Cool Gadget: iPhone Video Projector

I have written a lot of posts about how smartphones are becoming an ever-increasing part of our lives, and how the proliferation of smartphones has led to an increase in electronic waste.  I thought it was only fair to throw in a post about how technology convergence can also reduce the amount of electronic waste we generate.

From an ewaste standpoint, smartphones are great in many ways.  An iPhone or a Droid basically combines a cell phone, digital camera, camcorder, mp3 player, and gaming device into one gadget.  Granted, most consumers still buy these items in addition to their phone, but one can imagine a world where this is no l onger the case.  If this ever occurs, there should be a noticeably positive impact on ewaste.

In the future, phones may take on other, even larger roles.  For example, check out this awesome gadget I discovered earlier today.  Now you can turn your iPhone into a big screeen TV too, courtesy of this iPhone Video Projector by Hammacher Schlemmer.  The company claims that you can use the device to project up to 110 inches from your iPhone.

I haven’t been able to test the quality of this device, but imagine a future where your home theater fits into the palm of your hand.  Thats just plain cool.

Smartphones Overtake PCs in Sales

This week, blogs all around the tech community were buzzing about new research released by IDC indicating that in Q4 of 2010, smartphones outsold PCs for the first time ever.  During the three month period, 100.9 million units were sold globally- a year over year increase of 87%!  This compares to global PC sales of 92.1 million.  I suppose that these figures are not so surprising when you consider how central to our lives smartphones have become.

These numbers are pretty consistent with some analysis that we did six months ago.  Our analysis looks at all cell phones, not just smart phones, and it is primarily concerned with where these gadgets end up at the end of their life.  The following chart models out future volumes of end-of-life cell phones in the US.  We arrived at these numbers by estimating future sales and then assuming that the average user disposes of his/her phone after two years.

Our numbers indicate that in 2011 alone, 220 million cell phones will reach the end of their first lives in the US!  55 million of these will end up in people’s drawers, while a much larger number will end up in landfills.  While these numbers seem astounding, they are corroborated by the recent IDC study.  Cell phone proliferation is speeding up, not slowing down, and there is no end in sight.

This presents a problem as well as an opportunity.  As long as we as consumers are smart enough to sell our old cell phones for cash or recycle them, we can prolong the life of these products and reintroduce them into the supply chain.  At EcoSquid, we are dedicated to being part of this solution.

Look Retro with your iPhone

A while back we did a post called “A Trip Down Cell Phone Memory Lane” which tracked the evolution of the modern cell phone from the brick phone, to the Motorola StarTac, to the flip phone, to the most current and cutting edge Droids and iPhones.  I think that we can all agree that phones have evolved from clunky and utilitarian to sleek, sexy, and powerful.

However, there is still something awesome and ironic about carrying around an oversized 80s handset.  Today I came across a solution that enables the fusion of today’s technology with the retroness of the 80s brick phone.  Take a look at this new variety of iPhone case designed by Thumbs Up.  Picture posted below.

Imagine whipping that bad boy out during a business meeting.  It certainly worked for Gordon Gecko.

It’s Not the Quote that Matters…

EcoSquid has now been around for nearly six months.  Due to our unique position as an aggregator of gadget buyers, we have had an inside look into the industry.  We have data that no one else has.  We can see how the resale prices for certain smartphones have been shifting over time, we can see which buyers are quoting the highest prices for different types of phones, and we can see which cell phones users are selling the most.  While all of this information is interesting, the most critical function of our data has been to shed light on one, sad fact: Not all buyers pay what they say they will.

Shocking, I know.  But true.  If you search the blogosphere for reviews of the various “sell your cell for cash” websites that are out there, you will inevitably find horror stories about websites that pulled the “bait and switch”- offering one price but paying out the other.  We are sad to report that we too, have seen this behavior.

However- and here is the important thing- none of these scammy websites are on EcoSquid, and nor will they ever be.  We take several precautions to keep it this way. First, we only accept partners with great Better Business Bureau track records. Secondly, we monitor our partners to make sure that they do not attempt to scam our users.  Lastly, our users help us identify fraudulent buyers by leaving scathing reviews of them on our site.

