Why can't one use the developer kits for production use?

Autonomous Machines Jetson & Embedded Systems Jetson TX2
1

Altough a similar question has been asked about the differences between the developer kit and modules, I do have a related question. I believe I understand that the modules tend to be more expensive because of extended warranty and on-board storage.
But I want to ask specifically about “Jetson developer kits are not intended for production use.” as stated in the FAQ: https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/faq.

Why wouldn’t or couldn’t any developer kit be intended for production use, as the developer kit contains everything the module contains by itself plus more, namely the carrier board, which may already be a satisfactory board for production use? It says that you attach it (the module) to a carrier board designed or procured for your end product but again; the developer kit overall may be sufficient or even better than when designing a board seperately. Am I missing something?

Note, that I’m specifically asking for the TX2, but this question may apply in general to any other Jetson Kits.

2

Just an opinion of mine, that since the carrier board of the devel kit cannot be purchased separately, that it would be very hard to provide warranty service. Any carrier board issue would mean buying a full devel kit just to get the carrier board.

3

Thanks for the reply linuxdev. So basically you are saying it’s because of the warranty? Makes sense.
But depending on the customer that may not be a concern. So it won’t matter for a company if they are not specifically interested in the warranty. And if the carrier board is not the important factor, they may just buy a different one if it breaks.

4

You might also find differences in stated environmental limits among the two, but I’m not certain about that. The carrier board with the dev kit is not rated to the same environmental limits as the pure module. I imagine that one day, after TX2 goes obsolete, the modules will probably be available for a longer period of time than the dev kit.

5

Thanks for the answer. I feel like I have a more complete understanding of the differences and what it entails, so thanks for that!