goodness. I'm full of... Full of these lithium-ion battery packs just, like, tossed in there. I wouldn't, like... Sorry, but half of me just, like, well, a small part of me just wants them to catch on the fire, because that'd be funny. I'm sorry.

Chris Gammell: That's nice. Yeah, I know.

Dave Jones: I'm totally not nice, am I? It's just, like, you know.

Chris Gammell: Well, either way. Yeah. This article calls it out that it is dangerous, so, yeah. I mean, like... Right. Yeah, it's a risk, but, I mean, Dave, we also talk to people that are regularly, you know, doing high-voltage stuff.

Dave Jones: Okay, there's a couple of people doing this. You made it out when you bought this topic up. You made it out that, oh, people are all starting to do their own do-it-yourself power balls.

Chris Gammell: I did not say that. Let's roll the tape back, please.

Dave Jones: Well, that's you.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I was actually surprised, though. I was surprised that the battery stack... So, it's... I think, you know, you've pinpointed the danger as probably the, you know, if there's any instability in the cells or if they, you know, one of them fails and blows up, whatever, right? That would be from charging it improperly. But I was surprised that the stack-up voltages... They only did, like, 60-volt stack-ups. At least in that one video that I watched. I would have expected it was, like, an electric vehicle where it's, like, you're, you know, you're trying to get three, 400-volt stacks, you know?

Dave Jones: You won't know the reason why.

Chris Gammell: Well, you can afford the weight of the higher copper, but is it because of the switcher? Yeah.

Dave Jones: No, it's simply because your power requirements aren't nearly the same as an electric car when it accelerates, right? Your home... Like, the worst thing that's going to happen is you're going to switch your dryer on, for example, you know? So, it switches on the element. And it's like... And it doesn't need to start up real quick. It doesn't need huge pulse power. Like, you know, nothing needs that in your house.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: So, you know, it's not really a big deal.

Chris Gammell: I mean, like, a compressor on a fridge, that's usually a pretty big power dump.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but, you know, but we're still only talking a couple of thousand watts, right? At most, right? Yeah, yeah, you're right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, because you can't pop a 10-amp breaker or something, right?

Dave Jones: No, no, it's right. So, you know, so, really, it's, you know, it's small peak currents compared to cars. So, that's why they don't have to design the transmission system for minimum losses around the maximum peak current. So, there's a big difference.

Chris Gammell: Oh, because you're saying, so, like, a higher voltage, lower current for a similar power delivery. Yes, higher voltage, I squared R. Right. I squared R every time, right? But you're saying that for a high torque solution, I'm a little confused, right?

Dave Jones: They need a higher voltage pack so that they can deliver the energy further within the wiring of the car to the point of load. Got it. At, with minimum I squared R losses. So, you know, it's as simple as that.

Chris Gammell: Okay, so it's point to point, you're saying less losses inside the wiring and then the motors and stuff like that.

Dave Jones: That's why your transmission lines that go between, you know, suburbs and cities are 500 kilovolts.

Chris Gammell: Right, right.

Dave Jones: Half a million volts because the copper is, the loss in the copper, well, then it's not copper, but yeah, the loss in the cables is less. So, yeah. And the cables weigh less. So, they don't sag if you're talking transmission lines and all that sort of jazz. But anyway, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Just got to watch out for the zappy zappy. Don't forget that. Right.

Dave Jones: And you just don't, and you don't need that for the home.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And, and, and remember, you're also still connected to the mains, right? So, the mains can handle the peak.

Chris Gammell: Well, this one was showing that they actually didn't need to be. That was pretty impressive.

Dave Jones: No, they didn't need to be, but in theory, you know, you could take all the peaks.

Chris Gammell: Well, they were also talking about, well, this is another, another one of them like, well, you even don't have to get inspected now because you're not connected into the mains. Right. So, they were talking about making it portable, right? So, they could, they had, they had portable cells on the roof. Yeah. And then this, this installation they had. So, they didn't need to get it inspected by the city because they weren't. Yeah.

Dave Jones: That, that's the other thing. I'm debating whether or not this would even be legal in my country to actually do a do-it-yourself pack that is ultimately connected to the grid, even though it is connected through an approved inverter.

Chris Gammell: Right, right, right, right. Something that actually does the brokering of, of like, where the power is flowing and stuff like that.

