Nice project. $249 seems a bit high, but I guess it's like the Fairphone, they can't save as much as the large manufacturers do.
this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
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Holy f*** $250? Wow well it is not for me then :(
I'm genuinely curious if someone's published a BoM cost breakdown, I'm wondering if there's a couple of super high tickets items in the like the scroll wheel and custom PCB cost.
The cost of the scroll wheel cannot possibly be more than 10€ and the pcb cannot be more than 1€ battery is about 4e and display can be 7-8, chip is 2-3e and passives, connectors etc brlow 5. The manufacturing costs of the thing are likely below 40€, even in small volumes. Assy costs are probably about 20% of the total.
Part of the high cost may be investments in moulds for the casing and r&d cost.
Yeah, I took a bit of a poke last night, there's a couple of ICs in there that could add up a bit I guess, but even being generous I wasn't getting much last 80.
The cases I saw had the look of a 3D print about them. Original goal seems to have been around 10000, so maybe they're amortizing the r&d across 40 units, little bit of profit and then went and sold 400 of them - nice win for them if so!
To make it clear I don't begrudge them their profit especially as they're open sourcing the thing. The concept and high price has got my creative side going for sure, an ESP32-S3 pro dev board looks like it could handle an sd card, screen, MP3 decode and output to an I2S amp all by itself + BT headphones and WiFi track downloading and battery charging. Slowly talking myself into building a portable podcast machine.
Hey, one of the people working on Tangara here. The case we're shipping with will be CNC'd polycarbonate, though the same design also works for home 3d printing.
The price is a lot of little things adding up, and we want to be able to do smaller runs post-campaign and still have it be worth our time. I also wish it could be more affordable, but that's how it be with indie electronics.
Good luck if you do decide to make a little podcast machine! Just be aware that afaik ESP32-S3 can't do bluetooth audio (see: https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/issues/8675).
Thanks, really appreciate the feedback! Really good luck with the project, love seeing these kind of devices making it into the wild. Yeah totally appreciate the nature of indie electronics/manufacturing in general and your work totally makes it easier and more approachable for a lone wolf like myself to churn out something functional!
Thanks for heads up on the BT audio, my little investigation the other night lead me to the datasheet for the ESP32-S3, the list of peripheral options is amazing, I'm sure I'll figure something out!
Thanks again and good luck with the project!
It's a project by an Australian team, so one would assume two things:
- It's in Australian Dollars.
- Australia has experienced severe hyperinflation overnight (or earlier today, for many of us reading this)
It’s a neat project. Costs as much as an iPod :P
This is insanely priced, particularly when you see that it literally loses on everything but battery life compared to the original iPod 5gb, let alone the Classic.
well there also does not seem.to be a multi billion dollar corrupt gang of geniouses behind it. what you do with your data is up to you but im just saying that we can be happy that there are options out there.
https://www.westerndigital.com/products/mp3-players/sandisk-clip-sport-go?sku=SDMX30-016G-G46B
$50.
Edit: What's the point of open sourcing this product? It's an MP3 player. How does it utilize wifi? Does it run apps? Can it access a file server to download new media? The video and article doesn't go into that at all. BT is nice but Sandisk $50 clip players have had that for a long time.
This seems like 5x the price for a dev product.
What’s the point of open sourcing this product?
Some people just like to have the possibility to change and completely own their stuff. Some people actually do change firmware or hardware components. I'd say it's mostly for tech enthusiasts and tinkerers.
does the sandisk do 2tb of flac?
Using flac files on a device with this fidelity is a waste of space.
You can't hear flac. But no it doesn't do 2tb. Is this $250 device water resistant? Does it have a clip? Does it have an FM tuner?
I can hear flac is better than mp3. maybe I can't hear all flac has to offer, but its a better listening experience. also the page 100% says it supports up to 2tb sd. the things you listed literally dont matter to me
I mean no one can even hear all the way up the bitrate of MP3s. So no one can actually hear FLAC.
also the page 100% says it supports up to 2tb sd.
No I was answering your question that the Sandisk didn't support that.
e things you listed literally dont matter to me
Cool. I was asking what is so interesting about this $250 iPod and how does open source benefit it? Besides holding so many songs you'll never listen to them I mean. It doesn't appear to have functionality a player 1/5th it's cost does. And no one has given me an answer on what functionality open source could enable for an mp3 player that isn't already available.
They don't answer your questions because they don't like the answers, simple as that. My advice would be to not waste any more of your time on this. That's what I'm going to do at least. You can't argue with fanatics.
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when I compare an mp3 file to a flac file, the flac sounds better. theoretical maximum mp3 bitrate isn't what I experience.
sorry about the 2tb miscommunication. 100% my bad.
even if 2tb is too much, it is expandable, and the one you posted isn't. personally I have a few hundred gb. some people do listen to more music.
I dont don't think its worth $250 but its a cool project to be excited about.
for me, open source is mostly philosophical. that won't mean enough to everyone. I also expect better long term support from an open source project.
