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Quick bit of feedback for any Comma employees lurking: It took me a very long time to realize that this was a self-driving solution for existing vehicles. The
by iMuzz 7y ago
Quick bit of feedback for any Comma employees lurking:
It took me a very long time to realize that this was a self-driving solution for existing vehicles. The hero just says
"Driven over 6 million miles" and then a "Buy Now".
When I scrolled down and looked at the product and read:
> We’ve added an infrared camera to provide 24/7 driver monitoring, an integrated panda, a custom cooling solution, and an OBD-C port with power supplied directly from the car.
I thought it was some kind of dash cam + driver sleep monitor? Also, most of those words don't mean anything to me.
Only after deeply investigating it did I realize that it's basically Tesla Autopilot for existing vehicles.
You have an awesome value prop though, "Bring autopilot features, to your car." Make that clear!
- aza05001 7y agoSeriously. The website does a pretty crappy job at explaining what the product actually is.
- bugsy924 7y agoit's a dashcam with a passive driver assist system, the openpilot stuff is a separate product meant to be installed onto the "comma two" by the user
- selectodude 7y agoI think that's sort of by design. The NHTSA shut down their ability to sell in the US a few years ago. This seems to be some sort of stealth method to sell it again using the same sort of trick pharmaceutical companies use where they don't have to tell you any warnings if they don't actually tell you what the thing does. https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the-comma-one-following-nhtsa-letter/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the-comma...
- throwawaymath 7y ago> Hotz tweeted from the official Comma.ai account that rather than providing the requisite response, the company would instead be cancelling Comma One entirely, and turning its attention to “other products and markets,” since Hotz says that the prospect of a life “dealing with regulators and lawyers… isn’t worth it.” ...Wow. Maybe don't develop autonomous driving tech then?
- kick 7y agoTheir tech is within the top two right now, and Hotz has demonstrated a deep responsibility with it. Plus, it's all libre software. Skipping regulators seems fine, given (unlike their competitors) they're acting responsibly. Their eye-tracking tech is really cool, too, and prevents the Tesla problem of drivers losing focus.
- ohazi 7y agoDo you have any evidence to support your claim that Hotz has done anything resembling "deep responsibility"? Because from the scraps that I've managed to put together, he seems childish and irresponsible.
- kick 7y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwcYp-XT7UI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwcYp-XT7UI This Lex Friedman interview is pretty explanatory on the topic of responsibility. A couple of highlights, which point to Comma being at minimum more responsible than Tesla: Comma doesn't advertise itself as anything beyond L2, unlike Tesla; Comma doesn't fuck up eye-detection, it refuses to cooperate with a driver who has their eyes off the road.
- Barrin92 7y ago>Their tech is within the top two right now, how can anyone make that statement in the same breath as declaring that dodging regulators is fine? Who the hell evaluates the quality of the product if not regulators? Are we supposed to take George Hotz's or the companies word for it?
- kick 7y agoYou can use it; you don't have to take Hotz's word, or the company's word for it. How everything works is completely open, and it works pretty well. Also, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21987585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21987585
- geofft 7y agoAs I understand it, "the NHTSA shut down" is a serious approximation of the story. They marketed aftermarket self-driving kits while not getting any regulatory approval, and when the NHTSA sent them a letter saying "So, uh, what's this thing you're selling? Can we meet?" they immediately chose to shut themselves down instead of meeting.
- aeyes 7y agoIt isn't an actual consumer product, it is a development kit.
- oceliker 7y agoYes. The heck is an "integrated panda"?
