[acgourley]

I understand what you're saying, and I would never have claimed the same about Mint or Heroku (okay, I may have for YouTube).

I think your argument hinges on the square device being complex. Let me break down what's inside:

A piece of plastic, a single sensor, 2 wires, and a 3.5mm jack. That's not exactly "consumer electronics".

And yes there are consultant firms who could drive the entire production of this device, from design to production, for a large company that can't rally the internal resources.