Remember the smart door lock Lockitron?

Abstract: Do you remember the smart door lock Lockitron? It used to be YC's star product, which had raised 2.2 million of billions of dollars in 2012 and had won 70,000 pre-order orders through the website. Looks downwind, everything is available, only for March 2013 shipments. With many projects

Remember the smart door lock Lockitron? It used to be YC's star product, which had raised 2.2 million of billions of dollars in 2012 and had won 70,000 pre-order orders through the website. Looks downwind, everything is available, only for March 2013 shipments. Like many projects, they jumped the ticket, only to today only issued more than 10,000 units, and more than 85% of the orders are not shipped. Not only that, they also recently halted the previous generation of products, will introduce a new generation of functional simplification bolt.

The great crowd of the original scenery was a disaster, and the enthusiastic supporters of love became mice.

Intelligent Door Lock Lockitron The original idea is that it can be installed on any door lock, through Wi-Fi connection network, can be in the adaptation of the app to control the lock on the open, closed, while receiving the release of the switch lock to send information. It's all in the cloud, and all the data is encrypted. Users can also create a number of keys, mail sent to family and friends, very convenient. In addition, Lockitron also supports Bluetooth 4.0, which can be automatically identified when the iphone is near. That sounds really cool!

The fact is, however, that the product is ill-fated. You already know the ending.

So why don't we talk about what this product will fail today?

All-Inclusive

Start-up companies always want to provide all-inclusive services to meet the needs of users as much as possible to enhance the user experience. But this often means that you need more components, more complex structures, and that the more things you need to debug, the more problems you will have, and the more you will need to consider in future changes. These are not time bombs, unfortunately Lockitron have encountered. This does not count, if the Lockitron success, the need for the after-sale resources will be more.

Lockitron does not require the user to completely replace the original home door locks, can be fitted with any one lock. This also means that the lockitron of the user's part of the burden also passed on to themselves, most parts need to be customized. This is how much pit you dug for yourself. Later, they had to track every part, record the problem, cooperate with the manufacturer, and secretly look for new suppliers.

wi-fi+ Bluetooth dual connection is undoubtedly fatal. It is not easy to do a good connection, not to mention two kinds of it? Two kinds of connection coexist, power optimization is difficult. This is also the official explanation for the important reason for halting the product.

Underestimate production difficulties

This naturally needless to say, the hardware of the children's shoes are deeply experienced. 2014 Lockitron founder once came out to talk about why the delivery is slow, basically are in the detailed production difficulties.

The cost of manufacturing in the United States is high, far beyond the budget, but production in China will produce logistics costs. Eventually, Lockitron chose to manufacture and assemble time-consuming mechanical components in China, assembling parts in California that needed quality control. But there are also bugs. In 2013, for example, Lockitron made a prototype, but the motor was loud. Then replaced the motor, the result is to be changed from the circuit board, integrated electronic parts box machine parts, so that they better work. Parts changed, structures changed, suppliers needed to change, and production certainly needed to change. These all take time and cost.

This is an estimate that every hardware entrepreneur can tell a history of blood and tears.

Underestimate the popularity of the public.

This always sounds like "the cheap is so sentimental", but the fact is so.

2010, Lockitron first generation of products for sale, but at that time small scale, attention is not high, the product is the founder in the living room hand-assembled gadgets. In 2012, their target was 1000 sets of Lockitron. The result is to raise 15,000 orders, pre-sale more than 70,000 orders. The original idea is to overturn again, the original set the delivery date is basically already shipped hopeless.

The story listens to many, now more and more entrepreneurs will set aside more production time in the public raise, guaranteed the punctual delivery. But I think the first and foremost reason for the official call to stop the first generation of products. The cause of the product itself is the deadliest.

Recently, Lockitron is developing a second-generation product bolt, a smart lock that only supports Bluetooth. Bolt also creates a separate Wi-Fi to Bluetooth bridging device that will be sent together to facilitate remote connections via the Internet.

When this news and new products in the overseas media exposure, the following is basically negative comments, basically are early supporters spit, complaints: quality is too bad, the product is not durable, home is broken; The gas field was completely lockitron pit them.

However, at the moment, Lockitron's founder thought perhaps is "obviously your enthusiasm to hang us."

Another point that I find particularly interesting is why Lockitron turn Bluetooth from Wi-Fi. Previously, several intelligent locks such as August and Kevo have also adopted low-power Bluetooth connections. It seems to be a trend.

In December 2014, Bluetooth Special acquires Group released the blue tooth 4.2 standard, adding several new properties and features. In addition to increasing the speed of data transmission, increase the degree of privacy protection, the most important thing is that with the support of the new standards, Bluetooth can be used on IPv6, which means that you can use your own equipment directly connected to the Internet, which undoubtedly hit Wi-Fi the most important advantage of WI

Qualcomm has previously embraced Wi-Fi in the smart home sector, but in October 2014 Qualcomm bought Bluetooth chip maker Cambridge Silicon Radio at $2.5 billion trillion, which seems to be meaningful.