I was pilfering through ebay for some good deals on camera gimbals and I stumbled upon a store called gadgetinfinite. They are selling several 3DR clones on their site. I also noticed another one called game-jmt that is selling 3DR radios. It seems there is an endless cycle of clones coming from China with no end in site. Even though 3DR hardware is open sourced they are intent on selling this hardware using the 3DR name, trying to pass it off as original, but I highly doubt it is.
I have read several debates about the pros and cons about Chinese companies cloning U.S. merchandise. Personally I don't see any pros. Most of these rogue companies are only cloning to profit and not innovate. Will there ever be any way to regulate this? Should it? It makes it awfully discouraging for anyone wanting to bring an innovative product to market knowing that there is little they can do to keep foreign companies from cloning their ideas.
Comments
The comment above by Luke is interesting, suggesting that cheaper copies can benefit the community. Correct or not, I like this thought.
Maybe the only complaint should be that they have 3DR references printed on the modules; an attempt at attribution? And apart from the firmware these are Hope-RF modules on a carrier with a few extra bits, possibly very similar to an app note design. not exactly rocket science.
I am much more concerned at the efforts by other companies to own and control simple, obvious and common sense ideas.
yeah at least they could have make a small silk print error with the name and brand it 3RD Radios... hehe
on the other hand, I still dream of a day where someone will get these radio tested and approved for use in Canada with all the paperwork and expenses related to the certification process. That way we would have better alternative to the expensive xBee. A lot of people are calling me stupid to not carry these nice units and every day I get closer and more tempted to distribute them... But the rules are clear and I don't really want to be on the wrong side of "the law".
Anyhow... cloners (yes they are reading this for sure...) with all the money you make riding the 3DR wave please get these units certified!
hehe one can always wish and dream!
Dany
www.CanadaDrones.com
For the record, we've trademarked "ArduPilot", "APM", "3D Robotics" and "3DR", including the logo. People are free to clone our products, but not our names.
The wait times from diydrones is far more discouraging than the copiers are selling cheap.
i think everyone has made a valid point. Personally,what's truly disheartening is the fact that a lot of manufacturing for 3DR products goes on here in the U.S. This kind of innovation is not productive for our good ole boys down at 3DR. Until wages balance China will have an unfair advantage. Pay mind though that this is a listing on Ebay targeted directly at US consumers. I think there is a case to be argued here with Ebay and similar online retailers. Just my thoughts.
That's the reality of open source hardware, just as it was for software. Endless copying of 1 design, copying of names & reputations, the 1 originator being blamed for not supporting every clone. Dave ranted about it after he rediscovered the problems. I still get blamed for not supporting every clone of my software, using the same name.
So Chris & Nate have to focus on order fulfillment, support, & manufacturing instead of designing products. There's currently huge free advertising from open source hardware, but if they did close off everything, it would take longer for the designs to get copied & there would be more of a budget for engineering & advertising.
In a nutshell, Clones and all it brings I agree speeds up innovation, I mean look at a flat panel TV, all the brands have similar techs with different names, brand X brings out a tech, brand Y reverse engineers it calls it a different name and makes it better, consumer A has many choices, I mean before the 3dr radio option we only had xbee, the 3dr team took the product to the next level
Having someone copy what you have done, causes you to make something better, I work for a multinational brand and one product that constantly gets reinvented is battery tech, the key reason is to keep ahead of the counterfeit clones, counterfeit product are budgeted for in relation to market share
Some clone products such as this are dumb enough to use the same name and design, some just go straight to the source and rebadge the product(think new fatboy charger vs revoelectrix)
There are Patent wars left and right, Ultimately we the consumer benefit due to fast tech and also the lawyers who clip there ticket along the way
This is one of the clear downsides of open source software. Ideally, people who care about quality will still buy from the developer, but it is also very likely that there will be very few if any significant quality differences between the products from the developer and the products of the copycats. They might even, in some cases, be produced in the same factory.
Also, don't expect ebay to do anything to do anything to really penalize anyone selling this stuff. Ebay makes a lot of money off scammers, and so long as the coefficient of return is relatively low they don't care who sells what. I went thru a protracted battle with ebay a few years ago over a Futaba GY401 Gyro. I legitimately got scammed and got a fake. Still had to pay 30+ dollars to send it back to China by registered mail.
If you go on ebay you will find that they are still selling ...
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1296848
The fact that this firmware is open source just makes it easier for them to produce a legitimate copy.
Open source = free to sell for profit in mind in chinese.
Not much to dó about it.
...and guess where they will turn for support?
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
-
6
of 6 Next