Dave Jones: You know, it's, it's probably legal if you could find somebody to sign off on it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right? But that's, that's the problem. Finding someone willing to sign off on your do-it-yourself.

Speaker ?: Gotta grease-then-pals, man.

Dave Jones: Gotta grease-then-pals. Yeah. No one's going to do it, right? No one's going to sign off on you, do it, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's, it's like you can, you can design and build your own car, right? And then try and get it registered to go on the road, but try to find somebody who will register your complete car built from scratch. Good luck. You know? Like, it's, yeah, it's possible, but it's not going to be easy. So, anyway. So, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm doubting the viability of this.

Chris Gammell: Well, I think over time, it's just, you're going to get more, I think this is really, it started as like a play for, oh, well, for the equivalent cost of a Powerwall, it's worth it to spend the time. I'm guessing over time, as this gets more popular, sure. I mean, like, like I said, it was, I looked at the price on the Powerwall thing, 6200 for a 13 kilowatt solution.

Dave Jones: So, it's already, 6200 for 13 kilowatts, right?

Chris Gammell: So, three times that, and you're already kind of at the same thing. So, yeah. So, maybe it was just that moment in time, and maybe there's just interest in it, but I'm guessing, yeah, over time. I think the crazy thing is just as, you know, as solar keeps getting cheaper, which obviously it is, and as more and more batteries roll out, right? So, obviously, I think a lot of this stuff will, I think a lot of the Powerwall stuff is actually recycled and certified. But, you know, obviously.

Dave Jones: I don't believe they're recycled. I believe they're brand new, straight from the factory.

Chris Gammell: You think? Yeah. I think they are.

Dave Jones: I've never heard of them being second. Yeah. Used cells. I've never heard of that.

Chris Gammell: Oh, I think they were.

Dave Jones: I don't think they are. I think you're clutching there. Anyway, Australia's going to get the biggest Tesla battery pack in the world soon. I'm contemplating actually going there to see it.

Chris Gammell: What is it? Oh, this is the Southern Australia thing, right?

Dave Jones: Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. The South Australia are, yeah, the government, we had a big power fire here. South Australian government just went, and Elon Musk said, well, yeah, yeah. And we talked about that when it went out, I think, didn't we? They were like, I would have power for a couple of days. Yep. Yep. And, of course, this thing may not actually solve the problem, but hey, it's cool. Right? Right. And, yeah, and they ponied up the money, and sure enough, they've signed the contract, and it's been installed, and, yeah, I might actually go there to check it out.

Chris Gammell: That's great.

Dave Jones: Is that the end of the buyouts? I think so. Oh, yeah, that definitely was. Yeah. No one cared about.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Yep. What else we got?

Chris Gammell: Let's see.

Dave Jones: Oh, I did like this, which was the $26 million lost. Why crowdfunded hardware projects failed?

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah, over on Plethora. Okay.

Dave Jones: I don't know Plethora. What's Plethora?

Chris Gammell: That's Nick Pinkston, who started the San Francisco Hardware Startups Meetup. It's basically an automated machining platform, so basically you have a plug-in for your CAD system, and then it does cam, so that you can use, like, a standard block of metal, and then you can get, like, low-cost parts made, because nobody ever touches them. You know, like, so, like, all the hard part of machining is work-holding and figuring out how to get stuff into the vices and stuff like that, so.

Dave Jones: Right.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, Katie Hobbin has written what looks like to be an excellent article here, and I presume actually collated all the info. They looked at the 25 funded, sorry, funded and failed hardware projects, and they've got a nice infographic here of, or a nice bar chart of what the lead-in contributor to hardware crowdfunders failing is.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah, go through them, man, because there's some good ones.

Dave Jones: Right, and you might think, well, okay, well, let's start out with number one. The biggest reason is our design issues. Yep. Next is hardware issues. Next is electronics issues, which is hardware issues.

Chris Gammell: It's, like, kind of, like, three hardware issues in a row, yeah, but.

Dave Jones: It kind of, oh, I'd almost put them all in the same category, really. Yeah, yeah. Then there's manufacturing issues, okay. Then there's software issues. Then there's communications problems with the manufacturer, which is kind of the same thing. Yeah. As the manufacturing issues. Yeah. Then there's legal issues, and then there's design for manufacturing. Then there's team issues, like.

Chris Gammell: Oh, like people not getting along. Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, people all thinking you're going in the wrong direction, doing something dumb, and, you know, yeah. So, and way down on the list is underpriced product.

