A lot of people do a double take when they see that. The kit does have some extra hardware (USB and some nice toggle switches,) the main difference is due to economy of scale, or lack thereof. The retail versions we get made in China in large quantity, while the kits we pack here in small quantity; and since we wanted to keep the kits all through-hole components, they share almost none of the parts (just the LEDs.) So there you have it – seems backwards on the face of it but it actually does reflect our costs. (If, hypothetically, we could get the same economy of scale on the kits, they would be about the same price with the additional hardware about balancing out the assembly and retail packaging costs.)
