WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker
-
Let’s imagine we are a startup company. A Silicon Valley Startup company, of course. Yes, we: because we at The Daily WTF are real professionals with regard to modern technology and what the f.
As a startup company, we need to have some product idea. Um, actually, do we really need that? Anyway, I’ve already decided for that:
A vacuum cleaner. Not a roomba or such thing. Much more conventional, but with all the enhancements of greatest technology, in Silicon Valley style. Think of the juice dispenser from tetrapacks, or the tea brewer, or … You get it! A conventional product with useless internet enabled enhancements.
“Vacuum cleaner” is too much a standard wording. I prefer “Dust Sucker”. That’s the literal translation of German “Staubsauger”. It won’t take long, and everybody will say “Dust Sucker” when they talk about vacuum cleaners – our brand name will replace the previous vernacular expression.
Because Dust Sucker already tells what the thing is expected to do: to suck dust. Everyone understands that. But to clean a vacuum? What’s that? Oh no. Everybody understands that a Dust Sucker will suck dust. Or, if it does not suck dust, it will at least suck.
Now let’s collect more details for our company. We want our customers’ best: their money. And we will provide them with an Exceptional Sucking Experience.
Customer shall approach us calling out loudly: take my money!
-
Starting the Dust Sucker
As with conventional vacuum cleaners, you plug the mains cable into some wall socket, and press the start button. But now the magic begins. It does not start sucking immediately. Of course, there is a boot process.
On its large rounded display, some icons are shown with the basic message: “Dust Sucker is preparing for your sucking experience. Please be patient.” Dust Sucker connects to the local WiFi, and from there to its license server. Such a high-tech product must check its licenses at start-up, of course!
If the license servers cannot be reached (for whatever reason, e.g. they may be down for maintenance), Dust Sucker won’t suck dust. It will just suck. If the licenses are expired, Dust Sucker will automatically purchase a license renewal, if you have set it up. If you have not, it will purchase it anyway, because we want money.
The next important step is updates. Any silicon valley product needs updates. E.g. new icons. But also the new Sucking Message of the Day, which will be displayed last during the suck-up äh start-up process.
-
@BernieTheBernie It needs a display that graphs properties of the density of dust motes in the intake and exhaust airstreams. Customers will love the ability to tell exactly how much dust is being removed during cleaning, allowing them to precisely optimize their dust sucking experience!
-
@dkf
Only if we make long term graphs and comparison charts a premium package ... I mean we can include them the first year or so but then yank them behind a paywall later on ...
-
@Luhmann said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
@dkf
Only if we make long term graphs and comparison charts a premium package ... I mean we can include them the first year or so but then yank them behind a paywall later on ...I propose a freemium model. Users can earn SuckCoins at a glacial rate, or purchase SuckGems that can unlock minutes of graphs access, after they watch a few ads of course.
-
@error said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
SuckCoins
I think we need to involve the blockchain here.
-
@BernieTheBernie said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
Starting the Dust Sucker
As with conventional vacuum cleaners, you plug the mains cable into some wall socket, and press the start button. But now the magic begins. It does not start sucking immediately. Of course, there is a boot process.
On its large rounded display, some icons are shown with the basic message: “Dust Sucker is preparing for your sucking experience. Please be patient.” Dust Sucker connects to the local WiFi, and from there to its license server. Such a high-tech product must check its licenses at start-up, of course!
If the license servers cannot be reached (for whatever reason, e.g. they may be down for maintenance), Dust Sucker won’t suck dust. It will just suck. If the licenses are expired, Dust Sucker will automatically purchase a license renewal, if you have set it up. If you have not, it will purchase it anyway, because we want money.
The next important step is updates. Any silicon valley product needs updates. E.g. new icons. But also the new Sucking Message of the Day, which will be displayed last during the suck-up äh start-up process.
Consideration should be taken towards when to pop up customer satisfaction forms.
At least the following:
- right before sucking begins;
- before showing the soft button that lets you turn off the equipment;
- whenever a round percentage of the dust container becomes filled;
- when the dust container is emptied;
- whenever certain number of customer satisfaction forms have been displayed.
-
@BernieTheBernie said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
everybody will say “Dust Sucker” when they talk about vacuum cleaners – our brand name will replace the previous vernacular expression.
if there's one thing I learnt from my company mandatory IP training, it's that this is a Bad Idea. If "Dust Sucker" becomes a vernacular expression, it means every competitor can use that name and we've lost our brand identity.My IP training was saying that brand names should as much as possible only used as adjective, not as nouns, to try and avoid that. For example if you're Google, you should insist that people say "a Google search" rather than "googling."
-
You're thinking way too traditional with your dust sucker. After all, the dust still has to go somewhere. Surely nobody likes having to swap the dust reservoir of their traditional vacuum.
