Source
r/maker•
AverageAlien

I need help with an invention I am working on.

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I got absolutely nowhere with trying to patent it and bring it to market when I first thought of it back in March. The professional development firm wanted a huge chunk of money just to begin working on it. So I said no. Instead I wanted to see how difficult it would be for me to make it myself. Of course it is taking too long to develop by myself. So instead I will release it as open source technology.

The invention is a face mask with a voice to text (led matrix) display on the front. https://imgur.com/Yb9RZSU.jpg Another application for it is to translate what you are saying to someone in real time. There are 3 components to it:

  1. The fabric mask with a pocket for the display and electronics
  2. The electronics (Bluno BLE, 3.7V lithium battery, microphone chip, flexible led matrix display)
  3. The phone app (Currently at about 70% functionality, using MIT App Inventor)

What I really need help with is programming the bluno to drive the LED matrix. Programming is not really my forte and this is my first time utilizing an arduino for something of my own creation. I just want to make one, and then release it so anyone can make it.

Posted Oct 8, 2020, 4:01 AM UTC · edited

95
OpticalPrime•

https://fcbc.co/

Maybe contact these guys. I talked to one guy at a “we the people” store in St. Louis and they sell crowd funded products, but also help people navigate the process of bringing a product to life.

2
aeo1us•

I'm glad you went the open source route. There has been realtime voice to text with Dragon Naturally Speaking since 1997. The patent/idea is so old it's likely expired by this point. At least you didn't waste your money.

2
AverageAlienOP•

Yeah, they wanted $28,000 to begin working on it. And that's just to nail down a final draft to manufacture.

1
Red0ct0b3r•

Cool idea for a project!

$28K would likely have gotten you a prototype but very little in the way of anything you could take to a contract manufacturer. Beware of these folks. I was in the custom electronic development business for about 15 years and I cannot tell you the number of times people brought me prototypes from other design houses who try to leverage offshore labor, but what they end up producing is a fundamentally flawed or incomplete design that no manufacturer will touch. The design and prototype are the easy part in most cases. Reduction of that design to something manufacturable (including molds, sourcing the parts, refining the software, etc.) is about 80% of the work. You can do the math from there.

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AverageAlienOP•

If I can make it with my current parts list, each unit would cost a little under $5 in parts as long as you buy bulk (enough for 1000 or more units), priced from Alibaba. Sell it for $50 a unit and you got your initial investment back in 50 units. Sell the whole 1000 and you made $45,000 profit.

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But of course that would be the pipe dream ideal scenario, contingent on first making one that works good, and it doesn't take into account labor to put each one together... 1000 is a lot of work unless I can make tools or jigs to make 10 at a time or something.

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