New commercial design

[Davor]

Just go ahead. IMHO you can't fail.

[Thomas]

If it depends only on me; almost certain it will fail.

With ideas it is like with dizzy heights you climb: At first they cause you discomfort and you are anxious to get down,
distrustful of your own powers; but soon the remoteness of the turmoil of life and the inspiring influence of the altitude calm your blood;
your step gets firm and sure and you begin to look - for dizzier heights.
Nikola Tesla

[Tinkerer]

What kind of technology?
PI? VLF? New technology?

Which market segment are you aiming for?

[ivconic]

What kind of technology?
PI? VLF? New technology?

Which market segment are you aiming for?

DSP.
PI,VLF and BFO.
Worldwide market. Wider than existing MD market.
Two ways; already established manufacturer or guys from China.
Depends of who offers more money.
...
The rest of infos are top secret.

[ivconic]

Now... is it smart to talk publicly about new commercial project... or not?
Than again; is it possible to hide anything from people now days?
Idea itself means nothing without realization and implementation.
Geotech forum is fed up with ideas, most of those faded in time.
So, i am in big dilemma; to talk publicly and disclose some aspects of idea ... or to shut up and try to hide it?
Than again; idea is not so original and unique, i bet hundreds of people already had similar thought at least once.
Question is who will materialize it first and who will make success.
Problems which idea carrying are tough.
Not piece of cake.
Need lot of prepared conditions to be accomplished.
Also time is not our ally... things are moving too fast in current technology.
So... after thinking a while; i decided to disclose main aspects of the idea.
I think i already explained something similar long time ago on Geotech pages.
Tried to find that post, but it is tough and so i gave up for now.
Ok... here is what is all about...
Android & iOS platforms took a world in a glance.
Those are most massive used platforms in world today.
Rich variety of devices operating on one of those two operating systems is spreading and expanding on daily bases.
On one side there is Google Android open source approach and on another side there is Apple iOS strictly commercial approach.
Both are having potent markets and both are expanding well and presents certain future.
So maybe is time to make complete integration between metal detector and those two OS's.
Several attempts already have been made.
One of the most known is OKM attempt to integrate magnetometer with Android application.
I haven't had chance to see and test such device, so i can't tell nothing more than what i saw from their advertisements.
Having already XP Deus for over the 3 years i become used with such wireless comfort and now i can't imagine my self working with conventional metal detector anymore, with all those "wires" and connectors.
Also i am having several different Android & iOS based devices and gadgets at home, already became pretty familiar with those "cookies".
...
to be continued, must go now...

[sled]

idea: put the pre-amp and a good audio codec in the coil, then feed the digitized audio signal directly (via I2S, PCM) to a low energy bluetooth transceiver (http://www.ti.com/product/cc2541). Then do all the processing on your smartphone

[Geremia]

i've also been thinking about android phone as mere display to plot to and remote control of my arm PI, i mean simple remote display because smartphones lacks of I/O. Ok, phones have quadcore cpus to do math, but i don't think it's so important. The main MD job must be anyway done externally, just use something like bluetooth serial port to send raw scanned data to phone. Searching for android and "internet of things" shows ready ways to plot data easily.

but some issue arised:

- bluetooth SSP slave to hook to arm board costs half a 2,2" display
- not sure if apple IOS permits SSP protocol over bluetooth, seems not.
- battery life of phone
- more noise for the circuit to take care

[ivconic]

idea: put the pre-amp and a good audio codec in the coil, then feed the digitized audio signal directly (via I2S, PCM) to a low energy bluetooth transceiver (http://www.ti.com/product/cc2541). Then do all the processing on your smartphone

Good thinking!
The very same suggestion i was given the other day by one of my friends.

[ivconic]

i've also been thinking about android phone as mere display to plot to and remote control of my arm PI, i mean simple remote display because smartphones lacks of I/O. Ok, phones have quadcore cpus to do math, but i don't think it's so important. The main MD job must be anyway done externally, just use something like bluetooth serial port to send raw scanned data to phone. Searching for android and "internet of things" shows ready ways to plot data easily.

but some issue arised:

- bluetooth SSP slave to hook to arm board costs half a 2,2" display
- not sure if apple IOS permits SSP protocol over bluetooth, seems not.
- battery life of phone
- more noise for the circuit to take care

Good thinking! Right questions!
Battery life is not an issue, it will cover several hours, which is enough to call it the day.
BT must be tweaked to consume less power, there are methods.
Noise also. It can be done to be immune on such noise.

Apple iOS is huge obstacle for such "games", you got that right!
Though i am not worried much because i am having two ultimate iOS experts in my team.
We'll dig out some decent solution.

