The phantom product and our first sample, part 2

Eager to get our hands on our new 2.4ghz camera, we opened the box as soon as we got home. One of my biggest gripes about products that come out of China is how obviously "un-ready" they are for the US market. Don't get me wrong, the hardware appeared to be of good quality. However the packaging and instruction manual were simply not up to snuff. If you had purchased this product in The Home Depot or Lowe's, you would not be happy with this product's initial appearance. Let's use this opportunity to break down the box and packaging to show what we are looking out for and what you should too, unless of course the factory allows you to submit your own packaging.

First, the outside of the box:

Front


It's clear this box is very generic and that this factory uses this same box for any number of cameras. If you're buying this product in bulk to use for your own company, perhaps in your own warehouses or similar, this may not be an issue. However if you're planning on reselling this camera in your home market, this box isn't going to cut it. It needs to be specific to the product which it contains.

Bottom


The bottom of the box confirms our suspicion. There are checkboxes for all different model numbers, power types, PAL vs NTSC, and receiver type.

Side Specs

What's interesting is that even though this box can hold any number of cameras, the factory managed to pin down exact specs. Do all the possible camera combinations that can go in this box all share the exact same specs? Perhaps. But who knows.

Certifications

With everything going on right now in the news about poor quality products and recalls, we plan to spend more time analyzing product certifications and eventually get into doing our own material quality tests. Again, is it possible all the cameras that can go in this box have all of these certifications? Possibly. But who knows.

Inside

When we opened the box, this is what we were greeted by. It's not terrible but overall it's cheap looking, poor quality packaging.

Directions

And the directions... oh the directions! Please see the example above. Notice the run on, sometimes incomplete and in general incorrect grammar. Could the end user understand what to do? Sure. But is this US market ready? Clearly not.

In summary, our goal to seek out a really cool WIFI camera was a bit of a bust. However, many of the reasons we started this website to begin with is to point out what we already knew.. that the products on the market are typically not US market ready and that it's difficult to seek out quality factories that make quality products and do business at a western standard. We will continue to seek these out and present them to our readers!

In the meantime, please look at the right side of this blog at the quick poll we are running! We are going to the Hong Kong Electronics and Components Show on Oct. 12-15. We're looking forward to visiting the 2500+ vendors there on your behalf and seeking out the best products! So far GPS products are showing the most interest. Place your vote now!