What the world needs is a dust blower.
-
So is the Dust Sucker bagless? I'm assuming it is, but it needs something that requires QR codes to validate across the Internet...maybe the filters??
Perhaps, make it so it detects if you have cleaned the filters and reject using them...making it so you can only buy new filters and even then it will tell you need new ones even though there is about 15% more usage out of them...like ink cartridges.
-
@CodeJunkie said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
So is the Dust Sucker bagless? I'm assuming it is, but it needs something that requires QR codes to validate across the Internet...maybe the filters??
Perhaps, make it so it detects if you have cleaned the filters and reject using them...making it so you can only buy new filters and even then it will tell you need new ones even though there is about 15% more usage out of them...like ink cartridges.
Of course it can also auto re-order new filters for you!
-
@CodeJunkie said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
So is the Dust Sucker bagless?
When you disconnect the Dust Receptacle(r), it plugs directly into the Dust Repository(r) which removes the dust into bags especially designed to contain the extracted dust. Until plugged into the Dust Repository, the Dust Receptacle remains completely sealed so you are safe from the extracted dust.
Why yes, the Dust Receptacle is ordered separately. The bags? Surprisingly reasonably priced. :)
-
@dkf Include data from pollen count monitoring sites to suggest when sucking may be needed more often. What? No-one in your household has pollen allergies? Don't you ever get visitors?
-
@Bim-Zively said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
@CodeJunkie said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
So is the Dust Sucker bagless?
When you disconnect the Dust Receptacle(r), it plugs directly into the Dust Repository(r) which removes the dust into bags especially designed to contain the extracted dust. Until plugged into the Dust Repository, the Dust Receptacle remains completely sealed so you are safe from the extracted dust.
Why yes, the Dust Receptacle is ordered separately. The bags? Surprisingly reasonably priced. :)
Great, great. So the bags for the repository can be QR coded so that only officially licensed bags can be used.
-
@CodeJunkie Dust Sucker™ will not be held liable for damage to Dust Sucker® caused by unlicensed third-party modifictions.
-
@PleegWat said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
What the world needs is a dust blower.
The landscape maintenance industry has you covered there. That creates a bonus product line, earplugs (with a fancy brand name, of course), because loud.
-
@HardwareGeek said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
@PleegWat said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
What the world needs is a dust blower.
The landscape maintenance industry has you covered there. That creates a bonus product line, earplugs (with a fancy brand name, of course), because loud.
Dr. Dre ear plugs.
-
@CodeJunkie said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
So is the Dust Sucker bagless? I'm assuming it is, but it needs something that requires QR codes to validate across the Internet...maybe the filters??
Perhaps, make it so it detects if you have cleaned the filters and reject using them...making it so you can only buy new filters and even then it will tell you need new ones even though there is about 15% more usage out of them...like ink cartridges.
They should also have an expiration date. That extra Dust Sucker® Bag® you had sitting around can't possibly be good after a couple months.
-
Technical Compatibility Notice Please be aware that unscrupulous third-party companies are trying to sell you defective consumables for your Dust Sucker® brand cleanliness device. While they have lower prices, they do not maintain the rigorous* quality testing that genuine Dust Sucker® brand consumables are certified† to have gone through. They will not work properly, and also may damage your Dust Sucker® brand cleanliness device. Only use brand new, sealed and unexpired Dust Sucker® brand consumables with your Dust Sucker® brand cleanliness device. * Rigorousness as determined by the Council of People We Paid Off. No implication of fitness for any particular purpose, let alone the purpose you think they have.
† Certification by Council of People We Paid Off. No auditing was performed as part of the certification. Certification facility or process may or may not exist.Technical Compatibility Notice As part of firmware updates for your Dust Sucker® brand cleanliness device, to help serve you better, we're ensuring you may not have accidentally used non-genuine consumables. Devices that detect non-genuine consumable usage, either current or historical, will cease to function until serviced by an authorized Dust Sucker® service center. Please be aware that non-genuine consumable usage may damage your Dust Sucker® brand cleanliness device and, as determined solely by us, voids any warranty on such device. Firmware updates are mandatory for using the device and automatically install without confirmation. We hope you continue to use genuine Dust Sucker® products into the future. Discontinuation Notice As part of a periodic reassessment of how to best bilkserve our customers, we regretfully announce the discontinuation of consumables for this Dust Sucker® brand cleanliness device. We will continue to support this device for the remainder of its lifetime according to our product support lifecycle policy available
. This support includes sales of refurbished and new units, but does not include technical assistance. As a reminder, use of used, expired, or non-genuine Dust Sucker® consumables voids the warranty on your device and may damage it or render it inoperable. We hope you continue your Dust Sucker® journey with the purchase of a new, updated Dust Sucker® cleanliness device in the near future.
