Well - I am starting to see a fairly disturbing pattern - I have a graveyard of various GHI boards and addons… In fact I would not like to add up how much out company has spent at this point. We are close to finishing our cobra2 based product and now find out that its on the outer also. Here is my 2cents worth as a loyal customer:
We as a company are betting a lot of money of GHI products and offerings - I am starting to lose faith in a constant redevelop phase. We don’t do this as a hobby - when a product is withdrawn it hurts us. I have a prototype running beside me right now in test that I am now very frustrated at the hundreds of hours I poured into it …to arrive at this point again.
Can GHI have an urgent meeting and provide the community some form of continuity guarantee on products - this is not something unusual …many companies give you an expected lifecycle so companies can make an educated bet on spending money with you. NO MESSAGE BACK TO THE COMMUNITY ON THIS DOES ACTUALLY SEND A VERY CLEAR MESSAGE.
I am in the middle of discussions with companies about taking our product for thousands of these devices based on cobra2. We use the cobra 2 as a prototype and yes I understand that we can move to the G120 and START OVER AGAIN - but this entire ecosystem is based on ‘use our boards and save tons of development time’ - I entire agree that this is the case …however when you have to keep redeveloping on the latest and greatest because the last one was removed again then it diminishes the value of what you offer.
Can we please get some form of statement from GHI of life expectancy on the various modules…we are parking this product at this stage as I don’t want to fund another development and then find out that the G120 for example suffers the same fate in another 6 months. The target for our dev we are on is to replace a product we have been deploying for 10 years on PIC technology …we can still get every component 10 years on and I am very nervous about betting my companys future on these types of uncertainties.
So you know Im not just complaining for the sake of it - I LOVE your products…We have built a lot of devices based on these …but long term I already nervous about the future of netmf (separate discussion I know) …now I am also nervous about betting my company on something that is already looking like its going out of supply in the form I expected.
Happy to discuss further as I am after guidance/confirmation on guaranteed continuity of supply.
We have discussed this already. Please give us a call and we will gladly handle all your commercial needs promptly.
Life expectancy on all our SOMs is over 5 years and near 10 years is what we shoot for. One a product like Cobra II, which is a breakout of G120, we can always manufacture this for you, as long as G120 SoM is available, which is long years to come.
Again, just give us a call and we will get you as many as you need, hundreds or even thousands.
Gus, I fail to understand you. Do you say that nothing has changed in terms of Cobra II availability? Do you say it will be as easy as before to get them? If so, why don’t you make all your products as Legacy and offer an option to call you (GHI) and order specified items to be manufactured? :
I cannot believe that you make this type of change without notice! I ordered Cobra II a couple of days ago for a new prototype project. Not one message about it going out of stock or being discontinued! We have two products in prototype phase that might well go under because of this! You need to rethink this… While I understand that the boards can be made by someone else, the time and effort (not to mention cost) to do this is just too high.
Hi Gus,
I just went to look at pricing on music module (another component we are reliant on) and I see that is now also discontinued also. What’s going on with product life spans? It feels like this stuff is disappearing faster than I can get it out into the market place. Is there a replacement module or an alternative?
Hi Gus, I know the general approach taken by GHI based on previous discussions. In this instance my question is specifically about the music module -is there any other source where I can get it from - at this stage we are at prototype and we have one we have been working with and want to ensure continuity of supply. What are our options?
Hi Gus,
We have 2 for prototyping now - next order would probably be for about 20. And we are trying to get a contract for 2k devices (but that’s in its early stages). Even if we don’t win the 2k contract then we would probably still go through 50 every few months once we are past prototype.
Basically I want to just know going forward what option we are going to have or if we have to change our design at this stage. Can they still be manufactured - what would be the minimum manufacturing run qty (assuming they can still be made)?
To answer your question, please send us a PO with what you need. I would recommend getting 100 to keep the price lower but we can make as many as you need!