Chris Gammell: Oh, that's more common than I think. I think that's more common than people do.

Dave Jones: I think it might be. But anyway, in the data that they sampled, it's not. And then below that is the product was delivered, but just didn't work. I would also maybe add into that not doesn't work, but doesn't work as claimed. Yeah. Well, but that's still delivered, you know? Well, yeah. Well.

Chris Gammell: Like these are like, this is talking, oh, I guess this is campaign failure. The hardware projects, right? So it's like projects versus companies, right? So that's kind of a big difference.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: So.

Dave Jones: And then there's underestimated demand, which is way down there. Personal problems, which is in your team issues. Jeez. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, maybe if it's like the founder by himself or something.

Dave Jones: And then the last one is they attempted self-assembly. Two. There were two projects that failed that attempted self-assembly.

Chris Gammell: I'm guessing they must have done it where they like all of the requiems that all these, you know, blog posts, why we fail, why we're refunding money or whatever. So.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. Funded but failed hardware projects, I suppose. Yep. Yeah. Anyway, the takeaway paragraph apparently is, is that design is hard. Duh.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yep.

Dave Jones: Prototyping is hard. Duh. Yeah. Production is hard. Duh.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: There are tons of ways you can mess up hardware project, even if you are reaching your crowdfunding goal. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, this is a lot of the stuff we've talked about in the past too, right? It's like, it's underestimation, right? That's one of the big things. It's like, oh, well, we have our Arduino prototype, but it turns out we had to redesign everything because of A, B, and C, right? It's like, oh, okay, well. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Or like, we didn't actually design anything. That's pretty common too. It's like, this is all renderings. Oh, well.

Dave Jones: Lily drones is a classic of that. I have a story about Lily drones. Oh, yeah?

Chris Gammell: What about?

Dave Jones: That happened in the last week.

Chris Gammell: Lily drones.

Dave Jones: They're very lucky to avoid corporate suicide.

Chris Gammell: Okay. I didn't think they had a corporate anymore.

Dave Jones: Well, they didn't because they've declared bankruptcy, right? And the bankruptcy, it's all going through the court and everything. I'm following all that. Anyway, a company called Motor, who's a drone company, Motor, M-O-T-A, Motor with an A, are a drone company who bought the IP rights from them, including their trademark.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Guess what the first thing they did with their trademark is? Was.

Chris Gammell: I don't know.

Dave Jones: Try and take down my video with their trademark. Oh, really? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Wow.

Dave Jones: So I wake up on Saturday morning to an email from YouTube saying, you have received a trademark claim, not copyright. This has nothing to do with copyright. A trademark claim against the word Hilly. Really? Right. They own the trademark to word Lillie. But you're a review. You're like a critical. I know. I was doing a news story. I was covering a news story.

Chris Gammell: Let's not go crazy here, David.

Dave Jones: What? A news story. I was on holiday sitting on the beach and this news broker was huge and I had invested in it. I covered the news story.

Chris Gammell: A news story.

Dave Jones: What? It was. Go watch the video. David L.

Chris Gammell: Jones, reporter at large.

Dave Jones: Anyway. It's gone. Yeah. Anyway. Yes. And that starts a process at YouTube, a 48 hour process, right? Where that I have to talk to them and sort it out with them within 48 hours. Otherwise, it gets escalated to an automatic claim and then I would dispute, then I'd have to dispute it and boom, my video would get taken down and all the rest. So, of course, this is utter bullshit, right? You cannot make a trademark claim against somebody saying the name. Right.

Chris Gammell: You weren't claiming that you were representing Lily or anything?

Dave Jones: No, I wasn't claiming that I was representing. And there's actually a famous court case from a band back in the 90s, one of the boy bands.

Chris Gammell: Is this an Australian case?

Dave Jones: No, this is a thing. Who, kids on the block?

Chris Gammell: N-K-O-T-B? Oh. New kids on the block.

Dave Jones: Anyway. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Chris Gammell: Oh.

Dave Jones: Oh. I can't remember the name. Oh. Right stuff. Presumptive. Hang on. Hang on a sec.

Chris Gammell: Oh, man. N-K-O-T-B came to get him. Or it's the delivery guy. One of the two. It's the door. That's the door sound you can tell.

