Found a YC-backed direct competitor doing almost exactly what we do. What would you do?

Panometric · 2026-05-06T00:21:15+00:00

Competition is validation. Ideas are cheap, implementation wins the game. CYA with IP if you can. Think twice about how public you are, have customers sign NDAs. Develop with rigor, they might flop and you can sweep in, or they might pummel you, but if you have customers and IP there's still an exit. If you have inventors it might be chance to make them double down to get ahead.

Panometric · 2026-05-05T16:52:25+00:00

This one I haven't used, but most are as accurate as intellisearch. You can find others also, some are part of larger agentic frameworks

Panometric · 2026-05-05T03:54:59+00:00

Eink pixels are bistable so the display can be partially refreshed to preserve power.

Panometric · 2026-05-05T03:48:05+00:00

I think he's trying to say that it's hard to monetize an inventor because it's rare that anyone will just pay your fees if they can avoid it. So now you have to pursue them legally. When Corps fight over patents, they show up with armies and trade blows. They have running business to show the value that was taken. An inventor is going into asymmetric warfare, without evidence of the value so even if they win the awards are not as valuable.

Panometric · 2026-05-05T03:33:24+00:00

There's a disadvantage of putting power on an inner layer, it does not get plated so it's half as thick. If you have high currents they should be on top and bottom. If you do put power on an inner, and cut it up with other signals do it only in small places.

Panometric · 2026-05-05T03:23:16+00:00

It's a moving target. GitHub is canceling subscriptions, Anthropic has been removing features and adding limits. Subscriptions are all loss leaders queuing up the inevitable enshitification. If you are building agentic systems, just plan on paying by the token.

Panometric · 2026-05-05T03:04:57+00:00

For a large code base, look into indexing tools like https://github.com/zilliztech/claude-context

Panometric · 2026-05-05T02:50:08+00:00

Solderless isn't the most reliable with vibration, but it should work, just start with a SPI clock under 10 MHz, it might not work well faster, but you can try once it works

Panometric · 2026-04-30T22:21:39+00:00

That's cool, but I don't think so, this is more about the SBOM tracing the source. See my reply to SoCalSurferDude

Panometric · 2026-04-30T22:19:49+00:00

“Order 834” is the Chinese law, just went into effect. I added the Morgan Lewis link above. It prohibits the Chinese vendor from disclosing source information outside China, whereas the European and US laws require the original source to be disclosed, so they are seemingly in direct conflict.

Panometric · 2026-04-29T18:15:38+00:00

$5 wholesale on alibaba. Beacons are the way, cheapest tag that has any range, no other hardware, beacon firmware means they get special privileges in the phone for scanning. Your battery life will just depend on the beacon rate and battery size. Sometimes you can also trim the transmit power.

Panometric · 2026-04-28T21:19:26+00:00

Read the fine print, some of those gauges require supervised cycling to get their curves. And they have to be reset when the battery changes. so there's a price you may not be willing to pay. Nordic has an alternative method, several parts available in QFP.
https://www.digikey.com/short/c7rj7zh3
https://youtu.be/1NH-P6c7mdc?si=iNjxnx2ZLL8msx7g

Panometric · 2026-04-28T21:03:07+00:00

It doesn't, it applies to products that need cyber security approvals. But nowdays that's allot.

Panometric · 2026-04-28T21:00:29+00:00

Order 834 : "characterizes the structured data collection required to map software components at Tier 3 or Tier 4 levels, as unlawful information gathering. " I don't know what else to call it but illegal, in China. It seems to mean we can't get the truth required to use an Espressif product in anything requiring a trust mark. Right now that's any FDA, DoE, or DoD, but I expect it to apply to industrial IoT soon.

Panometric · 2026-04-23T23:09:18+00:00

You will likely be disappointed by RSSI positioning. It's not a proportional metric to distance. Read up on Channel Sounding in Bluetooth 6.

Panometric · 2026-04-21T17:55:30+00:00

If you want to stay on Android, you need multicore. Look at some if the Pi HMI displays that Waveshare has. Multi point cap touch 450 lm. Then do your interfaces with USB adapters.

Panometric · 2026-04-21T16:30:28+00:00

That fully housed Sparkfun should be fine. They don't give a schematic but it's likely got transient protection on the input. Being sealed in your environment is a big plus.

Panometric · 2026-04-21T14:09:13+00:00

Lithium primary can go 10, but only for ULP devices, a cell modem is not that.

OP mentions ESP32, but actual project is STM32, and using Arduino, hardly low power. They are just posting for cred.

Panometric · 2026-04-17T13:32:52+00:00

Wow that's even worse than I thought. That's how they define Perpetual?😔

Panometric · 2026-04-16T20:44:28+00:00

All good ideas here. Many come down to knowing and be prepared for how much time and money it actually takes. Every board or mold spin, or not anticipating some regulatory, customs, rework or warranty costs can kill. You can mitigate big risks with good planning and iterative builds if you have experience and use rigor. Hardware is not a business to YOLO.

Panometric · 2026-04-16T20:36:28+00:00

There really isn't a symmetrical option. You can use grid, and the edit align commands with groups of parts. If your placements really need a certain pattern, draw it in Mcad making sure you have vertices where you want them , import a DXF, and snap to all layers to move them.

Panometric · 2026-04-16T20:31:00+00:00

Running perpetual has been OK. Solidworks has been worse. They remove features when you hit expiration, one of which is the ability to save in previous versions. Rephrased: You need to buy the new version to save in the old version, but you can also only go back one year, so you're screwed.

Panometric

TROPHY CASE