All of this being said, there will certainly be instances where our partners have a legitimate claim to modify the prices of the items that our users send in.  This cannot be helped, as many users have the tendency to slightly over-represent the condition of their phone or other gadget.  However, if we see that one of our partners is systematically changing prices, we pledge to banish them from our site forevermore.

The ReCommerce industry is still new, and we at EcoSquid support it passionately.  However, we acknowledge that there is a deep need for quality control and standards- this is where we hope to help out.

Droids are Challenging iPhones on EcoSquid!

Droid’s are fast climbing the list of cell phones that are sold the most, and for the most, on EcoSquid.  We added a number of Droids a couple of months ago to our product list and users have quickly taken advantage. During the first couple of months after our launch, iphones and blackberry’s dominated the list of the hottest selling phones, but Droids are now coming to steal their lunch.  It’s funny how the reverse part of the supply chain (the part where you sell your cell phone) mirrors the forward part (where you buy it).

Take a look at the list of top selling phones on EcoSquid from December:

Now try January:

Notice anything different?  You should.  The Motorola Droid was no where on the list in December but so far in January it is the third highest selling phone.  I guess this is not surprising considering that the average user scored $136 for his used Motorola Droid.  The only phone on the list that fetched more cash was the iphone 3gs 32gb, which commanded $181.

This EcoSquid data confirms to things:

1) Droids are catching up to iPhones.  The Motorala Droid was one of the first phones to see success against the iPhone, but now the competition is fierce with Samsung, HTC, and just about every other manufacturer coming out with numerous droid models.

AND

2) People are upgrading faster than ever.  With all the hot new phones like the HTC Evo 4g and the Samsung Epic 4g that are coming out, users are trying to cash in their old droids to upgrade to the newest models.

With all the incredible technology that is coming out, we don’t blame anyone for wanting to upgrade.  We just ask that you do the world and your walled a favor: Sell Your Cell!

EcoSquid at the Consumer Electronics Show

Last week EcoSquid went out to the Consumer Electronics Show, not only because we wanted to go to Vegas, but also because we wanted to see which new electronics we would be helping users recycle and resell over the next year.  While everyone was touting the latest and greatest gadgets (and there were many of them), we were pondering one very important point: what are consumer going to do with all of those old cell phones, tablets, and laptops after they are done with them?

One point was clear at the show this year- gadgets are becoming smaller, lighter, and more portable.  You can’t even count the number of new smartphones, tablets, tablet/laptop hybrids, and macbook air-like PCs that are being released.  This is great news, not only because these gadgets are extremely cool, but also because they are vere easy to mail in when you are done with them.  Furthermore, these items turn over quickly and you can score a lot of cash from them even after a year or two.  One of EcoSquid’s new year’s resolutions is to not only allow you to find the best cash offers for cell phones, but to extend this functionality to tablets, netbooks, and other gadgets.

To spread the word about our determination to provide this service, we attended PEPCOM’s Digital Experience press event at CES to spread the word.  It was a funny experience.  While everyone else was touting the latest and greatest gadgets, we piled our station with old Motorola Startac and brick phones (think Zack Morris).

 

Needless to say, the stark contrast between our booths and the others created a lot of attention and acted as a virtual venus fly trap to reporters (well, we eventually let them go).  We managed to spread the word about EcoSquid and the importance of selling and recycling old cell phones to dozens of reporters, who will hopefully go back home and tell their readers about us.

We hope that 2011 will be the year that this country solves the electronic waste problem, and EcoSquid wants to be a big part of it!

EcoSquid Data a Testament to Apple’s iPod Dominance

It has been a couple of months since EcoSquid enabled its users to sell their old mp3 players on its platform. While cell phones continue to encompass the vast majority of gadgets sold on EcoSquid, enough users have cashed in their old mp3 players for us to arrive at some conclusions from our data. The results are anything but surprising, but still worth discussing.

