Case. Must have case. A bare board is not a consumer product. Consider just dipping the thing in Plasti-Dip, without submerging the connector. For a better feel, put the button on the solder side side, and put a thin piece of plastic U-channel sized to fit the board over the component side to give it a flat surface. Then Plasti-Dip. No custom injection molding, and the user can still push the button through the Plasti-Dip.<p>Other than that, great idea. It's how PayPal started.
> <i>I am not actually concerned with financial success or growth. The nice thing about this project is I can just let it sit and I don’t need to maintain anything – leaving me time to move on to the next project.</i><p>You should pursue this product -- you have <i>huge</i> possibilities here.<p>You heard of a company called Security Dynamics? They invented the little token with ever-changing 6-digit numbers that you have to enter to login to your remote office computer. You probably know it today as the RSA SecurID[1]. They created a billion-dollar market and made the founders fabulously rich.<p>I know that there are other U2F products out there, but you can make yours unique, different in some way, or targeted to different market. Or just compete as an alternative to the larger companies making U2F keys (which are not really that large yet anyway).<p>Surely continuing this product is better than the "working in government" job you're seeking.<p>[1] <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/RSA-SecurID-Tokens.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/RSA-Secu...</a>
Looks good. Consider applying a conformal coating at the end. It will provide a lot of protection from general handling and riding around on a keychain, and preserve the 'raw PCB' look.<p>Something like:
<a href="http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/conformal-coatings/acrylic-conformal-coating-419c" rel="nofollow">http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/conformal-coatings/acryl...</a>
This is fantastic, very useful stuff. I literally just finished writing a similar post:<p><a href="https://www.stavros.io/posts/making-gsm-board/" rel="nofollow">https://www.stavros.io/posts/making-gsm-board/</a><p>Conor, can you detail how the assembly is done a bit? I've made a few boards with KiCAD but I have no idea how to go from bare PCB to assembled PCB, especially for such low cost as yours.<p>I went to PCBcart but counting all the items on my board was a hassle, and I got a cost of $38 per board for a run of ten, which sounds too expensive. Besides that, how do you even export the BOM from KiCAD? It doesn't come with a plugin by default.<p>A few details or a post on how to go from PCB design to assembled board would be very useful, at least to me.
At the risk of sounding like a complete schmuck - how do I actually use this?<p>It look like it's a dev board, the kind of thing I'd get on SparkFun or whatever, but I get the impression it's a consumer product. Do I plug it into my computer, and it runs software? Do I press the button, then it blinks out a password via LED at me? Does it connect via bluetooth to.. something? Who writes the local software? You? Google? Me?<p>I love your write-up and I dig your hustle, but I think the final 10% "polish" is the missing piece here! Good luck!
If a coating of plasti-dip is an option check whether it's possible to add glitter to it as tamper-proofing, similar to <a href="https://www.wired.com/2013/12/better-data-security-nail-polish/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wired.com/2013/12/better-data-security-nail-poli...</a>
I am doing something similar but much more powerful and versatile (and more expensive):<p><a href="https://sc4.us/hsm/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://sc4.us/hsm/index.html</a><p>I actually have a new batch of prototypes and I'm just putting the finishing touches on my e-commerce code (I'm using Stripe and Easypost rather than Amazon). The plan is to finish that tonight and start taking orders again on Monday.
<i>I'm by no means an entrepreneur but I'd like to keep trying to be one.</i><p>Your imposter syndrome is showing! Designing and building a tool like this and selling it qualifies you as an entrepreneur.<p>Get a low-cost marketing channel going (or improve your margins to make other marketing options feasible) and see how far you can run with this.<p>Thanks for the interesting read.
Looks like it's basically this: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yubico-Y-123-FIDO-U2F-Security/dp/B00NLKA0D8" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Yubico-Y-123-FIDO-U2F-Security/dp/B00...</a> but $8 instead of $18, open-source, and far more "stylish".<p>Cool.
I started soldering one of these one night (ordered enough parts for 9 of them) and realized that these things are really, REALLY tiny. Even with a magnifying glass, it's hard to even tell where the pins are, but I got about half of it soldered.. looking forward to the other half. :)<p>Huge thank you to Conor for building this whole thing and open sourcing it and even providing links to pre-fab PCB's. Incredible work. Also the PCB's look really cool.<p>I think I'll buy a few to go along with the one I just made.. :)
It seems like the price is too low, if your actual margin is only 25%. As a customer I would also be concerned about how to carry it without damaging it, given that there's no case. Do you have any recommendations?<p>You might also want to add some keywords like "fido usb yubikey" to your product page too.
Very cool, I love how this is an end to end FBA business with (it sounds like) very little upfront cost.<p>Is getting the 2 day shipping a function of just price of the item or something else?<p>I wonder because the most direct competitor<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/HyperFido-K5-FIDO-U2F-Security/dp/B00WIX4JMC" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/HyperFido-K5-FIDO-U2F-Security/dp/B00...</a><p>gets the 2 day shipping and is only a few $'s more.<p>The difference between $8-10 is nothing really, if I was shopping for one of these and saw yours for the same price I would buy it because I <i>like</i> the exposed/no case design (and I think a lot of the "early adopter" people buying these tokens for personal use would be the same). So maybe you should bump the price up a bit.
Really great writeup man, and for a good cause too. I've done something remarkably similar but solely for myself, and it's great to see someone going one step further.<p>Best of luck, hope you make your money back and get a nice kicker in the end to fund a few late night college parties.
How hot does this get? If I just put this in a putty-epoxy will I "cook" it?<p>Edit: Can I also use this as 2FA for SSH/Desktop login on my Arch install? I've never done 2FA but I've always wanted to.
Could use a comparison to e.g. a yubikey [0]. At this price, I can afford to just order one and see what happens, but still it would be nice to know what features I'm sacrificing for the cheaper price.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey-hardware/yubikey4/" rel="nofollow">https://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey-hardware/yubikey4/</a>
I love this. Great article/read/product.<p>One thing to note, on your site <a href="https://u2fzero.com/" rel="nofollow">https://u2fzero.com/</a> there's around 50 line break tags at the bottom. Shows an entire screen of white space for me :|
Love it and want to buy one, can I buy direct from you? (I have a thing against Amazon).<p>Edit: For auth on a phone / small device, could you make a version with a miniusb plug?
I have a question about these tokens - what happens if they break? Are you effectively locked out? Is it possible to have two identical tokens so that if one breaks you can use the other?