This weekend Hackaday and Tindie will be trekking out to beautiful Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the greatest congregation of Open Source hardware enthusiasts on the planet. This is the Open Hardware Summit. It’s every year, most of the time in different places, and this year it’s back in the hallowed halls of MIT. Somebody put a car on the roof before we do.
The schedule for this year’s Open Hardware Summit is stuffed to the gills with interesting presentations sure to satiate every hardware nerd. We’ve got talks on Open Source Software Defined Radio, and the people behind the Hackaday Prize entry Programmable Air will be there talking about controlling soft robotics.
Really, though, this is an extravaganza filled with the people who make things, and here you’re not going to find a better crew. At every Open Hardware Summit we’ve attended, you can’t turn your head without locking eyes with someone with an interesting story of hardware heroics to tell.
This is, without a doubt, the greatest gathering of the people behind all your favorite hardware designs. The greats of 3D printing will be there, we’re going to get an update on the now two-year-old Open Hardware Certification program (hint: great success!), and there’s an awesome badge, as always. There will be some extra-special Hackaday swag in the goodie bags, sure to be a collectable. We’re going to be there with boots on the ground, but it’s still not too late to get tickets if you’re in the Boston area.
Unfortunately, that’s a few plane rides too far for me.
I’ve been trying to start my own hardware company, but I’ve found the concept of OSHW, outside of the hobbyist market (break-out boards, Arduino sheilds, hobbyist suppliers like Sparkfun, badges, educational kits, etc), a massive burden and risk.
Could anyone provide information or an article or a link to businesses or models that have found ways of dealing with this? The closest I can find are non-profits.
A question for anyone selling on tindie, that I’ve failed to get a good answer to on the tindie forums: WTF do you do about Product Liability?
As far as I can tell, all the individuals selling random adapter boards and things on tindie are doing so without any credible business insurance, which means that they are completely f**ked, as in “lose your house” levels of f**ked, if there is so much as an alleged safety or consequential-damages issue with one of their products, especially if they’re selling into the USA.
Or is there some secret source of product liability insurance for small-scale electronics manufacturing that I don’t know about? When I talked to brokers here in AU, they wanted evidence that I complied with “all relevant” (without them being able to enumerate them) standards, and would not cover foreign sales.
I would very much like an answer as I have pre-prepared stock of four different products here ready for sale and I’m a bit concerned to list it. Also I like my new house.