Radio Silence

Dan Ostler

Why I've been so quiet

Its been a while since I last posted. It's not because it hasn't crossed my mind. It's because I've been focused on something that grabbed my attention and I have been fixated on it. Fixation is likely an understatement, I am sure my family and friends are sick of hearing about it. Besides pushing some of the day-to-day operational items, my focus has been on a new product all our own.

I've always been the kind of kid (I hope I can refer to myself as a kid) that loved to deconstruct things and then attempt to put it back together to understand it or as my mom might say "make it better." I have hundreds of "projects" that are partially complete or, rather, incomplete. I love "figuring things out" and more importantly, I thoroughly enjoy the knowledge that is gained by the project journey. As such when a friend came to me with a problem he had, I took it as a personal challenge. I figured there had to be a solution. There wasn't, at least not yet and I immediately started to salivate.

I've been rather blessed as of late. I am a member of this fantastic team, I am surrounded on a daily basis by some of the best geeks in the business. Don't worry they won't be offended, we love who we are and most of us aren't afraid to embrace it. Given the right opportunity, our team can do amazing things. So I am surrounded by these resources and I've just been presented a problem, what am I to do?

You might say "enough already, spill it." I'm not ready yet, I will provided this clue, it is solar powered. I will also tell you this, we've dealt with lots of different hardware (no, not our average Android or iOS schtick), power delivery and then battery life, weather, temperature, RF interference, supply chain issues, potential investors, existing shareholders and, of course, software. It has been painful at times, a ton of fun at others and I've learned a bunch. The team is still excited about it and we've been working on it for a while so there is something there. I'll also say this, nothing is more satisfying than walking outside and looking up at our prototype plugging along when there is 3 inches of snow sitting on top of and it's still charging for the day anyway.