[nickel_n]

Ivconic I spend countless hours reading your posts with pleasure.
I even attempted building some.
I would like to wish you every success and put my hand up and declare myself as a future customer.

[sled]

Good thinking! Right questions!
Battery life is not an issue, it will cover several hours, which is enough to call it the day.
BT must be tweaked to consume less power, there are methods.
Noise also. It can be done to be immune on such noise.

Apple iOS is huge obstacle for such "games", you got that right!
Though i am not worried much because i am having two ultimate iOS experts in my team.
We'll dig out some decent solution.

Hi,

you don't have to tweak BT anymore, the new Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) standard does it already, we use the nRF51822 (http://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Produc...nergy/nRF51822) for some smart metering stuff at work and it runs approx. a year off a coin cell battery. It even has an integrated ARM M0 processor to do some basic pre-processing.

Apple can be a pain the ... when it comes to your own proprietary stuff, audio streaming is not a problem though.

Even if it's a commercial design please please make the API/Protocol public so that we can hack around with it

[ivconic]

Ivconic I spend countless hours reading your posts with pleasure.
I even attempted building some.
I would like to wish you every success and put my hand up and declare myself as a future customer.

Thank You!
This is beginning of one long and hard trip, though it might fail i will try my best.

[ivconic]

Hi,

you don't have to tweak BT anymore, the new Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) standard does it already, we use the nRF51822 (http://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Produc...nergy/nRF51822) for some smart metering stuff at work and it runs approx. a year off a coin cell battery. It even has an integrated ARM M0 processor to do some basic pre-processing.

Apple can be a pain the ... when it comes to your own proprietary stuff, audio streaming is not a problem though.

Even if it's a commercial design please please make the API/Protocol public so that we can hack around with it

That's good hint, thank You!
I am just getting familiar with lot of things i never worked with so far.
Because of that i even had idea to make here public proposal to members of this forum to gather, form a team and design it as our "Geotech project".
But that we already debated in the past here and lot of pro and contras were exposed by some members, on which i can't disagree.
How to remain it commercial in such case?
This time, because of the nature of design itself; i think it might be possible to make similar arrangement.
Will see.

[sled]

That's good hint, thank You!
I am just getting familiar with lot of things i never worked with so far.
Because of that i even had idea to make here public proposal to members of this forum to gather, form a team and design it as our "Geotech project".
But that we already debated in the past here and lot of pro and contras were exposed by some members, on which i can't disagree.
How to remain it commercial in such case?
This time, because of the nature of design itself; i think it might be possible to make similar arrangement.
Will see.

Just think of Arduino etc. it's a commercial product but still the schematic is public. And in the old days you got the schematic of the device in the manual and nobody bothered It's also a nice thing because you know what you buy.

As it is most probably a digital detector, I doubt it's suitable for DIY just because of the packages of the components (QFN, BGA). So you can be sure that people will buy the hardware from you, especially if it's good quality. Tip: Get an industrial designer to design the outer shell and ergonomity - innovative design and usability is important (XP did a good job with the Deus).

The other thing is the software, that's the heart of the detector - if it runs on a smartphone you can easily sell it on the appstore. Maybe you can implement some sort of protection so that it only runs with the hardware you've made (chinese copycats). In-App purchases may give you some extra cash by selling additional features like geotagging, multitone etc.

The software doesn't have to be open source, but the interface with the detector should be public so that people can develop their own software/extensions etc., just use the right licensing for the interface. Essentially you get people working for free and free publicity

Have you thought about starting a kickstarter project?

[ivconic]

Just think of Arduino etc. it's a commercial product but still the schematic is public. And in the old days you got the schematic of the device in the manual and nobody bothered It's also a nice thing because you know what you buy.

As it is most probably a digital detector, I doubt it's suitable for DIY just because of the packages of the components (QFN, BGA). So you can be sure that people will buy the hardware from you, especially if it's good quality. Tip: Get an industrial designer to design the outer shell and ergonomity - innovative design and usability is important (XP did a good job with the Deus).

The other thing is the software, that's the heart of the detector - if it runs on a smartphone you can easily sell it on the appstore. Maybe you can implement some sort of protection so that it only runs with the hardware you've made (chinese copycats). In-App purchases may give you some extra cash by selling additional features like geotagging, multitone etc.

The software doesn't have to be open source, but the interface with the detector should be public so that people can develop their own software/extensions etc., just use the right licensing for the interface. Essentially you get people working for free and free publicity

Have you thought about starting a kickstarter project?

This idea is having "big picture" behind it, not visible on first glance.
But you already see some pieces of it's huge "mosaic"!
That's why i decided to expose it here on forum.
Lot of good ideas may evolve further from it.