[HH] Blink(1)

[Tom Metro]

Federico Lucifredi wrote:
> I am playing with the Blink(1), an USB-connected RGB LED that
> kickstarter seeded a few months ago:
>   http://thingm.com/products/blink-1.html

Nice.

It's trivially simple (in terms of outward functionality), and yet I can
imagine several uses for it. It's one of the few Kickstarter projects
I've seen that struck me as practical and useful.


> Also, the ability to create color animations or blinking patterns
> makes it even more flexible than a plain "Red Alert" signal.

Sure, but is it worth $30? Probably not. At least not for most typical
applications. If it is successful, no doubt there will be a Chinese
knock-off for $5 that just uses a simple single-color LED, instead of an
RGB LED with the ability to do fancy color fades. Unfortunate for the
developers, as they deserve to get the sales themselves, but you have to
match your price point to your application. I think at a $5 to $10 price
point they'd sell in excess of 3 to 6 times what they'll sell at $30.

Some of their other products seem more worthy of the price points. For
example, they seem to be heading in the direction of offering tiny
battery powered RGB LEDs which can be remotely controlled via IR. (They
sort of have the pieces to do this, but currently you have to plug
together several separate products.) With that product I can see someone
using it for decorations and theatrical set pieces where the color and
blink pattern control would be important.


> Quite nice if you want a rack of machines to signal you something,
> and they don't have a built in light for this purpose. 

Yes. Assuming your server has a USB port mounted somewhere that you'll
be able to see it. Though I suppose a short USB pigtail cable will
remedy that if you don't.

The USB parallel port adapter, which I wrote about previously, I traded
for a USB serial adapter, which is no longer needed for the intended
project (found a better solution), so I was actually thinking of
repurposing it as a Blink(1) equivalent. It will be far simpler. Likely
just a single one-color LED.

I wonder why they chose the HID USB profile, rather than serial? Vendors
of oddball stuff often seem to use HID and say they do because it is
more universally supported and doesn't require drivers, but isn't that
also true for serial? (For example, the first generation of Zwave USB
interfaces used serial, and I think all of the current generation use HID.)

 -Tom