Believe it or not, in India the term “I-pod” has taken a common name for an MP3 player.

In the common market, if someone asks you “Which i-pod do you have?”.

If you say you have a nano, shuffle, touch… he would be confused! But if you say that you have an Apple, Sony or a Philips i-pod he understands!

I wonder how this happened. How did the word ‘I-pod’ takeover the name for an Mp3 Player? Is it because Apple did not spread the awareness very well in India and the buzz spread through word of mouth? I wonder if the following could have happened:

Person A: What is an i-pod?

Person B: It is something that can play music!

Now when Person A sees an MP3 player he thinks it is an i-pod!

Not sure if this is a boon or a bane for Apple! Yes, the word “i-pod” is now widely used, but not sure if that is translating to sales for them.

Anyways we are keeping a short name for our product. The hardware device will be called “TECI”, short form for Track Every CoIn. So that it is easy to refer it – “Do you have a TECI?”

We were in Kerala last week, putting up posters, talking to umpteen people and showing a demo of Track Every Coin! Yes .. we were at the 97th Indian Science Congress for 5 days at Thiruvananthapuram and we had a cozy little stall for Ionlab.

The Indian Science Congress is the largest national science event in India with thousands of delegates participating, exploring, understanding and interacting on the matters of science. It was one platform where innovators across India came together to exhibit technology and innovations. We were overwhelmed for having been invited to participate and set up a stall at an event of such magnitude.

The ISC was inaugurated by the Prime Minister of India followed by the inauguration of the Children’s Science Congress by Dr Abdul Kalam. The Govt of India’s department for Scientific & Industrial Research (DSIR) sponsored stalls at the exhibition to encourage Entrepreneurs through their TEPP initiative.

It was a great learning and a product validation opportunity for us at Ionlab. We showed demos of the product and its features to people from various walks of life – students, IT professionals, home makers, small-medium businessmen to academicians. Everyone loved it! The beauty of TECI really lies in the simplicity and versatility of what it offers to each and every person. We identified that there is a clear demarcation of segments who find the mobile application more useful than the hardware device and vice versa.

We sold a few of our first product The ION – USB Charger as well.

The overwhelming response is a big confidence boost and we are working fiercely towards putting the bits together and bringing Track Every Coin to you soon!

Click here for more photos of the event.

News about 97th Indian Science Congress:

http://sify.com/news/2-000-papers-presented-at-97th-Indian-Science-Congress-news-National-kbhuEgjieha.html

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/sci-tech/all-set-for-the-97th-indian-science-congress-in-kerala_100297628.html

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100104/jsp/frontpage/story_11939850.jsp

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/editorial/The-ills-of-Indian-science/articleshow/5411082.cms

We have completed the manufacturing of our PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards). We are working with our partner Micron EMS, who are into Electronic Manufacturing Services. The process of putting the components together is fascinating. We thought we will show you the process.

Here is a small video showing how the components are placed together…

All components are surface mounted and some of them are as small as 1.00 mm by 0.5 mm. The robot picks up the components and places them at the right place and it does it with great precision.

After all the components are placed they are soldered using a wave soldering machine. Here are the PCBs placed after soldering.

After soldering of the components these PCBs will be tested and assembled.

Hope you enjoyed watching the video. We thought it was quite cool.

I believe that building a product is like building your dream home. You take atmost care in laying out the essentials, chalking out the must-haves, drawing the blue print of the architecture, bricking the house to designing the interiors that makes a cozy home.

Similarly, at IONLAB, we have made sure Track Every Coin is on par with any internationally acclaimed consumer electronic goods and has features that cater to the needs of all of us. Despite the delays and little setbacks we have now been able to put two and two together. We present you the final prototype of our much anticipated hardware device – Track Every Coin, nicknamed TECI

With the holiday season kicking in, this is normally the time you get to spend some time with your family reflecting on the good moments of 2009. We decided to retrospect and bring to you the highlights at Ionlab and the making of TrackEveryCoin, a project we have put our hearts and souls into.

January 2009: Prototype breadboards were converted to PCB designs

February 2009: Researched and begun sourcing components from various suppliers (LCD, Micro-controller, USB etc) from Singapore, China and India

March 2009: Changed LCD module to work at low voltage, Started talks with manufacturers, CAD designing, and completed Low level drivers for the hardware.

April 2009: New hardware version released (low power micro controller), Ported low level drivers for the new micro controller, Started design work on website.

May 2009: Sourcing of hardware components, Hardware design frozen for CAD designs, Trackeverycoin pre-launch website, www.ionlab.in website launched.

June 2009: Local source for LCD modules found, Identified manufacturing service, Base design for mobile application.

July 2009: PCB design for production complete, Placed production order for microcontroller and other components.

August 2009: Application software testing on production hardware, base version of CAD design ready. Website architecture design in place.

September 2009: PCB fabrication complete, received the first plastic prototype, testing different versions of mobile application.

October 2009: Identified packaging people, button sticker people, Microcontroller and other components arrives, second and third prototype of plastics arrives, Front end UI of website frozen, Mobile navigation simplified.

Noverber 2009: Application software bug fixes, Manufacturing plant software released, Desktop software (used to upload hardware data to website) is complete (testing in progress). Completed user manual for hardware.

December 2009: Integration of website backend and frontend started, Received the final prototype (shown above), we are tooling ready, Mobile application testing in progress, Desktop software released.

Next couple of milestones:

• Production of hardware
• Tooling of device and production
• Packaging
• Mobile application launch
• Alpha/beta testing of website
• Launch of hardware

Much appreciate your comments and feedback! A fantastic 2010 to all of you. Thank you for following our blog and cheering us thru 2009.

There has been series of delays in our product release, we thought it would be a good idea to let everyone know what is happening and how our journey has been so far. We are really close to the finish.

When we first believed in the Track Every Coin idea, we started prototyping it.

We bought some ready-made, off the shelf LCD displays. These displays were just numeric displays, so one had to select the category from the list given. Never the less we were able to enter the expenditure and categorize it too. The system would talk to a computer through USB and transfer all the data successfully. And yes… the product was HUGE!

After this we decided to work on the LCD part a little more.

We got rid of the numeric display and got an LCD which can display numbers and text at the same time. This gave us options for many more features like someone owes you, you share a trip with a friend, track reimbursements, etc.

After this we further worked on the size of the PCB and finally reached a small size of the PCB.

We got our first plastic prototyped and now working on reducing the form factor and making it smaller and sleeker. After that we have to think of some colors and some cool graphics on it.

Here is the rough size of the device with two buttons on top. The final size will go down further.

The experience has been great so far and all of us are really excited to bring this product our. We are hoping the product will help everyone to get financially organized and “Track Every Coin“.

VisualEconomics.com has put up this great visualization on the breakup of expenditure by people in USA:

How does your expenditure breakup look like?