Dave Jones: Sorry. That was a courier.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I can tell. What is David even doing there? What? Is his arms broken? He can't sign for something? Put him on. Get him on the show. He's not here. I'm going to yell at him. Come on, man.

Dave Jones: Anyway. I will send you. I will have to link it in down below. Anyway. So here it is. I've got it. I've got it. Anyway.

Chris Gammell: I'll start singing N-K-O-T-B again. I swear to God.

Dave Jones: Normative. Normative. Normative. Word of the day. Normative fair use. Oh, fair use. Yeah. Normative fair use is basically the trademark equivalent to copyright fair use. Oh, okay. Interesting. Different things. And it's based on a court case where the new kids on the block sued a news company for using their name. And their name was trademarked. And they mentioned them. And they sued them. And they lost. And it set a huge precedent.

Chris Gammell: Well, that's good they lost because that's ridiculous.

Dave Jones: How would you even do that? It's absolutely ridiculous.

Chris Gammell: That's like when people talk about the Super Bowl, right? And they're like, oh, we can't even say the word Super Bowl. It's like, what the hell? How does this even work?

Dave Jones: But it had apparently never really been tested before, right? Legally. It had never been tested.

Chris Gammell: Probably because people usually like the exposure versus whatever happened to the N-K-O-T-B. Exactly. Right?

Dave Jones: So anyway, the new company apparently didn't like my video on somebody else's who they also at least tried the same thing against someone else. So anyway, I emailed them and said, hey, this is normative fair use. Buzz off. Yeah. And their 48-hour clock is ticking. And I emailed the CEO as well. And sure enough, magically the next day, oh, we were...

Chris Gammell: What do you know? Yeah. Right.

Dave Jones: We were reviewing it internally. And yeah. Right. We have withdrawn their thing.

Chris Gammell: That was a spray and pray from their legal team. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And I had a video uploaded ready to go. Oh, yeah. You know. It was like... Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Did you bleep out the word lily when you mentioned it?

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. Of course. Yeah. No, no, no, no. Sorry. No, no, no. Of course not. No. Wait.

Chris Gammell: Were you just going to get that one taken down then too?

Dave Jones: No. I would have just kept uploading videos and get them all taken. I would have just kept doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And anyway, it was never going to happen. There was no way they were ever going to survive my claim on YouTube for that. It's just...

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway. So then, anyway, that was my last weekend was very exciting because of that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Nothing like a little legal stuff to shake up the weekend. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So, yeah. So that would have been corporate suicide on their part. I guess.

Chris Gammell: I mean, I'm sure they're doing this to other people though.

Dave Jones: So, yeah, but it made a big story at the time and it would have made a big story again if this new company was abusing that trademark. You know, it would have... I'm sure it really would have caught on.

Chris Gammell: So, yeah. Well, to go back to this crowdfunded failure thing, I mean, I think it's stuff we talk about on here all the time, right? But it's basically the stuff that's on Kickstarter. And I talked to Zach a little bit about this when he was on the show, but we talked a little bit...

Speaker ?: Well, actually, this is a good point as well.

Chris Gammell: So, Avnet and BotDragon, right? We'll tie it all together again. Avnet, BotDragon, and Avnet and Dragon also were teaming with Kickstarter to do that hardware studio thing. And part of what they're talking about is trying to find designs or help designs get more to the manufacturing point, right? So, like, looking at your project, right, something that's already been prototyped and is effectively halfway to being manufactured, even though they don't want to use that as their story of, like, this is what we want as a Kickstarter, because it's so far along, that's effectively what they want, especially for hardware.

Dave Jones: Right, right.

Chris Gammell: You know, that is just an unfortunate truth, is that it's going to be the lowest risk one because it's already being manufactured.

Dave Jones: Yes, that's right.

Chris Gammell: So, like, AVE just did a review on that ridiculous laser etcher thingy?

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, I saw that. Yeah. That was just nuts.

Chris Gammell: I mean, like, and, you know, he did a fair review simply because he was talking about the focal length and how it's not going to, even if it is manufacturable, that it's not going to be a good laser.

Dave Jones: No, it's going to be crap.

Chris Gammell: It's going to be a crap toy. He didn't really talk about the manufacturability because there's just no information about it yet.

Dave Jones: No, that's right.

