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@joewalnes with so many people doing software startups, I commend you for doing hardware! What's been the hardest part about building and selling something "real"?

@joewalnes ever heard of GrabCAD Workbench? Might make *some* of the manufacturing headaches go away.

Love this! Ever since I sold my DSLR and went all-iPhone for camera usage, I've been looking for a good indirect light solution. A couple questions: 1) Assuming this only works with the Nova app, and no other camera apps? 2) Battery life? 3) Any pro-tips for one-handed use?

Okay @joewalnes you got yourself another customer. Can't wait to try it out!

@joewalnes Thanks for the responses! That adhesive looks really useful for a couple different things. I was originally thinking more about how to recreate a flash shoe so I could have the flash bounce off the ceiling, for example. I found this gooseneck clamp and it looks like it may work? One thing I'd like to see is a UGC gallery of shots taken with Nova. I've only found a handful of examples on your site and other reviews. It's pretty clear that it helps avoid the harsh light problem of the built-in iPhone 5s flash, but curious to see what else people are able to do with it.

@joewalnes one more question: does it have enough power to be used as a bounce flash?

I got one off kickstarter. I just got back to town so have only had it for a few hours but it looks very nice and the first pictures have come out well.

Yo. Creator of Nova here. Can I get a green tick thingy? Happy to answer any questions about Nova. I created Nova last year because I wasn't happy with how the flash worked on camera phones. Ran a Kickstarter, got manufacturing setup, and now it's ready for everyone to buy. It's my first hardware product and I'd love feedback from the PH community.

@mijustin Thanks! I have a software background, so moving into hardware presented a lot of challenges. But 3 stand out: 1. Once it's shipped, it's shipped. Can't just release a beta and then continually upgrade. To mitigate a lot of this I've tried to keep the hardware side of things as simple as possible and do the smarts in the app, which will continually get better and better. 2. Manufacturing. Is hard. So many things that can possibly go wrong. Bad materials. Defects. Managing your supply chain. It's not like you can spin up new Heroku nodes. Don't do it alone - find a good manufacturing partner. 3. Logistics. I totally underestimated the complexity in shipping thousands of orders all around the world. For the past month pretty much 90% of my time working on the project has been dealing with shipping issues, customs, warehouse, supply, spreadsheets, integrating systems, etc. Yesterday we started selling on Amazon using fba.amazon.com : it's so much simpler.

Phew, that was close!

@adamsigel 1. At the moment it only works with the Nova Camera app (Free in App Store: http://wantnova.com/appstore). However we have an open source SDK and we're keen to work with camera developers to integrate. https://wantnova.com/sdk/ 2. Battery life: 2 weeks on standby between charges. You can get about 500-1000 flashes out of it. Of course this totally varies by how much you use it, flash brightness, etc, but it should give you a rough idea. In practice I charge mine about once per week and it's always ready when you need it. 3. Some pro tips... 3a. For one handed use get yourself some of this micro-suction-cup-tape: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ITX9.... You can stick your Nova to the back of your iPhone and easily remove it when you need to without leaving any stick marks. I only discovered it last week and it's really handy! 3b. Use the hard volume buttons instead of touching the screen to take the photo. It's much more ergonomic.

@adamsigel Gooseneck: I have no idea if it will work, give it a go :). User generated photos: Yep, I hope the community can help us with more photos! #NovaFlash

@jongold I've looked into the new iOS8 extensions APIs and unfortunately there's no hooks that can be triggered while taking a photo (it's only post-processing stuff). Still, it's a great start and I hope Apple will expand this in iOS9.

@adamsigel: Thanks for the tip. To be honest the CAD was one of the easiest parts - it's managing the supply chain that was tricky.

@dgould: Glad you're having fun with it. Tell your friends :)

@cyborgnation Thanks! At the moment you have to use the app, but we've got an open source SDK to allow others to create their own apps with it. If there's enough demand, we may add that feature ourselves.

@cyborgnation: Thanks for the heads up. I'll update the SDK docs. @adamsigel: Because it's diffused and off-camera it works well without bouncing. But if you do want to bounce it, it'll work if the bounce surface is reasonably close, though it's not as bright as a classic horseshoe speedflash.

@joewalnes Open Source SDK you say...... Sounds like I've got a new weekend project. Edit: Just a heads up - I was reading the SDK page on your site and it's all still worded for an SDK release in the future, I was kind of bummed until I saw the github link.

Wow. This is really great. Is there a way in the app to use the flash without taking a picture - say if I wanted to use it as lighting for my DSLR?