Huaqiangbei Electronics Market
The electronics market is not just one building, but it is vast, taking more than one block. The shops are located in multi-story shopping-mall style buildings.
Fake iPhone 6, looks just like the original. We were surprised by the quality of construction and the interface. It is actually running Android, with software to look like iOS. The price of the phone is a fraction of what iPhone costs, about 600 RMB, which is $93 US dollars.
There is also a lot of customized phones such as in a shape of a car or Hello Kitty. I bought a Ferrari-shaped phone for $30. The phone was well constructed and made a lot of car sounds.
Life and work is intermingled in the marketplace. Many employees bring kids with them. Looks like a family business.
The view of one of the markets. Quite a vast space.
In the sensor tape project I am using the MPU-6050 by Invensense. It is an inertial measurement unit (IMU) with gyro and accelerometer. Because it is quite expensive on DigiKey, $10.72 for one chip, I was curious how much it would be in Shenzhen. We asked two vendors at the market. The price was about 7 times cheaper: $1.52. (9.52 RMB) Also the price for the ATMega328, which is the heart of many Arduinos, was only $1.40, comparing to $3.80 on DigiKey.
