2018 Hiatus

[nemik]

Hi everyone.

I have some sad news. For the time being, I am going to stop manufacturing and selling Happy Bubbles devices. There are two reasons for this.

The first are the recent US tariffs that went into effect which would all but eliminate my margins from selling the Presence devices and beacons. My partners in China source the components and assemble the boards, which are then sent to me in the USA from where I flash, test, and ship them. With the recent tariffs, this is no longer feasible for me and would probably cause me to lose money or have to raise prices significantly.

It’s unfortunate and the effect of these tariffs means that if one day I do decide to resume selling them, the entire process will need to be in China. So I have some work to do and an opportunity to go back to the drawing board to see if I can improve the product to make it simpler to assemble, flash, test, and ship all from China; as well as hopefully add features.

Which leads me to my second reason, my wife and I just gave birth to our second child and between my full-time work and growing family, it’s harder to find the time right now to work on Happy Bubbles. It’s just too small of an operation to continue alone and I’m sorry to any of you who may have wanted to purchase more devices or were relying on them for something else. I hope you understand.

However it is because of all of these kinds of situations that arise that I’ve chosen to open source everything from the very beginning. So that if someone wants to make these devices for themselves, everything is on Github to be able to do so. Furthermore, because the devices do not talk to any cloud services, all your existing purchases will continue to work just fine without any interruptions. :)

Finally, if you would be so kind as to respond to a little survey that would help guide future products: https://goo.gl/forms/osWJW9KWP4hQpIUn2 I would really appreciate it.

Thank you for all your business and interest in the product. I hope to be back in business soon.

[Tyler Clemens]

Nemik,

It's sad to hear how the recent tariffs are affecting something I'm close to and felt a part of. Something that is awesome and what felt like grew quickly. I am thankful for all of the work you to put into this project and I am grateful that you followed the open source path for a lot of the reasons you mentioned above.

Congratulations on the baby! 

[Nuno Dionísio]

It's really sad to see the project halt.

All the best in your most recent baby "project".

If anyone is interested in acquiring a brand new untouched Happy Bubbles, I have one to sell to be shipped from Portugal. Please let me know.

[Marcus Davis]

I am sorry to hear that the irresponsible implementation of the tariffs have affected the you and all individuals that relied on your product (including myself). Please let us know if anyone decides to manufacture the boards again or if you have plans to start again in the future. Thanks and enjoy,

[Happy Bubbles Tech]

I really appreciate everyone's kind words and support, it really means a lot. Thank you.

If things get started back up I'll update everyone but I also plan to evaluate products from other manufacturers to hopefully help people transition to similar products; and either make them work with the Presence server, or make the Presence server work with them.

This project grew beyond my expectations and seemed to provide a niche solution for far more people than I estimated. I really hope to find a way to keep things moving. 

Thank you all again.

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[Mspinolo]

Really sad to hear this: the product is so simple and great at the same time that it is a shame a PJ is quit due to tariffs changing.

So far i found happy bubble to be the only reliable presence detector method: still using just for "@ home" presence detection but planned to move in future to a room based detection.

Unluckily it will hardly happen :-(

Hope this business will raise again or alternative solution will be proposed.

@ Nemik: couldn't be Raspberry PI 0 W a possible alternative to your boards?

[doug.p...@gmail.com]

Thanks for the work you have done, and more importantly, Congratulations on the new addition to your family!

On Thursday, July 12, 2018 at 2:21:00 PM UTC-4, nemik wrote:

[Ed Ringers]

Sorry you stopped. Nice project!

Sorry to bother you but I was only wondering why you did not use a ESP32 for this goal. It has wifi+bluetooth and costs less. ESP-WROOM-32 from aliexpress for example. 

[Happy Bubbles Tech]

When I first started on the project, the ESP32 didn't exist yet. But even now, it cannot use both BLE and WiFi at the same time. They share the same antena on the ESP32 and need to take turns using it. 

I did spend a bunch of time trying to get it to work, but couldn't get performance I was happy with. It would always miss the majority of BLE advertisements and only catch maybe 1 of 5. That's why I think a dedicated BLE and wifi chip are still necessary for a device like this that needs BLE and WiFi at the same time. 

On Wed, Oct 17, 2018, 06:19 Ed Ringers <inter...@gmail.com> wrote:

Sorry you stopped. Nice project!

Sorry to bother you but I was only wondering why you did not use a ESP32 for this goal. It has wifi+bluetooth and costs less. ESP-WROOM-32 from aliexpress for example. 

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[Ed Ringers]

Nevermind. I found the post you said that using one antenna for bluetooth+wifi is not working that good.