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by dylan604 35 days ago
If that's crazy to you, let me introduce you to Juicero: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juicero
2 comments
jjkaczor 35 days ago
Am so "teh old", that honestly - I can't say whether or not that product was worse than the "CueCat":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat

(Naw - the CueCat was better, at least it was a generic barcode scanner)

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dylan604 35 days ago
I love that Belo was so involved in this epic failure. They are one of those large media companies I love to hate on. It probably helps to be a Dallas native to have that sentiment though
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vel0city 35 days ago
CueCat was just ahead of its time. These days scanning graphics to load links is quite common. I see QR codes and similar all the time.
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dylan604 35 days ago
Part of the success of QR codes is the ubiquity of the device to scan those codes. CueCat needed a wired device which is not something as easy to use as a wireless mobile device.

So yeah, ahead of its time to be sure

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vel0city 35 days ago
Fully agreed.

Plus, CueCat used some dumb proprietary encrypted tag format that needed to go to their servers to look up the code as they thought the marketers would want to pay for their codes.

Too early. Too proprietary. Too greedy.

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jonah-archive 35 days ago
This teardown and commentary remains a favorite of mine, really worth reading through: https://blog.bolt.io/juicero/
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dylan604 35 days ago
"high-voltage custom power supply that converts 120V/240V AC line voltage to 330V DC power for the motor and 3.3V/5V/12V DC for the communications board"

When I read that, my brain flipped thinking surely that has to be a typo. Then, "he motor is seemingly custom to account for the exceptionally high rated power (stalls at 5A at 330V DC, which is hard to believe, possibly even a misprint on the motor casing)"

So if it's a misprint on the motor, they designed a power supply for something totally unnecessary. Otherwise, if it's not a misprint, that's one helluva motor

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