Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

> Blink and you’ll get a different measurement.

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

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

That lamp is a nightmare to someone with migraines.

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

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

I ended up purchasing:

   4 standard table lamps from Target,
  28 2000-lumen Cree LEDs bulbs[2] and,
   4 7-way splitters[3].

The end result is somewhere around 56,000 lumens. And I LOVE it. Makes me much happier in my home office, especially in the winter months.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I wonder what the end financial scenario was - did the product produce any extra money after all the errors and redone work, or was it a net loss?

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

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

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

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

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

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

What makes this $800+ ?

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

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

What a great idea; good luck! Also, it's nice to read a hardware story on HN (we need more breaks from AI this and AI that).

Appreciate the war stories. Is the product still available? I'd love to get one, though fortunately the first false spring of San Francisco will hopefully be followed soon by a true one.

The store is still online so I assume it must be. Let me run this by my wife haha.

Oh boy, I want one of these. This would absolutely perfect for winter depression (I suspect much better than the "SAD lamps" marketed for this purpose which are bright not even close to this bright). But £889 is a lot of money for a lamp!

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

Great post. Thank you.

How/where did you find your suppliers/factories?

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

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

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

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

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

Great write-up! Thanks for sharing your journey

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

Just a few slots down in my YC feed: the benefits of bright light

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44271-025-00373-9

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

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

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

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

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