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by ehhthing
659 days ago
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It's unlikely that the company itself makes these tablets, they probably buy bulk off Alibaba or something and they all probably fail at the same time because the were all made at the same time. The real problem is that the quoted replacement price is so high, given that we know the tablets themselves are like $30 each. |
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They could control the whole system over POE with a bog standard usb to ethernet adapter, make the app easily run on any android device and charge the customer less for a better more reliable product, but rather than do that they rigged up some janky interface and built a custom enclosure hired out to an overseas manufacturer who bought the parts for $20 and charged the middleman $100 for them, who then charged the dealer $250 for them, who then charged the installer $600 for them, who then charged the customer $1600 for them. (Got to get that 2.5x margin on hardware every step of the way, after all!)
If they had gone with a POE system, wiring would have been cheap, replacement parts plentiful, and customer satisfaction would be sky high. Sure, you would sell fewer full systems, but to me that is a small price to pay for having the most useful and interesting systems on the market with fans creating all sorts of mods and integrations for your equipment and becoming customers for life.