-
@Zecc said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
whenever a
roundrandom percentage of the dust container becomes filled;
-
@Luhmann “
0” is a very round number in the correct font.
-
@BernieTheBernie What makes this feel weird to me is that in France it's already called a sucker (word is aspirateur).
-
Dust Sucker International
The world has many langauges and many traditions.
We may expect Indians and Malays to shorten Dust Sucker to its initials: DS. That's what they use to do, anyway.
But we encourage French to do so, too. Because DS is pronounced like "déesse" - and that means "goddess". Yes, Dust Sucker is a goddess, and we congratulate the French to express it such directly.
On the other side, there are some countries with extremely weird langauges requiring tons of diacritics. Their adjustments may just seem odd to any normal people: "Dąšť Sakkarz" for example: oh no!
-
@BernieTheBernie said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
But we encourage French to do so, too. Because DS is pronounced like "déesse" - and that means "goddess".
In the Real World
, this is actually part of why the classic Citroen DS car got its name.
-
-
-
@BernieTheBernie what? a mains cable? that's so 2000s! our dust sucker will have a built-in, non-swappable battery, and a wireless, contactless charging station! the battery capacity will be approx 1 hour of function per full charge, and in will take 3-4 hours to charge fully!
-
@BernieTheBernie said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
On its large rounded display, some icons are shown with the basic message: “Dust Sucker is preparing for your sucking experience. Please be patient.”
i propose the message to be more along the lines of: Your/this sucker is preparing to suck.
-
@BernieTheBernie said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
If the license servers cannot be reached (for whatever reason, e.g. they may be down for maintenance), Dust Sucker won’t suck dust. It will just suck.
no, in that case, it should dump the contents of its dust compartment onto the floor
-
@Luhmann said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
@dkf
Only if we make long term graphs and comparison charts a premium package ... I mean we can include them the first year or so but then yank them behind a paywall later on ...of course we always collect the data, from everyone, but we only display them to the user if they have the premium package.
oh, and the stats are never stored locally, they are always streamed in real time to our servers, and when premium customers want to view them, we stream the data from our servers back to the ram of the sucker
-
@HardwareGeek ear plugs are so 2000s too, what we need are single-purpose earbuds with active noise cancelling!
naturally, the earbuds must be bluetooth-paired with the sucker, to recieve the data used to generate the active noise cancelling wave.
-
@sh_code said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
to recieve the data used to generate the active noise cancelling wave
you mean we play our commercial messages (and those of our 'selected' partners) to drown out the sucker's noise?
-
@Luhmann said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
@sh_code said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
to recieve the data used to generate the active noise cancelling wave
you mean we play our commercial messages (and those of our 'selected' partners) to drown out the sucker's noise?
no, that's not what i meant. thanks for correcting my oversight and improving the product!
-
also, we forgot a critical function:
dust sucker has a GPS locator, and based on it, it detects the local laws about disturbing night peace and refuses to suck dust during the night hours. it will still go through its boot and update process, of course, but the moment you try to actually turn the sucking on, it will display:
"Your neighbors wouldn't be happy about that :("
That's all. To learn what the heck is actually going on, you'll have to look the message up on our support forums, where it will be explained.
Of course, it doesn't care, and has no way to find out whether you actually have neighbors. It just always assumes you do.
-
@sh_code said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
"Your neighbors wouldn't be happy about that :("
"I can't let you do that, Dave"
-
@Luhmann said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
@sh_code said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
"Your neighbors wouldn't be happy about that :("
"I can't let you do that, Dave"
"My God, it's full of dust!"
-
@remi On the other hand, a French version like "dast sa coeur" isn't such bad either.
-
@sh_code said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
@BernieTheBernie said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
If the license servers cannot be reached (for whatever reason, e.g. they may be down for maintenance), Dust Sucker won’t suck dust. It will just suck.
no, in that case, it should dump the contents of its dust compartment onto the floor
That sucks even more.
-
@BernieTheBernie
It's just an opportunity for the Sucker Dumper Clean Up Utility.I made quick product demo ... I'm thinking something along the lines of ...
-
@sh_code said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
@BernieTheBernie what? a mains cable? that's so 2000s! our dust sucker will have a built-in, non-swappable battery, and a wireless, contactless charging station! the battery capacity will be approx 1 hour of function per full charge, and in will take 3-4 hours to charge fully!
You want to put in a multi-kWh battery? Are you completely nuts?
5 min of function. Tops.
-
@Luhmann said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
@sh_code said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
to recieve the data used to generate the active noise cancelling wave
you mean we play our commercial messages (and those of our 'selected' partners) to drown out the sucker's noise?
