Powerblow

Summary
PowerBlow is a low-entry product within the Kiiroo ecosystem that I conceived and led from idea to mass production. I was responsible for the product’s design, engineering, project management, compliance, and manufacturing, working closely with Taco Schuur. The device went on to become one of Kiiroo’s best-selling products.

Introduction
PowerBlow is a product I came up with because I envisioned a low entry accessory for the Kiiroo line-up that would provide the interactive expierence to customers at a substantially power pice while establishing a product ecosystem and provide a gateway to the Keon. The core idea is an device acts as a low entry barrier, provide an unique expierence and no money is lost if the customer wants advance in the eco system because the product works both stand alone and ad an add-on for the Kiiroo Keon.

Role
I led the end-to-end development of PowerBlow, overseeing product design, electronics, firmware, compliance, FCC, RED certification, and manufacturing. I was responsible for both the system architecture and execution across hardware and software,and integration into the Kiiroo ecosystem. Key contributions included PCBA design, firmware development, certification and compliance testing, and coordination with contract manufacturing. I collaborated with specialists for enclosure design and PCB routing.

Design Parameters
Design parameters where minimal production cost and high resale value per cm³. Shipping cost where substantial among other products and squeezing maximal resale value in a small volume results in enourmous  advantages in storage, shipping, inventory investments and ultimately margins. The Keon already provided a stroking expierence and the next best thing i thought a male audice would like rave about is “suction”. 

USB-C
Investigating customer reviews revealed that complaints micro-usb and charging time. I looked into USB-C before but the connector prices where astronomical. At the time of designing (2022) there was pre-legislation in the EU Parliament and it was anticipated USB-C would become mandatory within the Eurozone. In reaction manufacturers started mass producing ahead of time and prices felll rapidly especially from Chinese brands whre you can purchase below 0.03 $ in bulk.  USB-C allows up to 15W (5V, 3A) with just setting two pull-down resistors on the cc lines with zero negotiation given the adapater supports it. Given the complaints where from 2.5W (5V, 0.5A) usb-c essential gave a 6x charging boost for free!

NRE
PCBA design and compliance cost are substantial part of NRE so it wat set on that this product could be used with atleast 1 more product. So i decicded it would have a shared pcba “with another production variant with the  Kiiroo Control.
Eventually the product turned out to among Kiiroo’s top selling devices.

Price Innovation 
Following U.S. - China technology tensions the Chinese Government poured in tens of billions of dollars to grow their internall semi conductor industry. Since 2014 China already poured in a substantial ammount of state funding but with the fresh funding Chinese IC companies mushroomed from 681 in 2014 to 3451 in 2023. Older-generation lithography equipment was and is very accesible and its suitable to manufacure simple devices like mosfets, Ldo’s, diodes.

I noticed the price difference between western brands and Chinese brands would be sometimes a factor of 40x. People tend to make racist remarks about Chinese manufacturing: that its low quality, out of specification. However i reasoned that the ammount of knowlege, time and capital required to even enter this market and produce IC’s with lithography is so substantially vast it weeds out cowboys.

Kiiroo was a relatively small company and didnt had the leveraring power to dicate terms with suppliers. Futhermore we would manufacture trough 3th party contract manufacturers and there was a huge “information vaccuum” where alot of commerical abuse took place. Large EMS contract manfacturers have leveraing power with IC disitributors and IC manufacturers. They could negotiate prices far lower than the list prices beknown to us and keep the difference. 

Negotiating with direct with Chinese IC manufacturers and design the electronics with their IC's clear errased the information vaccuum and the company had direct control over the price. We could tell the contractors to purchase from the companies and brands we selected it resulted in a 80% price decrease on pcba assembly prices.

Powerblow

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