Who to solicit for a small project?
I'm not in the tech community, but I have an idea for a device I want to get made (just for my own convenience; nothing commercial or for an organization). Is there an existing platform for soliciting someone to build an electronic gadget for me?
How much money are you willing to spend? It's likely 2 orders of magnitude lower than what it will cost
Also, if someone offers to build it for just one order of magnitude more than you're willing to spend... they might be incompetent and be unable to actually finish the project. And they likely won't start at all until you pay a substantial upfront deposit.
Depending on the complexity, you could look at something as simple as a raspberry pi pico or Arduino to a full SBC like the raspberry pi 4 (or 5 when that releases)
It really depends how complex the gadget is. Each step will be at least an order of magnitude more expensive than the last.
What's the project? Just curious.
I think it would help answering this question quite a bit if we knew what it was. Is OP worried someone will take their idea or something?
“Electronic device” could mean anything.
I suspect that may be the issue. They're playing the idea close to the chest, which means they may want to prototype an invention then produce it for a profit.
The issue is, if they're asking such basic questions on "how to get an electronic device made", then likely they don't have the expertise to really understand the device well enough to get it made or improve on it in any meaningful way or provide real support. They probably also lack the insight to invent something really useful that the DIY community doesn't already have designs for. Whatever they make will probably suck for all these reasons.
My advice would be that ideas are cheap, implementation is hard, and if you want to get away with throwing out a bunch of ideas with engineers at your beck and call to make it all happen then you need access to VC funding and a dearth of morals. In other words you need to be Steve Jobs several decades ago.
Every technical person has heard "I have an idea for something can you make it we'll be rich" and none of them with any real talent has ever been interested.
Unless they come back with "no I just want a basic device to do something simple just for me", in which case it probably already exists and they'll get a lot further by asking direct questions.
Hey, wow this blew up! I should turn notifications on. I want a programmable IR volume knob. Just a big, chunky knob to set on the table or couch to control my home theater receiver. No Bluetooth or Wifi or zigbee or anything like that. That's all.
Gotcha. The tricky part with that is gonna be that it's specific to the model of your entertainment system.
Means that if whoever you have working on it is non-local, they'll need to find a duplicate of your entertainment system to test on to make sure it works, which is obviously not super feasible.
If a local buddy asked me to build something like that, I had the time, and I charged fair market value for the work, you're probably looking at a couple grand.
If it was a good buddy and I only charged for parts, it'd probably be only a hundred bucks or so?
I wouldn't even really consider doing it as a remote job, as getting a copy of your receiver is more trouble than it's worth I think. Depends on the receiver to some degree though I guess.
It's not really meant for soliciting, but Tindie is the closest thing I can think of what you're looking for. https://www.tindie.com/ You could find something in the same ballpark of what you're looking for and contact the person who made it and ask if they would be interested in doing custom projects.
Maybe on Fiverr? How complex is it?
What about a watch that have a foldable pen inside it?
I'd also like to hear what your idea is. I don't know of a platform to solicit someone building your device at a price you'll be wanting to pay, but there are forums to help you learn how to do it yourself if you're motivated enough.
If it's cool enough to pique interest, you could try posting the concept in an electronics community and seeing if anyone's interested in the challenge, or an ideas community and just floating it for people to choose to run with.
It's also possible the device already exists and someone can suggest an easy option for you