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Comment by tlb | Hacker News Reader

Can you not build this as an app for an Apple Watch using NFC tags? Or any other commercial wearable. That'll save you a boatload of money, and probably be more appealing to climbers who usually do other sports as well and would rather have a single device.

When it comes to raising money, investors will want to know how big your moat is. For instance, if in the future Garmin or Apple added a climbing feature to their product, can you keep growing?

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I wish we could use NFC on an Apple watch. It would have saved a lot of trouble. Unfortunately the read range of NFC is too short to work on a climbing wall. The climbers wrist will sometimes be up 12+ inches away from the closest point on the wall. This was the challenge that I ran into with our first prototype.

As for moat, I think we have some patentable IP (another potential large cost to file for that patent) and because our model hinges on a relationship with the climbing gym, the big guys would have to establish a salesforce to sell into these gyms, which I think for the size of the market would not be worth it for them. If we can solidify a decent market share it would probably be more likely that they'd try to buy us out rather than fighting for those relationships, but I'm not certain about that.

You might want to consider alternate technological approaches. Have you considered using an IMU to deadreckon the route and detect rests and falls? I think this would be an perfect application. Then you wouldn’t need the rfid tape. You could also probably use an existing 3rd party hardware. I think developing the hardware and managing its production will kill you in the end. Plus, who wants yet another doodad to buy and wear.

Another possible method is to use computer vision and video to capture the climbers motion.

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