Thats actually a really good choice. Like choosing the LTS version of your distro to develop on. Things have definitely gotten better than the "bad old days" my war stories are from. These new integrated radio-on-a-chip are much easier to deal with and manufactures are taking their reference designs seriously with an eye toward helping smaller projects clear these hurdles. Using TI instead of obscure-asian-manufacturer is also a good choice.

That said, if they're depending on ($80k - kickstarter fees) alone to get off the ground, I think that's a bit sparse. Then again, they seem to have done an above average level of pre-campaign development.

still waiting for chips which do DSSS (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-sequence_spread_spectr... ).

We can do DSSS, but our radio engineer (google Earl McCune) advised us that FHSS, while in some ways more complex (actually he just said it's tricker to design "right", which I'm fine with), will be vastly better for rejecting interference and intentional blocking.

interesting. does he mean frequency hopping ? if yes then i would not immediately agree however...

edit: i'm not a radio engineer just saying based on practical experience.

edit2: just googled . congrats on having this guy on your team.

Thanks! He's a serious silicon valley radio expert. He actually was a member of the homebrew computer club and brushed shoulders with Woz and Jobs before spending the rest of his career advancing radio in silicon valley. He helped lab test my designs, and he's really been an asset in verifying that what I think I did right, I actually did (Texas Instruments has some really great reference material). We experimentally verified on his equipment that my design basically exactly matches the performance characteristics of TI's reference design, and one of our RF component suppliers offers a $600 service where they put your device in their RF chamber to test emissions, which the engineer told me is a much better deal than you'd normally get at that price, but they only do it to help customers get off the ground. Before launch we spent a lot of time speaking to a lot of other professionals and kickstarter folk who have gone through the certification process, and it sounds like it's going to be manageable, especially with Earl McCune's help! I've done all the work on my own, but having a reliable expert is extremely critical in making sure the hardware will not be a problem!