There's something bizarre going on with lidar manufacturing/pricing. When I was looking into it for a specific application it was much cheaper to buy entire made-in-china products containing the exact lidar module than it is to buy the part separately, even at bulk pricing.
This is very common with all kind of components. There are economies of scale your vendor can achieve when they sell someone a million of the same thing. Also the company buying a milion of the same thing is going to pay the vendor a significant sum, even if they get all kind of discounts, and that puts them at a much better negotiating position than you buying a single one.
Hobbyist buying a few units of a component, even if they are buying it with a significant margin, will net the producer peanuts. So not surprising they don’t worry much about serving them that market.
Yes, I'm aware of that. That's why I added the bit about bulk pricing.
In my case I was looking at buying quite a number of units, outside of a hobbyist application. In fact, I would say it was a higher number than the cheaper China-made products could possibly sell (different market sizes).
It seemed to me that they didn't want to sell for any price really but would make an exception if they could really, really rip me off.
As others have pointed out, lidar doesn't denote capability.
1d lidars that have a range of 8 meters indoors are quite cheap <$15 volume.
"2d" lidar, that is one measuring one plane's depth, are generally a lost more costly. Not only that they are bigger and eat more power. again indoor only.
3d lidars are more expensive still, and if you want it to work outdoors, even more.
