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2019-07-25 2:15 pm
Well, I can't be sure, cuz like I said, I had to dig 3 pages deep, so I'm not absolutely positive that the price is for the item I started clicking on
I was looking for the one that attaches to your cell phone, which I assumed would be the cheapest one...
$239
DroneBot Workshop reacted
2019-07-25 2:37 pm
I suppose for what it is and can do, the price is very much parr for the course!
And I guess if you were controlling a robot arm, 3D depth of field vision could be quite useful but would it be of any use on a homemade bot, is the question you have to ask yourselves.
This was probably missing on the Tesla that couldn't recognise a truck, last year!
DroneBot Workshop reacted
2019-07-25 2:54 pm
Bill, the reason you said you started doing dronebot was to teach. This may not be used by many or any people that sees it but it looks to be something that people could benefit from an understanding of. The rest, wellllllll, part of the price of being on youtube. ?
Pat
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!) but “That's funny …”
Author: Isaac Asimov
DroneBot Workshop reacted
Topic starter
2019-07-25 2:55 pm
In general I would welcome reviews of products pertaining to the subjects the forums cover, even if they be sponsored, as long as it is stated that the review is sponsored
Most definitely, every time I've done a sponsored video and article I have clearly stated that the product was provided to me by the manufacturer.
Yeah, I saw US and China thing this morning getting the link :/ Are we at war with Canada again?
I believe your commander in chief has declared war on just about every country on the planet, with the exception of Russia and North Korea. So I guess we're on the list too!
But seriously, I do get the South Park reference. An even better one was Canadian Bacon, with Alan Alda and the late, great John Candy.
Scott, you never were at war with Canada, it was us the British!
1814 - "Burning down the house" - was a top 10 hit in the UK!
Actually, we were at war several times, as Canada was once a British colony. In fact, the capital city used to be here in Montreal, but they moved it to Ottawa because those pesky Americans kept sneaking over the border and burning down our parliament buildings!
And "Burning Down the House" was a great song, brings back memories of a Talking Heads concert I went to many years ago.
I thought you guys had a free trade agreement, that used to be called NAFTA and with no real changes, renamed USMCA
It isn't ratified yet, right now I think we are arguing about milk or something. I have nothing but nice things to say about NAFTA, I worked in Hawaii for 9 years on a TN-1 visa which is part of NAFTA.
The only comment I would have is that the website doesn't give a price for any of their products (not even the robot, which I want) which usually translates to "if you have to ask how much it is, you probably can't afford it"
Actually, some of the prices are there, but you really have to look hard for them. But not the robot, which does indeed look pretty cool.
I don't think I would be making any ground-breaking newsflashes by saying that your target audience is basically hobbyists, and the most expensive thing that most of us are willing to shell out our hard earned bucks for is probably the Jetson Nano, which many of us here found even THAT to be too expensive. Most of us are probably going to be using a PiCam (or two) or one of the Logitech cameras (which work right out of the box with the Jetson) or maybe even something like an X-Box Kinect
This was my concern as well, although at 240 dollars it isn't extraordinarily expensive. But it would be above the price range for many hobbyists.
Bill, you will have to make a deal with someone in the States, and if you fill the toilet with Maple Syrup, it will be all the more worthwhile.
I'd hate to be the customs inspector who had to examine THAT package!
?
To all who have replied so far, I really thank you for your input. I'll send them an email in a bit and clarify what they are offering and what they expect of me. I'll certainly let you know the results, and if there is any more input I would love to hear it.
Bill
"Never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window." — Steve Wozniak
Topic starter
2019-07-25 3:51 pm
1) It's free, and you get to keep it
2) You aren't going to say nice things about it just cuz they gave you one. It's going to be an honest, unbiased review
Yes, agreed. And BTW, I've had those conditions for everything I have ever reviewed.
"Never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window." — Steve Wozniak
2019-07-25 5:57 pm
I for one would be interested in you reviewing the product. I don't see any issue as regards your reputation with you getting paid in some way as we all have to make a living and deserve a fair reward for services provided such as your tutorials which are for the viewer free. How are you going to be able to talk about how to use electronic products if you don't have them to play with?
Stereo vision used to interest me a lot and I often played around with trying to write stereo vision programs. The problem was always ambiguous data (which pixel matched with another pixel in the other image). One product I remember used 3 cameras, one above and between the other two. Stereo vision is also computationally heavy. I see they use a structured light system to reduce that ambiguity. I wonder how it compares with the OpenCV effort at stereo vision?
2019-07-25 6:35 pm
Is this the type of product you'd consider buying? It's a bit more expensive than the average component we purchase for our designs, but it also looks like a very powerful device.
It's too pricey for me. I'd rather see you making videos on how to actually program and use the SBCs you have already reviewed.
One thing I really love about your videos up to this point is how you have focused on the Arduino boards demonstrating how to connect up and program all types of sensors and peripherals and then going through the code line-by-line. I would like to see you do the same thing for the Raspberry Pi, especially using Python. And then perhaps do similar things with the Jetson Nano too.
So I would rather see you focus on getting more in-depth on how to use the products you've already reviewed, rather than just see you start reviewing more and more products that I'll most likely never buy or use. I mean, you already have those Lidar units to play with too. So I would love to see you actually put the Lidar you have to use using a Raspberry Pi or Jetson Nano, or both.
I would also rather see you create in-depth instructions on how to use the less expensive cameras effectively. Like the Pixy2 camera, etc.
I'd hate to see your channel turn into just another "Product Review" channel. What attracted me to your channel originally was your in-depth lessons on how to actually connect things up and program them. So I would like to see you continue with that original style and just expand it to using the Raspberry Pi and the Jetson Nano.
