I think (perhaps unfairly) that these fun hardware projects are often parents like ourselves harking back to a day when exactly that sort of thing was absolutely fascinating... but that's not the world we live in now. Which one is going to be more rewarding: building a smartphone, or making an app? It's the latter.
That's not to say hardware stuff can't thrive, just perhaps not at the scale venture capital would require.
> Which one is going to be more rewarding: building a smartphone, or making an app?
The counterpoint to this would be: if your child built an app and showed it to their friends, would they be impressed? How about if they built a smartphone?
That's not to say hardware stuff can't thrive, just perhaps not at the scale venture capital would require.