Chris Gammell: You know, dollars to donuts, that it's probably not going to, you know, make it. And if it does, good on them. But, like, yeah, it's probably not going to make it. And so he stuck to that other part of it with it's not going to be high quality regardless. So, yeah. But, like, yeah, just like a million of those things. That was like thousands of units. Not to mention it was a pretty dubious assumption in the first place. And even if they get it out there, it's probably still going to disappoint people. So, like, it would hit a couple of these categories on this Kickstarter list, I think.

Dave Jones: I'll tell you where a lot of Kickstarters come a gutter, right, is in these stretch goals. Right? Because they design their product, right? You know, you can prototype your product and everything. Everything's funky-dory, right? This thing's going to be manufactured. No worries whatsoever. And then your Kickstarter goes gangbusters. Yep. Right? And when it goes gangbusters after a couple of days, you know, you feel compelled to add, ooh, stretch goals. Right, right. Money, money, money. You're right. Yeah. So all of a sudden you come up with these inventive new things that your product can do that you haven't tested yet. You haven't even prototyped and you go, ooh, if we get to a million dollars, our stretch goal will be, we'll add this functionality to the product. Yeah. And then, like, boom, you've just, you know, like, you've added this un-costed, untested, un-prototyped goal to your product that otherwise might be a very well-engineered product.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right? Right, right.

Dave Jones: And you've just promised this thing. Like, it's just crazy.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. I've been writing, so I wrote about solo engineers a while back, and it was specifically, you know, about, like, just people that are working on their own, like, small teams, you know, Kickstarter-type folks that are trying to do it with just them, right? But it was actually, I was thinking about David Kronstein, right? So we've had him on Tesla 500.

Dave Jones: Oh, yes, the camera. Yeah, Tesla 500.

Chris Gammell: I think that David's campaign, so I was really thinking about him when I wrote that article, the solo engineer thing, but I think about his Kickstarter campaign, that should be, the way that he did that should be the case study for every single Kickstarter campaign that's out there. It's great. Not only just from the manufacturing perspective, he had three or four revs of hardware, obviously he had all the technical expertise, he was doing the, he charged enough for the camera, but then the marketing piece, the fact that he got hardware out to people like you and Ben and everybody, like, all that stuff, like, that was a really, really good, that was one of the best executed campaigns. It wasn't fast. He put a cap on, like you're talking about, he put a cap on how many reward, how many cameras he was going to make, even. You know, he could have sold, I think he sold out, didn't he? I don't remember exactly.

Dave Jones: He sold out?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, but.

Dave Jones: Oh, he sold out of cameras, not sold out to somebody.

Chris Gammell: Oh, not like being a sellout, no. Right. Yeah, no, I think he, I think he, he, he limited his, his campaign.

Dave Jones: Yes, that's what Andy Gilm. Oh, Andy, right, from LifeX, right? Yeah, yes, from, from the LifeX bulb. That was, that was the project, actually, that was the project that on, on Kickstarter, on Kickstarter that actually changed the rules of Kickstarter where you had to have a real product. Oh, interesting. I think it kind of, yeah, I think that was the product. Okay. And they deliberately stopped it. Like, it was, they were going for like 10 million bucks. Yeah. Yeah. Like, it was trending towards a 10 million dollar target. Yeah. And they just went, hey, we can't make this many bulbs. Right. So, they actually stopped it at a million or two or something like that. Yeah. And they did deliver. They, they actually stopped it. Right. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, they, they eventually, it took them longer than, much longer than I thought, I think.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I think, I think having, so like when I see a campaign that says like, all right, we're legitimately only, and who else did that? I think the Wazer campaign did that too. There was one other, like, there was like larger scale things where they said, we're only going to do so many. It's like, that means you probably already, like, that's, that's a pretty strong signal that you've already been talking to a manufacturer. Right. Right. Because you're, you got an order in. It's not like you can just on a dime be like, you know what guys, throw another 200 in there. It's like, who does that? You know, like that's, that is a total disruption when, when, when the first thing was, you know, 300, right? It's like, oh, let's make it an even 500. It's like, that is a huge disruption to your supply chain stuff. And because it's just that one thing that breaks, you know, that one, that one part that you can't get because you were going to order 300 and now you went to 500 or well with overages. So, yeah. Anyways, David Crosby, we'll link in the, the episode we did with him. That was a great episode. That was actually, I looked the other day, that was our most, our most popular episode to date.

Chris Gammell: Really? Yeah.