The overwhelming conclusion is that Apple has a stranglehold on the mp3 player market. Earlier this year, NPD group released a statistic stating that Apple had a 76% share of this market.  We thought we would take a look at EcoSquid data for some corroborating evidence.  Over the last couple of months, EcoSquid users have selected cash offers for 142 mp3 players.  As you can see on the following chart, taken from the EcoSquid Leaderboard page, 113 of these are from Apple.

In percentage terms, this amounts to 79.5%, slightly higher than the numbers released by NPD.  Looking at these numbers, I wondered whether a single manufacturer has ever had a monopoly on the a market the way that Apple owns the mp3 market.  Take a look at the top ten selling mp3 models on EcoSquid.  The only manufacturer other than Apple that managed to crack the list is Microsoft. EcoSquid’s top ten list basically looks like Apple’s ipod catalogue.

While it is clear that the battle for the mp3 player market has been won decisively, it will be interesting to see whether the tablet market follows a similar trajectory. There is little doubt that Apple’s competitors are hoping for a different result, but it remains to be seen whether they can topple the giant.

Personally, I hope that other manufacturers manage to step up.  I believe that whether you are buying or selling electronics, more competition means better options for consumers.  And of course, I would prefer that our Leaderboard data looks less bland in the future.

EcoSquid Leaderboards- see what gadgets people are selling and recycling on EcoSquid

This week, EcoSquid launched yet another cool feature- EcoSquid Leaderboards. We have been gathering all kinds of interesting data about our users and their recycling habits, and we thought you might like to check it out for yourself.  You can get to our leaderboards page by clicking on “Our Impact” on the EcoSquid home page, or by following this link.

The first thing that you will see when you get to the page is a table summarizing EcoSquid’s impact on electronic waste since its launch.  This data is derived from the trade-in and recycling offers that our users have been clicking on.  Following is the potential impact that EcoSquid’s users have had on the environment, provided that they actually follow through and trade in or recycle their gadgets.  In four months, EcoSquid users have:

• Kept over 30K gadgets out of landfills
• Earned close to $400K from old mp3 players and cell phones
• Offset over 2M kg of CO2, the equivalent of about 250K gallons of gasoline

The numbers on this chart update daily, so come back and check our progress!

The next chart is fun to look at.  It depicts EcoSquid activity across states using a heat map.  You can toggle between a few options to figure out which states are recycling the most, which are trading in the most, and which are donating the most.  You can roll your mouse over the map to see how your state stacks up.

The last tool that we provide contains a huge amount of information.  This was harder than it looks to make, so appreciate it!  The tool can be used to find the most sold, recycled, and donated brands and models since our launch.  You can view the data over any time period you like, and can also filter by product category, brand, or model.  For example, the following chart shows which models of cell phones EcoSquids users sold the most in the month of November, in addition to the average values receive for each model.  On the right hand side you can see which services people used most to sell these gadgets:

There is a lot more information that can be squeezed out of these leaderboards, and we would love for you to poke around with them.  We plan on exploring the data ourselves, too, so stay tuned for future blog posts that use this data to draw captivating conclusions.  Most importantly, we want you to add a data point of your own to our leaderboard page by selling or recycling a gadget on EcoSquid!

EcoSquid Launches Cell Phone “Trade-in Price History” Charts

For the last couple of months, EcoSquid has been cooking up a new feature called “Trade-in Price History” charts. We are in a unique position in the cell phone trade in market, being the only aggregator, so we figured we had some interesting data to share with our users.

What we decided to do was to track the trade-in prices of all of the cell phones listed in our database over time. For each phone model, we calculate the average trade-in price across vendors for each of the conditions listed on our website (New in box, Like New, Light Wear, Average Wear, Heavy Wear, Damaged), and display them in a pretty chart.

For example, in the below chart you can see how the resale prices for a Blackberry Curve 8330 have changed over the last two months.  The chart shows data for a phone with “Light Wear” and one with “Heavy Wear”.  As you can see, the resale price for a model with light wear has decreased from $22.31 on October 8 to $17.11 on November 22.  A model with heavy wear has depreciated from $13.80 to $10.59.

In order to get to these charts, you simply need to search for a phone and then click on “View Product Profile” just under the model’s name on the search results page.  I spent some time searching for various models to see if I could find anything interesting.  Not surprisingly, most phones exhibit a gradual price decrease over time. However, I eventually found some curious anomalies.

In particular, some of the hotter, newer phones have undergone more extreme and erratic shifts.  Take two of the newest phones: the Iphone 4 and the Motorola Droid X.  For models with light wear, the prices have dropped dramatically.  In just two weeks the resale price of an Iphone 4 with light wear has decreased from $437 to $326.  Similarly, the price of  a Droid X with light wear dropped from $237 yo $209.  While these extreme drops are odd, what is odder is that prices for damaged models of these phones have gone in the opposite direction.  The resale price of a damaged Iphone 4 has actually increased from $120 to $160.  The price of a damaged Droid X has increased from $40 to $93!  Take a look at the price charts below:

We can only guess at the reasons for these shifts.  Perhaps thousands of Iphone 4 users decided to sell their phones at the same time, which caused the drop in price.  Perhaps our partners became far more proficient at refurbishing Droid X phones, so they can now afford to purchase damaged models for more. While scenarios like these are possible, the cleanest explanation is that prices in this market are irrational. Therefore, it makes sense to use EcoSquid to shop around for the best deal.

We hope you take advantage of our new price charting feature.  We think you will find that the charts are fun to play around with, even if you don’t plan on selling your phone immediately.  At the end of the day, we hope that this will help our users make more informed choices about reselling their gadgets.  Let us know if you find any other interesting patterns!

Support Great Causes on EcoSquid- Including our Troops!

A friend of mine asked the other day whether people actually donate electronics on EcoSquid.  I thought it was an interesting question, so I probed our data to find the answer.  After looking through the data, I found that the answer is a resounding yes!

To date, people have used EcoSquid not only to get cash for cell phones and other electronics, but thousands upon thousands of users (about 14% of the total) have opted to donate.  The majority of these donations appear to be desktop and laptop computers donated to either Goodwill or The Christina Foundation.  However, it should be noted that since we currently do not support resale offers for laptops, the data for these products are slightly skewed.

What is more interesting to look at is what EcoSquid’s users are doing with their old cell phones.  Because EcoSquid shows cash offers for old cell phones, it is not surprising that most users chose this option.  After all, who wouldn’t want some additional cash in their pockets?  Still, about 30% of users opted to either recycle or donate their cell phones.  Of these, 25% chose to recycle and 5% chose to donate.

EcoSquid currently lists the following donation options for cell phones: The Hopeline Program, Hope Phones, Cell Phones for Soldiers, Sprint Project Connect, and The Wireless Foundation.  Following is a rundown of each of these programs:

• The Hopeline Program (sponsored by Verizon)- used cell phones are reclaimed and recycled, and the proceeds go to organizations that provide support to domestic violence victims
• Hope Phones- Phones are recycled and the proceeds go to medical clinics in developing countries
• Cell Phones for Soldiers (sponsored by AT&T)- phones are collected and recycled, and the proceeds are used to buy minutes for soldiers abroad to speak with their families
• Project Connect (sponsored by Sprint)- the proceeds from recycled phones are used to fund and promote free  internet safety resources for kids
• The Wireless Foundation- proceed are used to support a range of philanthropic programs for American communities

All of these seem like great causes to us, but we thought we would look at the data to see what you thought. Below is a chart depicting the percentage of donations that went to each of the above programs:

From the data, Cell Phones for Soldiers is the clear winner.  It seems that EcoSquid users are not only committed to doing good for the environment, but are also committed to supporting our troops abroad.  We at EcoSquid are proud to be promoting such a great program, and we hope that our users will continue to take advantage of it. Given that today is Veteran’s Day, we thought that this information was especially timely.

So, to answer the question that was posed in the beginning of this post:  yes, people do donate on EcoSquid. Currently EcoSquid lists just a handful of donation options, but we hope to expand these options in the future.  If there are any others that you think are worthwhile, please leave a comment below and we will be sure to consider it.

As a final word, we would just like to wish a happy, safe Veteran’s Day to all of our service members that fight to protect us every day.  May you all return home to us soon!