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Comment by OoTheNigerian | Hacker News Reader

The BRCK is a beautiful device which deserves much more attention and debate than the website.

The overdosing of criticism on the website might have been somewhat justified if the BRCK was a web product. Yes, a simpler single screen presentation would have been much better. We do not need more than 4 comments saying it.

I am really excited about the BRCK's (badass name)fail over technology and wonder and hope it could be deployed to POS and other devices like tablet and phones. Reliability of POSs are really hindering cashless systems here in Nigeria.

Erik, have you spoken to the TECNO chaps or Huawei about licensing this technology? A minibrck* will not be a bad idea for urban areas that prioritize reliability over backup power.

Good stuff guys, I am excited that a pure technical play is coming out from these parts.

*Not sure you saw what I did there. we'll have the BRCK and the brck.

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So what is the special technology it provides, perhaps you could give us a quick summary? Any advantage to using my phone as an access point?

Your phone doesn't have the same ways to interface with the world, (probably) isn't happy with water/dust, cannot charge other devices and won't last for 8 hours straight (or more, acc. to the specs page, if you're using anything but the 'full power' mode). This looks a cross between an arduino, a d-link sortof appliance with multi-band support for mobile data, a decently sized flash storage device and a huge battery - in a rugged hull.

Your phone isn't even close. If you just want to hop online for a short while: No advantage over using your phone, I guess.

water/dust: presumably the devices I want to connect to the internet won't be happy with that either, so I have to avoid those anyway.

Charging: not sure about that one either. Either there is a power source or there isn't?

WRT water/dust talk to some hikers. I have a nice water proof crush proof case for my phone; it cost quite a sum of money. Where's the case? My phone is ringing should I bother digging it out and removing the case? Its starting to rain, do I risk using the phone or packing it up? Looks like the BRCK could just be tossed in my pack with about as much care as I give a pair of socks.

I will say one funny observation after reading HN for years; I sometimes think I'm the only person here who's ever gone camping or stepped off the asphalt. No other hacker stereotype comes as close to universal as this. All that "never kissed a girl" "don't like sports" has some ring of truth however minimal, but none of it is as almost universally true as "never slept on the ground in a forest". I may very well be the only person here to ever have walked on a hiking trail.

I've slept on the ground in the forest / mountains multiple times - often without shelter and often out of choice :)

So there's one data point for you. I don't post that much on HN though..

That said, I do like the look of this and will probably try and get hold of one.

Put your phone in a Ziploc bag and it's water resistant. Add a cheap external 10.000 mAh battery and you'll have lots of battery life. You won't need a large battery, though: the BRCK only lasts for 8 hours, while an LTE iPad can last about 24 hours in hotspot mode.

Sure: and why do I need a fancy iPod when I have this perfectly good casette tape player? Your iPod can hold 10,000 songs? I can put hundreds of cassettes in my backpack. You can recharge your batteries and get 30 hours of battery life? I can carry around a box of double AAs and I never have to recharge them.

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