Dave Jones: Wow.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Okay. Yeah. Cause that was like, we went through, I think, step by step of the design of the camera. It was great.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It was so good that I was going to do that for my channel, right? I was going to sit down with him and do that for my, and I thought, we already did it so well. You know what you should do?

Chris Gammell: You should, you should do it as, if you're going to do it, you should do it as a, how to like, how to run a Kickstarter campaign right. You know?

Dave Jones: Ah, interesting. That could be, that could make an interesting video.

Chris Gammell: Because that would be good. And then you could also get more of the like, where's he been since the, like that kind of stuff. Right. Yeah. I would like that a lot. You know me.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So.

Dave Jones: Anyway, I love one of the graphs in there. We're still talking about this article. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: The plethora thing.

Dave Jones: Plethora thing. Um, the graph of, uh, the, a budget for the electronics and software development versus the actual, versus the actual cost of, uh, electronics and software development. It's hilarious. It's like 10 times.

Chris Gammell: Bites you every time. I shouldn't laugh, but yeah. Well, I think they were really comparing it as mechanical. I think that's what the real thing was. Casing and design products. Prototyping. So.

Dave Jones: Anyway.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: We're, we're, we're only out by an order of magnitude. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So yeah. Good article from, uh, plethora. For sure.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Uh, so what else is on our list? We should probably start to.

Dave Jones: Ah, more internet of things bullshit now that you work. Oh yeah. Who does that? Thing. Ah, Sonos bullshit. One of these bloody listen to you all day gadgets. Oh yeah. That was great.

Chris Gammell: So basically, you need to basically. New firmware. Yeah. It's new firmware, but you need to accept the terms and conditions or else they bricked your, your speaker, which is ridiculous.

Dave Jones: So what is their new privacy policy? Is there something objectionable in there? No.

Chris Gammell: It was just that if you said no. Yeah.

Dave Jones: If you said no, then they would brick your device. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's fun. Wow. Well, I mean, this is all the ownership question, right? Like who owns your hardware when it's connected? And like, that is, I think a legitimate and ongoing question, you know?

Dave Jones: And, and, and that's corporate suicide right there. I, I would agree so. That's internet of things, corporate suicide.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I would think so.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: But you know what else is corporate suicide is, uh, replacing the firmware in your grandmother's, uh, I love this title. If grandma has a pacemaker, please take her in for a firmware update.

Dave Jones: In for a firmware upgrade. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Basically, there was a pacemaker that needs to get updated for safety reasons, I'm guessing. Yeah. Um, but yeah. Right. Holy crap.

Dave Jones: Oh, I've, I've actually got a couple of those for teardowns.

Chris Gammell: Oh, really? Uh, where, where do you keep the cadavers?

Dave Jones: Um, they extracted it out of the cadaver. Got it.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: So they are used. It's up in the ceiling tiles. Yep. It's up in the ceiling tiles. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Good thing it's winter.

Dave Jones: So if I find any fleshy bits on it, they're genuine, you know? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I do not do well with gross stuff like that.

Dave Jones: Really?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Wuss.

Chris Gammell: Speaking of tearing your heart out, I think this is probably my last one. Last, last punny, punny title. Uh, the VW engineer got 40 months in prison. Ah, yeah. Yeah. And of course, what people pointed out, what is the, uh, what's the executive getting? Right?

Dave Jones: Well, I, I didn't read the article accurate. I tweeted this. I didn't read the article accurately enough. Apparently they, he's just the first one to be charged. Yeah, he is. The executives are in the process of being charged. Right. Yeah. But if they don't get the same, then that's just bullshit.

Chris Gammell: There will be, uh, there will be some nerd rage for sure. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yep. Man. Anyway, but this was drummed into me. Like we, we actually, when I used to work at Tally's or Surcell or whoever it was back in the day, I don't know, had four name changes. Um, we, we actually, they actually had a lawyer come in and speak to us all, um, all of the engineering staff and they, and they laid it out flat. Look, you work for a huge corporation, but you are still legally responsible for the work you do for every decision you make as an engineer. Even if it's signed off by someone higher, you will still be legally responsible for that. If it kills someone. Right. And, and, and the only thing that's going to save you like legally is that you've done your due diligence, like your, your best effort. You use, you know, your, your professional skills to do your best effort to ensure that doesn't happen. Now, if by accident it happens and everyone happened to miss it, well, okay, you know, you're going to be probably covered. So how does that work too?