- kissgyorgy 7y agoI only knew from your comment what is this after I came back from the site spent minutes trying to find out. For a couple of seconds I only saw the "Buy now" button and I though "Buy what the fuck?" Really annoying design.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- stevage 7y agoCame here to say something similar. I briefly thought it might have been a self-driving add-on because of this bit: >The comma two does not ship preloaded with software capable of controlling your car. Open source software can be installed separately. But then I figured that if it actually did that, they'd be screaming about it, not talking about how you can watch your drives. Kind of hilarious.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- alpb 7y agoCount me in as well. I came here to make that comment. I've had to scan the entire website and still cannot find a reference to a simple term like "self-driving" anywhere in the website. It seemed like a dashcam that warns the driver.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoIf it doesn't say "self driving" anywhere, it might be presumptuous to say that's its intended purpose.
- parsimo2010 7y agoWhile the website doesn't directly state it, the entire purpose of the Comma hardware is to run the OpenPilot self-driving software (or "driver assistance" software, whatever you want to call it). Sure, you can run other software with it, but it works really well with the software that has already been written for it and is available on the same website. The FAQ clears some of this up (https://comma.ai/faq https://comma.ai/faq), but I agree with the idea that it is purposefully obtuse to keep regulators off their back.
- tartoran 7y agoOn the 3rd scrolling down "page" OpenPilot , there is a hard to see link "See OpenPilot in action". When I watched the videos it made it clear what it does, i was lost before that.
- z_andrew 7y agoSame! I had no idea what this was even after reading most of the website.
- gautamcgoel 7y agoCame here to make this comment! Seems like a cool product - but most visitors to the webpage will never learn what the product does, since it is buried in the page.
- DesolationJones 7y agoIt's vagueish on purpose. They only want smart people using. It's still a dev kit. Not consumer product yet. From comma's discord: "if people can’t figure out what it is, it isn’t for them"
- bathtub365 7y agoIt's also definitely not for everyone who figures out what it is. They should be up front about what it does and the legality around using a device in that capacity.
- hobofan 7y agoI still feel like they've taken it a level too far. I already knew comma.ai from past news, and even with that context I wasn't sure if they pivoted to fancy dashcams.
- dyeje 7y agoYea I had to come to the comments to figure it out.
- lettergram 7y agoCame here to say the same thing! Very difficult to understand what this actually is.
- pbreit 7y agoI read the whole website and still not much idea what this is.
- eloff 7y agoI think this is deliberate. It's also why you have to download and install the self driving software separately. AFAIK regulators stepped in and killed comma as a self driving solution, so this is their way of still going forward and trying to maintain plausible deniability. It might not pass muster in a court of law, I don't know, but it should probably keep the regulators off their back.
- bathtub365 7y agoIt seems irresponsible for an engineering company to avoid regulators.
- eloff 7y agoOn one hand yes, on the other the company wouldn't exist. Regulators are important, but they also serve incumbent interests as they raise the barrier to entry for newcomers. It's a way to pull the ladder up behind you once you've achieved success. I don't know how we can better balance those seemingly conflicting aspects.
- Benjammer 7y agoI can never really understand this argument. Why can't we carefully craft regulations to scale in their burden with the company's ability to bear said burden in some way? Scale with revenue or head count numbers? Similar to how income at the lowest bracket isn't taxed, to lessen the burden on people much less able to pay.
- taneq 7y agoBecause (a) then you'd end up with things like pacemakers designed by sole operators because their regulatory burden would be that much lower than what a biomedical engineering firm would face, and (b) any such system would be trivial to game anyway.
- jdbernard 7y agoWe can, but usually it's the established encumbents who are helping draft the language of the legislation (which is better than politicians with no expertise working alone) and they are not incentived to encourage the kind of regulation you propose.
- tsukurimashou 7y agoI completely agree, I never heard about it before, after looking a few minutes at the websites and some youtube videos I realized it was a self-driving thing you can install on stock vehicles that support it. Better information / overview. Look very promising tho!
- gambiting 7y agoI literally thought I was looking at some funky games console first....but which you mount on your dashboard for some reason? And even after reading the entire website I didn't get that it was meant to be for autopilot - I only got that after reading your comment.
- jrrrr 7y agoThis. I clicked from the HN-linked page over to the main page, scrolled through it, and still had no idea what I was looking at.