If you start using pricey components in your projects you'll lose me fairly quickly. The Jetson Nano is about as pricey as I want to go. And even that is only worth the price because of the extreme capabilities it appears to be offering. Also, the second motivation for buying the Jetson Nano is the HOPE that you would be creating more videos showing how to use it, program it, and connect it up to other things like perhaps the Pixy2 camera, or lidar, etc.
So yeah, I'd rather see you focus on more in-depth videos on the products you already have. That's what has attracted me to your channel thus far. Can't get enough of those in-depth lectures. ?
If you abandon those in favor of just reviewing every new product that comes out, that's going to send your channel is a totally different direction from what it once was.
Have you ever written up a "Mission Statement" for you channel? It might not be a bad idea to think about one if you haven't done so already.
Love your in-depth how-to lectures. Please don't let those fall by the wayside.
Your line-by-line programming lectures are what interest me the most. Please do some of those for the Raspberry Pi and Jetson Nano.
Thanks
DroneBot Workshop Robotics Engineer
James
2019-07-25 6:47 pm
2) You aren't going to say nice things about it just cuz they gave you one. It's going to be an honest, unbiased review
The only problem there is that at about 3 times the price of a Jetson Nano it had better be NICE!
So yeah, of course it will probably get a nice review. But what good is a good review on something I can't afford? ?
Sorry for being such a poor dude. But hey, that's reality, so why not own up to it. ?
DroneBot Workshop Robotics Engineer
James
2019-07-25 6:54 pm
I'll send them an email in a bit and clarify what they are offering and what they expect of me. I'll certainly let you know the results, and if there is any more input I would love to hear it
Here's an idea,...
Write them back and tell them that their product is above the price range you would like to set for you product reviews. Tell them that you prefer to stick with products that are under $100 for your hobbyist audience. ?
This way, they'll be more likely to contact you next year with their $99 model. ?
Gotta let them know what the consumers want. ?
DroneBot Workshop Robotics Engineer
James
2019-07-25 6:58 pm
I'll send them an email in a bit and clarify what they are offering and what they expect of me. I'll certainly let you know the results, and if there is any more input I would love to hear it
Here's an idea,...
Write them back and tell them that their product is above the price range you would like to set for you product reviews. Tell them that you prefer to stick with products that are under $100 for your hobbyist audience. ?
This way, they'll be more likely to contact you next year with their $99 model. ?
Gotta let them know what the consumers want. ?
I would suspect the components they are using cost more than $100. Just a guess. Now in 2-3 years, the price could drop.
2019-07-25 7:13 pm
I would suspect the components they are using cost more than $100. Just a guess. Now in 2-3 years, the price could drop
Ok, so I was off by a couple years. I'm patient, I'll wait. ?
In the meantime let's play with the toys we already have.
Arduino boards
Raspberry Pies
Jetson Nano
Lidar
Pixy2 Camera
etc, etc. etc.
It's not like Bill's hard-up for content. He could keep us busy for the next decade just playing with the toys we already have.
That's my vote.
Although if Bill can get a free camera out of it for having done the review I suppose I can't blame him for doing that. Go ahead and grab the free camera Bill, do a quick review on it and then go back to programming the old toys. ?
DroneBot Workshop Robotics Engineer
James
Topic starter
2019-07-26 10:23 am
Although if Bill can get a free camera out of it for having done the review I suppose I can't blame him for doing that. Go ahead and grab the free camera Bill, do a quick review on it and then go back to programming the old toy
I think you're under the wrong impression James, despite the title of this thread I never had intended to do a "quick review" of anything.
Take a look at the video on LIDAR that I did a year ago as an example. I did receive the LIDAR units from DFRobot and acknowledged that in the video and in the article and video description. I then proceeded to do a tutorial on how LIDAR works, and how to use the LIDAR units with the Arduino.
Incidentally, that video and article are among my most popular. I still get emails every week about them, and my YouTube Analytics shows that video as having the highest engagement and retention time of any of my videos.
Another example is the PixyCam video and article. This was also provided to me by DFRobot and again I did a tutorial on how it worked and how to use it. It also gets me a lot of emails and it too ranks among the highest in retention time of all my YouTube videos.
Right now my videos and articles are divided into two separate tracks, as I'm pretty sure you are aware:
- My DB! series, which is sort of a "VLOG" for lack of a better term.
- My other videos, which are all tutorials.
I have always intended to do a video and article on stereoscopic vision, although the product that I have been considering is the StereoPi, a crowdfunded project that uses two Raspberry Pi cameras and the Raspberry Pi Compute Module.
Whatever product that I choose you can be assured that I would do a tutorial on stereoscopic vision. Not a review of a fancy camera with a shiny case. I would illustrate the principles of stereoscopic vision using one of my animated diagrams, and would then do experiments to see how to make it work in the real world.
The fact that you'd consider unsubscribing if I did a review is a bit disturbing, hopefully, my other 99,756 subscribers don't feel as strongly as that!
But you can relax, as I probably won't be doing a video and article on this product, at least not very soon. I have a lot of content already in the works, plus I may be doing a collaboration with another popular YouTuber in the fall (I'm not at liberty to say who, we have been working on it for a few months now). So I simply just don't have the time.
Another reason for not doing a video on this product comes down to the real reason that I don't like doing sponsored videos. What I really don't like about doing them is that it creates a commitment to get a video and article out by a specific date, for someone else. I don't like having to report to anybody, I'm a solo act and I like it that way. The only person I want to answer to is myself.
I will admit that this product intrigued me, and it probably has a lot of potential, so I wanted to see how everyone else felt about it. However, I won't be replying their email right now, I generally just ignore emails for sponsored videos as I have plainly stated on my contact page that I don't do them anymore.
Bill
"Never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window." — Steve Wozniak