Chris Gammell: Like if, if you have a superior and they miss it too, is it like, is it like a whole chain all the way down?

Dave Jones: Well, if, if it's missed, if it's missed for genuine reasons and somebody dies, then that's probably okay. Right. That like, you know, shit happens basically is the legal definition. I, I don't know. Is there a legal version of shit happens?

Chris Gammell: Well, it's like willful ignorance versus just ignorance. Right. So like you have to prove that somehow of like, exactly. Like you're looking the other way because you want to get it out faster or you want to make more money or whatever. Right.

Dave Jones: But if you do something that you know is illegal or will hurt somebody or like even may, even if there's a chance of it happening and you're ordered to do it by your superior, that does not cover you. You are still legally liable. And they made that very clear to us, you know, and they said, yeah, this is standard legal doctrine and it wasn't just Australia specific. They said this is standard legal engineering, you know, law pretty much anywhere in the world, most countries anyway, that, that they're aware of. So yeah. No, don't think that you, you know, just because you've got somebody else to sign off on it that you're covered. Nope. It comes down to, to professional ethics, basically.

Chris Gammell: I'm like, I'm playing back through my head. I'm like, shit, can any of my devices kill people?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Right. Yep.

Chris Gammell: I really hope, I hope not.

Dave Jones: So yeah. Anyway.

Chris Gammell: And what, and yeah. So what is it like, is that mostly medical? I mean, like, is it, I guess that's all industry.

Dave Jones: No, no, no, no, no. No, that's the, that's anything. That's yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's kind of scary. That's anything. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Like if, if, if you use a chemical in your product that turns out to be carcinogenic, boom, responsible, you know, like if you, you, you know, like.

Chris Gammell: What about like corporate protection and stuff though too? I guess there are, there's criminal versus like a civil type stuff, but like, like the corporate protections would be like, like if someone sued you for a hundred billion dollars and the company's worth a billion dollars.

Dave Jones: Oh, well that's not.

Chris Gammell: They can't take 99 billion from the individuals. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, well, that's a different thing. That, that, um, extends to who the, yeah, it depends who they want to sue and why. Right.

Chris Gammell: Versus, versus you're saying like, this is like criminal, uh, cause this is breaking the law.

Dave Jones: Basically. Well, if, yeah, if, if, if somebody dies, then it becomes more than just financial responsibility. It becomes like you're legally culpable.

Chris Gammell: I think we should, if people, if someone knows someone like, I, I, I don't disagree. I don't disbelieve you rather Dave, but I would, if there's someone out there who knows like an expert on this, I'd love to hear from them and like maybe have someone on the show because now I'm kind of frightened. Right.

Dave Jones: And, uh, anyway, that's, that's what the lead, that's what the lawyers told us. So. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's crazy.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I don't know why the company got them in. I guess, you know, they were doing their due diligence to make sure that we were actually. Or maybe they're just trying to scare you into doing better work. Aware of that. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, um, or, or something happened to actually trigger that.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right. Yeah. You have to imagine if, if it happens once, right. Right. Then they would be like, well, we better see YA, see OA. Yeah.

Dave Jones: But like I remember when they went, right. Engineers, everyone. Engineers. In the conference room. And, and, and our managers, you know, like in conference room. Yep. Yeah. And, uh, yeah. That's. Yep. Two hour presentation later, you know. Yeah. Right.

Dave Jones: Of course.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Right. Hmm. Anyway. Big company stuff. That's it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. For today's show. People can read other stuff on our subreddit. We've obviously, uh, as me and Dave hadn't done a show today. So it's almost, it was like three, it was effectively three, three weeks in a row of guests. Even though one of them was Akiba who was a repeat. So, uh, you can, uh, go and follow our subreddit. Reddit.com slash r slash the amp hour. And, uh, there's also a feed. So if you go to the amp hour Twitter, you can also follow it there.

Dave Jones: Sweet. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Uh, more, I'm sure there's more, uh, IOT jokes in the future. I will be fighting a good fight for that. So.

Dave Jones: You can rely on me.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Excellent.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Cool, man. Well, I'm excited to hear more about your meter as that gets closer release too. So.

Dave Jones: Cool. All right.

Chris Gammell: We'll talk soon.

Dave Jones: Catch you next time. Bye.

Speaker ?: Bye. Bye.