Subliminally, of course.
-
@remi said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
if there's one thing I learnt from my company mandatory IP training, it's that this is a Bad Idea. If "Dust Sucker" becomes a vernacular expression, it means every competitor can use that name and we've lost our brand identity.
My IP training was saying that brand names should as much as possible only used as adjective, not as nouns, to try and avoid that. For example if you're Google, you should insist that people say "a Google search" rather than "googling."I don't think anyone is allowed to call their Dust Sucker a "Hoover" in marketing even though it's pretty much synonymous, both as a verb and a noun. Or a "Tempo" for a tissue paper in German—everybody says "got a tempo?" but only one company may use the name.
DustSuckr™. Problem solved.
-
@sh_code said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
@BernieTheBernie what? a mains cable? that's so 2000s! our dust sucker will have a built-in, non-swappable battery, and a wireless, contactless charging station! the battery capacity will be approx 1 hour of function per full charge, and in will take 3-4 hours to charge fully!
Premium charging is available as a subscription-only extra.
-
@PleegWat said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
@sh_code said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
@BernieTheBernie what? a mains cable? that's so 2000s! our dust sucker will have a built-in, non-swappable battery, and a wireless, contactless charging station! the battery capacity will be approx 1 hour of function per full charge, and in will take 3-4 hours to charge fully!
You want to put in a multi-kWh battery? Are you completely nuts?
5 min of function. Tops. would that suffice for the start-up process?
-
@BernieTheBernie Well, 5 minutes for the main motor. Usage by the electronics should be relatively insignificant.
-
@LaoC said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
I don't think anyone is allowed to call their Dust Sucker a "Hoover" in marketing even though it's pretty much synonymous, both as a verb and a noun. Or a "Tempo" for a tissue paper in German—everybody says "got a tempo?" but only one company may use the name.
I don't know for "Hoover" but see the wiki page about it, there are cases where the brand name (aspirin is the most obvious) is actually used by other products (not just in common speech). So it's not a totally imaginary problem. When it happens you don't even notice it, because of how common the name has become!
(the page also has nice examples of companies try to avoid that happening by saying e.g. "band-aid brand" or "Lego bricks" rather than "band-aid" or "Lego")
Overall I wouldn't worry too much about this. If we get to this generic trademark stage, it means we've already sold the brand to a
suckerinvestor for a couple of billions and at that point, who cares?Still, it's a nice thing to
.
-
@PleegWat You're clearly going to need multiple charging points so that there is always one in reach of the Dust Sucker. Purchased separately because obviously we don't know how many rooms you have — though once we have the charging point network installed we will.
-
@remi said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
@LaoC said in WTF (What-the-Fun) Project: Dust Sucker:
I don't think anyone is allowed to call their Dust Sucker a "Hoover" in marketing even though it's pretty much synonymous, both as a verb and a noun. Or a "Tempo" for a tissue paper in German—everybody says "got a tempo?" but only one company may use the name.
I don't know for "Hoover" but see the wiki page about it, there are cases where the brand name (aspirin is the most obvious) is actually used by other products (not just in common speech). So it's not a totally imaginary problem. When it happens you don't even notice it, because of how common the name has become!
(the page also has nice examples of companies try to avoid that happening by saying e.g. "band-aid brand" or "Lego bricks" rather than "band-aid" or "Lego")
Overall I wouldn't worry too much about this. If we get to this generic trademark stage, it means we've already sold the brand to a
suckerinvestor for a couple of billions and at that point, who cares?Still, it's a nice thing to
.Interesting. I've seen some "Aspirin" from India but had always thought Bayer let it happen because they didn't expect to be able to have it prosecuted successfully in some jurisdictions.
-
@LaoC To be honest I imagine that this is not really a common problem, in real life. The "aspirin" example is always quoted, but it's almost the only one where it really fully happened (to the point of competitors, not just the public, using that name generically).
You need your product and brand to be so well recognised that not only the brand name has become common speech, but also that another company takes the risk of using it! This means you're in such a dominant position in your market that everyone compares themselves to you. Of course this kind of domination can go away pretty fast, I remember how "a blackberry" was starting to get used generically for what we now call "a smartphone" (IIRC the word "smartphone" wasn't widely used, or used at all, at that time), and see where Blackberry has gone. But still, when that happens, it's probably a good marker of success more than a problem. You know, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness."
I think that, realistically, companies are more concerned about a cheap knock-off intentionally trying to mislead the public and profit from your brand name, but who might try and use the "generic" defence if you go after them. In other words, it's not about avoiding your brand becoming ubiquitous (which is a good thing!) but about not giving weapons to crooks who wants to steal it from you.
-
I remember Adobe really hates photoshopping...
ing:
