People get surprised how cheap things really can be when they see aliexpress, and the assumption is crap. I bought a ton of stuff from aliexpress, and very rarely-if any- was crappy.

▲

globular-toast 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

What I've learnt from BigClive on YouTube is don't buy anything that plugs into the wall.

If it's low voltage then you should be fine. I'd still be wary of large lithium ion batteries, though.

▲

tehlike 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

You probably meant anything that plugs & stays plugged for extended periods of time.

I probably would hesitate to buy large-battery-powered things from them, for now. Like e-bike etc. Also would hesitate to replace my circuit breakers with zigbee circuit breakers that can also measure power real time, for example.

But there are a lot of good quality stuff that doesn't fit into the dangerous category.

I bought a lot of sensors/smart home stuff, small home stuff like drip irrigation tubes/drip heads, apple find-my compatible trackers, poe cameras, 80x80 fans, label maker tape, poe extender etc.

▲

Kerbiter 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I dunno mate, I've bought a very popular 60W soldering iron for like 2.5 USD. It has a ceramic heater and a knob to adjust the temperature, the default tip it came with is great, and it's also easily disassemblable. It's far better in quality than anything I could've bought locally for the same price.

	▲	bmsleight_ 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Got a link to a it ? I love to replace my under power USB soldering iron

▲

oezi 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I am surprised they can break even with such a product. Considering 25% of the cost go to selling/fulfillment/etc., maybe 8 Pounds for the BOM (?) they might earn 3-4 Pounds per item sold. To offset the cost of development (maybe 20-30 man years at 20k USD for Chinese engineers), would imply the want to sell at least 100.000 units just to break even. Is there enough market for this?

All numbers spit-balled.

	▲	edent 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		As I say in the post, they're using an OEM. I suspect it is Mo Young who do the R&D - amortised over all their products.

▲

kevin_thibedeau 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

AliExpress prices don't include shipping, which are effectively baked into Amazon's pricing to cover SuperSaver & Prime customers.

▲

tehlike 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

A lot of stuff is practically free for shipping. For small items, 10+$.

I bought a lot of 5-10$ things that costs more than 3 times on amazon.

Aliexpress is much cheaper even if you include shipping if there's separate shipping fee.

Amazon is convenient for speed + returns.

	▲	kevin_thibedeau 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		The shipping isn't actually free. It's artificially low with externalized costs because of the postal union treaty.

▲

edent 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

To be clear £16 was the total cost including shipping to the UK.

Took a week or so to arrive, and prices fluctuate all the time. So slower than Amazon shipping - which is usually same or next day.