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I haven't seen a device that takes full sized sdhc cards in at least a decade.
Has anyone checked out prices for refurbished ipod classics? $300 for a 20 year old mp3 player! Insanity!
Edit: looking at the specs for the Tangara..... 16MB of internal storage???? Uhhhhhhh......... I guess the intent is to use an SD card.
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Cute, but what problem does this solve? Regardless of what you feel about any particular platform, consolidating multiple pieces of functionality into the highly integrated smartphone platform was a major step forward in mobility. This just feels like a regression.
Below you will find my highly researched list of advantages over the typical smartphone:
- Headphone jack
- Mucho storage space
- Works without internet connection
- Free software purity (I don't know, ask RMS)
- Coolness
I think it can at least carry 2TB of offline music for you if you still like owning your own music if that's your thing. It's an option, nothing wrong with that
Some people like to enjoy their media without having to use a smartphone, they prefer to keep their smartphones as strictly communication devices. Doing so allows them to switch off entirely when at their leisure in addition to saving phone battery life.
2tb of removable storage dedicated to music and the existence of a headphone jack are significant advantages for me. Not that I would purchase this particular contraption but I understand the appeal of single function/media devices such as DAPs and ereaders.
Some people like to enjoy their media without having to use a smartphone, they prefer to keep their smartphones as strictly communication devices.
Okay, I guess that's fair. I can see this useful for being out for a run or whatnot. I'm not sure I find it quite comparable to an e-reader, since the screen on an e-reader provides a decidedly different experience from a smartphone both in size and readability.
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darmok & jalad at tanagra
Shaka, when the walls fell
Leykam and Howard when they raised the roof.
They got $136k funding from an original goal of $10k. Did it go to their head?
I will always prefer my iPod Mini with extra storage, new battery and Rockbox like this guy did, and the reasons are:
- better overall build and audio quality
- way cheaper (70-80$ vs 249$)
- better software support (Rockbox is FOSS and has been going on for ages and it's not gonna stop)
- it actually upcycles old hardware instead of buying new devices and creating more e-waste
- nostalgia value +100 points
Listening to music like it's 2005 all over again
Genuine question : Why use that instead of storing your musics on your phone ?
My phone doesn't have a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Such courage! /s
You can replace your phone with dedicated electronics, which has some advantages, such as better battery life and generally better performance. Like I bet this thing has a better amplifier than a phone has.
And phones have their downsides. They don't last as long and are expensive. Privacy issues. And can be too stimulating and intrusive. For example sometimes you just need to know the time and before you know it you're emailing someone.
When I go hiking I can just as well take a dumb phone, a GPS and an mp3 player with me. Maybe a camera too.
While I use my phone for music I can certainly see some advantages:
physical buttons
smaller and lighter
less distraction than a phone
cheaper to replace if stolen or broken
Rip Creative Nomad.
It would be a neat gift for anyone that enjoyed the first generation iPod.
With optimization that battery should last more than 10 days.
Sounds kind of cool. Does is support Rockbox, yet?
Dude, I haven’t hear the name Rockbox in yeeeeeears! I had that in my first mp3 player that predated the iPod. I don’t remember the name of it, but Rockbox really improved the interface.
One of my first "hacking" a device was putting Rockbox on a 4 gb Samsung MP3 player in 2010. This device wasn't meant to play/watch videos, but Rockbox unlocked that capability. It had a tiny screen, but still.
OpenNugget 🐍
Will be needing to check-in on this over time to see if anything is changed or default functions expand just a bit. I have been looking for a good media device for loading my archived podcast episodes/seasons and audiobooks without having all the extra bloat and/or possible malware that can be on lots of similar and cheaper Android players (or the overkill of using an old phone that doesn't have a aux port). Main thing for podcasts and audiobooks is variable playback speed settings and stuff like understanding audiobook formats with chapters.
Sadly I (for now) have settled on a sketchy Android device that I would love to root so I can remove a specific flagged app that the Play Store always pops a notification about that is not uninstallable like so many companies do. But since it is a no name brand without firmware images to download from their site. I just I only ever put it online long enough for my favorite podcast app to pull new eps or Audible. Though I am planning to eventually just download and strip DRM from my library for having backups.
So if this thing can get variable speed for podcasts and support open/free formats that are specific to books. Then I am sold. I never got to have an iPod back in the day, so I very much like the throwback look of this thing! I do wish it had more RAM though, as I would imagine that it could limit some higher quality formats/codecs (but I am not a dev so maybe it wouldn't matter). The price seems fair given it isn't from just another global mega-corp. I hope they pay their devs well to make sure their official firmware updates stay active, and/or put some profits into future revisions and whatnot.
Well damn. Might be what i was looking for. Gotta know if it had Gapless Playback before purchase though
While I'd prefer a sort of iPod-like alternative to high-end DAPs like FiiO or Astell&Kern make, this is nice too. If it just had a balanced audio jack, it'd be perfect.
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