Doppler backers,
We have been working really hard to get you all your clocks before the end of the year. Considering it’s the last day of 2019, that obviously isn’t going to happen. We are very disappointed and frustrated to miss another deadline for our backers. The second we have a product that is working well enough to ship, we will.
So what caused the delay? We are searching for exact answers as to why, but it boils down to the fact that the main LEDs for the display ended up arriving about a month and a half after they were supposed to. Both our US representatives and our overseas teams were in constant communication, but things still moved at a snail's pace even with us pushing daily. The good news is we eventually did receive the parts in our warehouse on December 12th. The original schedule had these parts arriving on November 1st and this delay messed up all of our timing and was a logistical nightmare. Once we finally got the LEDs in-house, our factory workers started working on the PCBs for the production of Dopplers.
The factory now is busy working on producing quality Dopplers at a rate of around 50 units per day. We are doing these units slowly to make sure every Doppler is perfect. This is a standard procedure for bringing up a new product and it’s something that can’t really be rushed. The first 2000 Dopplers (enough to fulfill all pre-orders) are scheduled to be shipped before Chinese New Year happens. Chinese New Year is a little early this year as it starts on January 25th.
The Dopplers will then travel by boat from Shenzhen to Oakland and then they will be offloaded to our warehouse in Santa Clara. This process usually takes around 3-4 weeks. Our engineering team will then review the units and assuming everything is looking good, we will ship them off to our customers (finally)! We are now targeting a ship date of March 1st for our domestic customers. All Kickstarter backers will get priority and then all other pre-orders after that. To prepare for the arrival of these Dopplers we are working on renting the warehouse next to us!
The empty warehouse, waiting for Dopplers!
Beta Backers
Fear not, you’ll be receiving your Dopplers before March! Your units are sitting safely in our warehouse waiting for the software and app to be ready.
So what’s the latest on the software? We are happy to report that the BLE issues we are experiencing have been solved and the Dopplers are now connecting via BLE and then to a WiFi network well. We have run into another software bug preventing us from shipping the Betas though. Currently, there is a strange bug with the iOS Alexa integration preventing the Doppler from being properly authorized as an Alexa device when signing in from an iOS app. We are working with our App developer to try and figure out what’s going on here. We anticipate this will be a quick fix and once we return from CES we will ship out the Beta units.
Certifications
The Doppler has also been going through FCC testing to ensure we comply with all necessary standards. We have what’s called a “pre-certified intentional radiator” because we have a Bluetooth and Wifi radio inside, but we still have to go through this testing. Check out these awesome pictures from the test chamber!
The test chamber
The Doppler, ready to be tested
In the first part of the new year, we will also submit the Doppler to Amazon certification as well as a third-party security firm to become Alexa certified! This certification is an in-depth process where they test all aspects of the Doppler in detail. We plan on going over this in more detail in the coming updates.
CES
The biggest show of the year is around the corner and we will be there with Doppler beta units! If you’re around, our booth will be 42731 in the Sands and we would love to show you the Doppler. If we have the time at the show we plan on posting another update with lots of pictures and videos from the show. These trade shows are vital for business and we are hoping for another great show!
A sneak preview of our booth
We have a pretty amazing booth location this year and we are super excited to be next to some pretty big names.
Our booth #42731 is in the Sands convention center
Thanks again for your patience and we hope everyone loves 2020, it will be the year you receive your Doppler! Happy New Year!
-PAI Team
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