6 ms·

It's good this happened, else we'd have another Juicero on our hands. Ridiculous price, beautifully over engineered product, a slight update to a centuries old

It's good this happened, else we'd have another Juicero on our hands. Ridiculous price, beautifully over engineered product, a slight update to a centuries old problem, but at least they didn't get the opportunity to burn up as much investor money as Juicero.

jamestimmins 9y ago
That said, most people use locks multiple times a day (and keep keys with us at all times), whereas we rarely drink juice. Juicero was a high cost solution for a relatively uncommon use case. This appears to be a high cost solution for a common one. It's possible that it was overpriced, but the idea of paying $600+ for a phone would have seemed nuts years ago as well. It's easy to say something has a ridiculous price, but there are plenty of products that have launched with a high price and 1) redefined a category as something where premium is worth paying for, and 2) used a premium first product to pay for development of a cheaper model afterwards.
- siddharthdeswal 9y ago
  Agreed, building a high cost high value brand, and then moving downmarket is known to work. I compared this to Juicero because the "degree of innovation" in their product doesn't seem to justify the 20x price premium [1]. To compare, a cheap Nokia is ~INR 4000, a OnePlus 5 is ~INR 30000 and an iPhone 7 is ~INR 45000. However, there's a world of difference in features, components, software in the 10x phones. [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00EZYA61K/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1514861455&sr=8-4&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=door+lock&dpPl=1&dpID=41RlI3r9ylL&ref=plSrch https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00EZYA61K/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=...
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  > and keep keys with us at all times Except this lock also has a key. It's the $1000 smartphone you carry everywhere. That is prone to running out of charge, getting stolen, getting broken, not being in range of a signal, etc. The whole idea was bullshit from the get-go.
  - _aarti 9y ago
    > The whole idea was bullshit from the get-go. The market says otherwise - Amazon is all over this at the moment, so is Nest.
    - rinsai 9y ago
      That's not a market, that's people with money in the bank and actual experience gambling on the future. If you and Burks hadn't spent all of yours rebuilding the same things over and over again for four years, you might have gotten to sit at the table with some of the people who buy Edison lightbulbs from Restoration Hardware in bulk to see if a market for Otto existed. Since that didn't happen, now you're pretty much just going to have to sit there and take the entire world's word for it that nobody wants a $700 lock that can be defeated with a $17 carbide-tipped drill bit just as quickly as a $29 lock from Home Depot that also looks less ridiculous and doesn't need its batteries changed every month.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  Nobody pays $600 for a phone. They pay $600 for a portable computer with a touch screen and multiple types of radio attached.

jamestimmins 9y ago

That said, most people use locks multiple times a day (and keep keys with us at all times), whereas we rarely drink juice. Juicero was a high cost solution for a relatively uncommon use case. This appears to be a high cost solution for a common one. It's possible that it was overpriced, but the idea of paying $600+ for a phone would have seemed nuts years ago as well. It's easy to say something has a ridiculous price, but there are plenty of products that have launched with a high price and 1) redefined a category as something where premium is worth paying for, and 2) used a premium first product to pay for development of a cheaper model afterwards.

siddharthdeswal 9y ago
Agreed, building a high cost high value brand, and then moving downmarket is known to work. I compared this to Juicero because the "degree of innovation" in their product doesn't seem to justify the 20x price premium [1]. To compare, a cheap Nokia is ~INR 4000, a OnePlus 5 is ~INR 30000 and an iPhone 7 is ~INR 45000. However, there's a world of difference in features, components, software in the 10x phones. [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00EZYA61K/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1514861455&sr=8-4&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=door+lock&dpPl=1&dpID=41RlI3r9ylL&ref=plSrch https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00EZYA61K/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=...
dingo_bat 9y ago
> and keep keys with us at all times Except this lock also has a key. It's the $1000 smartphone you carry everywhere. That is prone to running out of charge, getting stolen, getting broken, not being in range of a signal, etc. The whole idea was bullshit from the get-go.
- _aarti 9y ago
  > The whole idea was bullshit from the get-go. The market says otherwise - Amazon is all over this at the moment, so is Nest.
  - rinsai 9y ago
    That's not a market, that's people with money in the bank and actual experience gambling on the future. If you and Burks hadn't spent all of yours rebuilding the same things over and over again for four years, you might have gotten to sit at the table with some of the people who buy Edison lightbulbs from Restoration Hardware in bulk to see if a market for Otto existed. Since that didn't happen, now you're pretty much just going to have to sit there and take the entire world's word for it that nobody wants a $700 lock that can be defeated with a $17 carbide-tipped drill bit just as quickly as a $29 lock from Home Depot that also looks less ridiculous and doesn't need its batteries changed every month.
peoplewindow 9y ago
Nobody pays $600 for a phone. They pay $600 for a portable computer with a touch screen and multiple types of radio attached.