The design and development of Innovv™

If people have knowledge or experience of the Chinese electronics industry, they will know of Huaqiangbei.  It’s one of largest electronics markets in China and the world with10 thousand retail outlets, more than 20 shopping malls and a daily traffic of more than 0.5 million people.

Why is it so large and successful? The only reason is you can find any electronics part and any product there at the low possible price!  Why do they have the lowest possible price? Because of competition.  There are over 0.3 million electronics manufactures within 120km! But the competition is tough, ever tough. When struggling to survive the manufacturers must keep costs down, always using cheaper materials and also making fake and copied products, So not only the “Lowest possible price”, but “Poor quality” and “Counterfeit” are Huaqiangbei’s other reputation. This has a big negative impact on “Made in China”.

On the other side of the coin, Apple , Samsung, Huwei, Sony and many others have most of their products made within this area. And because the advantages of design, development, technology, manufacturing process and supply chain, no other place can compete. 

When we started to design and develop the new camera, I was looking toward these big brands, not the fake products. I stayed in Huaqiangbei over 6 years, worked for US and German companies and was trained in the EU.  I had a business partner in one of my best friends from Japan. I fully understand the two far different business strategies. Huaqiangbei can mean quick money and short product life, but with high design and development of capacity, strict quality management, Apple, Samsung made world’s leading products, I would like to be second one.

“Design wise”, Dashmellow said on the forum something I agree with exactly. Since the product and brand are new, to catch people’s attention and interest it should be different to others. It needs to be “Fresh” and valuable. I dug into in Huaqiangbei to find a product which would might catch my eye and inspire me. I found it, a “Power bank”, with a fresh color and fresh look. In the end we gave up the idea because there were big radii on the corners that required a big PCB size, but I knew now what the new product should be. The next essential element, as Dashmellow mentioned, we got from the Ipod nano. Why not? Fantastic design!

A few years ago I worked with my business partner from Japan and the website developer from UK and we created a world leading B2B website with its logo and I learned how to make design simple. I worked with a passion day and night and the new logo and website were born! People said it is nice and I am proud of that!

The logo, website, product design and the camera development all aim to be up-market and stylish. See it, Touch it, Like it. The reason is very simple, if people see a product and like it, why would they buy a plain one?

Isopop mentioned: in the form of firmware updates, has been disastrous though. I can tell people that I don’t like what had been done before; I am here to bring change and let’s look forward it.

As said before, Innovv™ is still making its first early steps and has a long way to go. Isoprop questioned if the C1 has a chance of success in the long run? I say: Yes! Because of our rich experience, knowledge in video quality and our strength in development that people have seen over years, Plus now the changes in strong brand awareness, a passion for development and support from people in the forums and communities can help bring success. Do you not agree? 

The story behind the development of the 808 #11, #16, #26, Mobius, and Innovv

As a successor to the 808 #16 720p HD keychain camera, the Mobius action camera is a resounding success; everyone is talking about its decent video quality, friendly operation experience and the low price.

Apart from the Mobius, some people know #26, the world’s first 1080p 808 pin hole keychain camera which also has excellent video quality. #26 is the successor of 808 #18 keychain camera.

If you are a member of RC group or visited Chucklohr, you would know both 808 #16 & #18 are successors of 808 #11.

What is the story of the 11# and the key chain cam?

Below is the story.

Thanks go to Charles Lohr, Sep 24, 2009, Starting from #1, He first numbered the series of keychain cameras he received and reviewed. 808 was named because it is lucky number for Chinese. Below is a quote from Charles,

The 808 is a small color video camera with audio that also takes photos.  I received and reviewed my first 808 car keys micro camera (version #1) in September 2009. I received email from many other 808 owners, thank you, who described how the electronics and functions of their 808 were different than mine.  I started enumerating and documenting the many versions and this website grew. The video quality varies from poor to excellent. 

With the reviews from Charles and comments like that below from users, 808 Keychain camera got big sales in the market. The eBay sellers in China brought the KeyChain cameras from the nameless manufacturers and sold thousands on the eBay stores in low possible price, and gained many quality complaints in return.

Wow.  It is so small, light weight, cheap and functional that it has been enthusiastically adopted by the model RC (radio controlled) airplane and helicopter community.  In spite of a few serious flaws in some versions of this camera (like poor reliability, poor image quality, poor audio quality, and a minimal human interface), this technology is amazing, and most people gladly put up with the quirks.

Being different from others ignoring the quality complaints, three guys hated the poor quality products," why not we make keychain cameras by ourselves, so we can control the quality?” They had rich knowledge in camera industry. From that, after Charles’s review, #11 was born.

Due to good quality control, #11 was soon be one of the best keychain cameras in Charles’ list, but the team of #11 got problem, the guy in charge of sales decided to leave the company and built own company with others, #16 was born accordingly. The two remaining guys from the team of #11 developed new #18.

One team became two, team of #16 and #18, which face intense competition with each other. Good at English and listen to people, the team of #16 soon got support from people in the forums, like Tom Frank, and others, #16 got to be more hot in the forums even if it had not technical support advantage at beginning. With more lens options, and friendly GUI setting tool, #16 was selling more than #18.

The competition gets to be hard by the technical development, #18 team developed DR32 by working with a Taiwan company, it has a great design with excellent 1080p video quality. Techmoan made a great review on it, and people introduced it to the different forums, the product became successful, but some of users found issues, so complained, the sales did not go to what were expected.

#18 team did not stop, based on the technical advantage on DR32, soon developed the world’s first 1080p keychain camera with the aluminum shell. As usual, #26 is a good product, has very excellent video quality, but un-friendly GUI setting which people are not satisfied.

#16 team worked on their own side, after a long time expectation, Mobius was introduced, we do not know how the name came, but the camera became hot soon by supporting from RC group and its video quality, friendly using experience and low price, which is a heavy hit on #26.

What is next?

Mobius could not be alone! It will enjoy challenge from the newcomer. With the support from #18 team, Innovv (http://www.innovv.com/) was born! Innovv C1 has excellent day and night video quality, movie auto flip, parking mode (G-sensor) and most important It's truly stylish and user friendly.

The big difference is what we learn from past and present experience. We are passionate about one thing, how to bring the value to our brand and product. By listening to end customer suggestion and needs, Our goal is -happy customer. From the logo design, product design, website design, packing design, Innovv achieves to be Stylish and Upscale- See it, Touch it, Like it!

 

All of our product design is because of competition. First we have #11 because of #1, #16 competed with #18, now Innovv C1 is competing with Mobius who win #26.

Because of competition, people now have more choices. If low price is the most important, Mobius may be better, if you like the product to be Stylish and Upscale with superior video quality- Innovv C1 is the best. We are happy to see people have both of them.

The essence of life is struggle and competition, Struggle and competition are stimulating. – Rockefeller.

Ultimately, People like Tom Frank and others who have been involved or participated in this story may read this blog and we will be pleased to listen from their point of view and suggestions. Why not?

Visit About page on website, you can see Who we are.