In Consumer Hardware, Niche is the New Mainstream

A pair of devices launching Wednesday highlight a growing trend in consumer hardware: doing one thing well, Axios writes. From the report: The smartphone rendered many formerly standalone devices obsolete, but now some tech with a single purpose can offer an experience that a digital Swiss Army knife can't. GoPro announced its latest cameras on Wednesday. The $199 GoPro Hero is a smaller, simpler camera that presents fewer controls, while this year's flagship -- the $399 Hero 13 Black -- supports a series of add-on lenses without losing its core as a rugged, waterproof action camera.

Meanwhile, the reMarkable tablet company is adding its first color model. ReMarkable's tablets allow creators to write and sketch without the distractions of more full-featured devices. ReMarkable's paper tablets are similar to Amazon's Kindle Scribe, but with a focus on creating and editing documents rather than reading digital books. In addition to adding color -- the most requested feature -- the Paper Pro has built-in illumination, a larger eInk display and an active digital pen, which allows digital ink to appear on the display within an imperceptible 12 milliseconds. The new Paper Pro ($579 or $629, depending on which pen is bundled) is still aimed at those who want to avoid notifications rather than those who want to multitask.

No shit

[darkain]

A couple headlines down: "Snapchat Is Going To Put Ads Next To Messages From Friends"

And this headline: "In Consumer Hardware, Niche is the New Mainstream"

No shit. Consumers are starting to get fed up with all the advertising and anti-consumer behavior of all our devices, so simpler devices that just do the shit we want without bullshit getting in the way? Yeah, that's exactly what I want to buy.

Re:

[Luckyo]

Not sure if this tracks, considering that a lot of niche hardware is sold specifically on being well integrated into mainstream services.

I.e. action cams that can stream through your phone to youtube. Tablets that integrate into services like pixiv for purposes of uploading, storing and sharing. Etc.

Re: No shit

[ArmoredDragon]

The only reason I own a gopro is so I can dive to 130 feet and film anything from shipwrecks to tiger sharks. A smartphone physically can't do that. Sure, you can probably stick some kind of waterproof case over it like you have to do with a gopro, but there are a few problems with this:

- Every time you replace your phone, the form factor changes, which means everything else you use with it has to as well (even if you did that with gopros, they retain consistent enough form to still work with everything) al

Re:

[flyingfsck]

Etch a Sketch is still available

reNarkable tablet

[SmaryJerry]

It seems, good? What people really want is to watch video outside in the sun. If it can respond to a pen that quickly, could it also play video?

Re:

[jacks smirking reven]

This is a blind guess based on what I know about e-Ink but my bet is the super fast response is to change the area under the pen only and in doing full-screen refreshes at 24/30/60 fps progressivly is simply out of the picture.

Could be wrong, maybe they have some special sauce but an e-ink display capable of full frame, full color HD video would be an absolutle sea change in display tech for a lot of things, i don't think theyve cracked that nut yet.

like kitchen gadgets

[awwshit]

For the kitchen, you can find general use tools that allow you to do just about any type of cooking. You can also find any number of single function gadgets that purport to do one thing well. For the most part, those gadgets best feature is separating non-professionals from their money.

Re:

[awwshit]

How many chefs own a butter dispenser or an avocado slicer?

Re:

[Luckyo]

At the very least you need a bread knive, a general large cutting knife, a general small cutting knife, a fillet knife and a carving knife for pulling crappy spots out of harder fruit and vegetables.

And let's not forget the most dangerous weapon known to UK police. The mighty potato peeler.

Re:

[Luckyo]

Absolutely correct and most of us don't have the space in the kitchen for "specific tool for specific job". That's why you have a combine, rather than a separate cutter, separate mixer, separate thing for fluffing up cream, etc.

There was that weird trend with air fryers recently, and I'm seeing a lot of them at e-waste recycling centers now. Fads come and go, but you always need to make food to eat. And for that, it's generally best to have the staple basics: oven with a bunch of pans and so on, two sinks,

Odd parallels in TFS

[Powercntrl]

GoPros are popular because they're small and rugged, and they're used in situations where a smartphone camera just wouldn't be practical. iPhone cameras even can actually be damaged if exposed to excessive vibration. [apple.com] Smartphones are also a little too bulky to be mounted in the same places where GoPros are typically used (such as attached to a helmet).

reMarkable tablets, on the other hand, are just for hipsters who lack the self discipline to not install distracting apps on an iPad or Android tablet in the

Re:

[gardyloo]

reMarkable tablets, on the other hand, are just for hipsters who lack the self discipline to not install distracting apps on an iPad or Android tablet in the first place. They aren't doing one thing better than the leading competitors, they're just using marketing spin to sell their product's deficiencies as some kind of benefit for folks who are easily distracted.

They feel much more like physical paper than other tablets. For those of us doing a large amount of writing by hand, this is a key selling point. Keeping that tactile signal is a big plus. Also, I can sync what I'm working on with free-as-in-beer software to places I own/control (very likely possible with other tablets, of course; I don't know).

Re:

[chuckugly]

The e-Ink Android devices look a lot like paper too I guess.

Re:

[Powercntrl]

They feel much more like physical paper than other tablets. For those of us doing a large amount of writing by hand, this is a key selling point.

There's actually a rather large selection of screen protectors on the market which will give the same sort of feel to standard tablets.

Re:

[newbie_fantod]

He's not talking about a paper-textured screen backgrounds, he's talking about how the physical device responds to writing and drawing with a stylus

Re:

[test321]

A place I know got reMarkable tablets for the production support team (production in the sense people working at industrial machines). They use them as a replacement for the paper notebook, for taking notes and sketching while inspecting equipment or for corridor discussions. These people obviously also own regular tablets and phones, which they use all the time to take pictures, and for messaging. Still, they found that that the reMarkable is better at the note-taking job. What I really DON'T see, is peopl

What kind of horseshit reporting is this?

[thegarbz]

The current generation GoPro is really no more different than those which came before them. The current plan for a colour remarkable is just a technology step up from the previous one. There is no trend here. There's no change. This is just two companies releasing the products we expect and in some cases have been purchasing already for 10 years.

These are thinly veiled ads pretending to be a story about changing consumer behaviour for run of the mill products we expect to be on the market.

LOL, no thanks

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"The new Paper Pro ($579 or $629, depending on which pen is bundled)"

That much money for a crippled tablet? I'll pass.

Electronic paper has to compete with paper

[rapjr]

If I'm going to have electronic pads and pens scattered around my house then they have to be priced low enough that I can do that. $600 per device is way too much. They had better be very reliable also and make transfer of scribblings easy.