Dec 15 Update
over 6 years ago – Sun, Dec 17, 2017 at 12:30:07 AM

Dear Backers,

For the several hundred of you who have received Jacks, we're very thankful for the great feedback and reviews and we are eager to send out the rest. For the online manual, you can follow this link.

We will not be able to fulfill Jack this holiday season. A few hundred more will ship out soon but the rest will be after the holidays.

5,500 units will be assembled right after the new year, completing in the second week of January and shipping out by the third. Whereas our first production run was only black units, this next run will be for all colors.

Here is some good news in light of the manufacturing delays:

1. Voice assistant launch from headphones - Now you can launch your voice assistant from your headphones themselves. Hold down the play/pause button and it will launch it automatically. 

2. More transmit mode compatibility - When using Jack to transmit audio from a non-Bluetooth source (like a TV, record player, etc.) we promised the ability to send synchronized, aptx low latency audio to up to two receiving Jacks. Now, we are able to support more, but not all, devices like 3rd party Bluetooth speakers or headphones. It's hard to make a full compatibility list because of unpredictable Bluetooth configurations, but we have tested with Bose and Samsung over-the-ear headphones with good results.

3. Improved antennae efficiency - In areas with high RF interference (like conference halls with wifi/Bluetooth devices everywhere), we were able to increase connection stability by tweaking the antennae configuration a bit. In regular use, the connection will be stable anyway but we're glad to make this improvement anyway.

4. Customer service improvements - On Monday, will introduce our first in-house team member dedicated solely to customer service! We are very excited and are looking forward to providing faster and better service to you.

We look forward to making further progress in production and getting each Jack that's left to you soon. Have a wonderful weekend and happy holidays!

Best,

The Podo Labs Team

October 19th Update
over 6 years ago – Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 03:33:14 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Nov 16 Update
over 6 years ago – Fri, Nov 17, 2017 at 12:42:02 AM

Dear Backers,

Thank you for remaining supportive and patient during this delay. We know it is a frustrating time for you, as much as it is a difficult time for us.

Today will be a long update, so feel free to scroll to the parts that most interest you. In this update, you will find:

• A video of the Jack in action
• Pictures from China from our CTO
• A note on production

A Note on Production

First off, we want to apologize again for disappointing many of you with missing our expected shipping schedule. This last step from final prototype to mass production is the hardest step in any product development timeline, which is why expected timelines can change not once, but multiple times.

Our current situation is that of the first 500 we attempted to make, under 200 passed our strict standards. Those will be shipped out tonight. The rest are being sent to our San Francisco office to be corrected one-by-one by hand, and then also shipped out. We're not sure how long exactly this will take, but between 3 of us here to do it, it may take over a week.

Obviously this is not a sustainable path, so we are undertaking another revision to fix this assembly problem. As mentioned in the last update, we are dealing with smaller tolerances than we've ever had to deal with, but we've chosen to make them right rather than grow the size of the entire device. This way, we can fit the most battery life and features in a slimmer and lighter package than anyone else.

We've made the revisions and ordered 5.5k PCBAs, and the lead time is 4 weeks. If assembly with these boards go without a hitch, we may be able to make a few thousand before Christmas. But unfortunately we cannot guarantee we will get the assembly line space or even air freight priority with this relatively small quantity around the holidays. Getting "bumped" is what a lot of smaller brands face. 

The reality is, the majority of people will not receive Jack until next year. We're very sorry again, and we do not take this reality lightly ourselves, as we know it is a great disappointment. Beyond the free silicon case we've included with your order, we've taken the time to add additional features into the Jack, as demonstrated in the video below. We will continue to brainstorm and do what we can.

In response to some questions, we want to briefly address the economics of the campaign to give the funds raised some context:

• Firstly, between the Kickstarter platform fee (5%), credit card processing fees (2.9%), chargebacks and dropped payments (2-4%), the funds we collect are about 10% less than the full amount you see.
• Then, if Jack, accessories, + shipping averages to about $18 each, then this amounts to a (very low estimate) cost of $450,000. (~25k Jacks)
• For 6 employees, office rent, employee tax, IP lawyers, and miscellaneous operational costs, 10 months equals on the low end $30k/month, or $300,000 this year
• Factor in tooling costs ($20k+), aptX licensing ($10k+), marketing/ads (a lot), etc. and this accounts for most, if not all of it.

The point we would like to make is that we come to Kickstarter not with the mentality of "striking it rich", but to see if our creations and ideas strike a tone with backers like you. This gives us the opportunity to make an initial production run and hopefully be successful afterwards in national retail markets.

We're extremely grateful for the support you've shown us by backing us in the first place, and for continuing to be supportive despite our delay. To put an overall point to a long note: we simply want to make the best possible product that fulfills our original vision, and we are doing everything we can to deliver this to you as quickly as we can. 

Our priority is to push through these production delays, and we will keep you updated on our progress. We apologize for not being able to keep up with messages and comments 100% but we are trying, and the notes of positivity we see really help us keep pushing through these problems. We understand the pessimism many of you are experiencing, but we also understand that you don't actually want us to fail, right? 

To everyone, thank you for cheering us on, and thank you for being the very original supporters of what we hope will become a future success.

Best,

The Podo Labs Team

Pictures From China

 Video Demonstration

---Conclusion of Jack update---

Our friends from Fishball

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Nov 10 Update
over 6 years ago – Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 12:03:14 AM

Dear Backers,

Production has started but is more challenging than what we've experienced in the past. Our CTO has been in China for the last two weeks, working with each vendor directly and spending most of his time overseeing assembly.

The good news is, the units that we have assembled successfully are 100% final, high quality, and work exactly as we want them to. We're very confident in them, especially compared to any competitors we've tried.

The challenge is replicating this quickly for the rest of the 24,500+ units reserved in total. Doing it the way we finished these first units will take prohibitively long. Assembly is proving to be our bottleneck and before we can go large-scale, our CTO is there now figuring out how to make that many in a fast and consistent way.

The full technical details (if you're interested):

The main problem is something called "manufacturing tolerance". We can design a part to be of a specific size in a specific spot, but since these are physical processes with physical objects, there's a natural variance in the real world in how big it actual ends up or where it actually is. A good design will build-in "leeway" for manufacturing tolerances, which is what we did. 

That notwithstanding, there are two issues: 1. Jack is very small and tolerances still need to be incredibly precise and 2. tolerances are defined by the manufacturer, and not always correct in the real world.

To give you one example, a button component on Jack is only 3.00 mm long, with an "arm" that pushes in of 0.75 mm, for a total length of 3.75 mm. It needs to be pushed in only about 0.20 mm for the button to "click". Manufacturing tolerances of where the button ends up being located can range from 0.10 mm to the low end, to 0.25 and higher. The button "click" also has it's own tolerance of 0.05 mm. This leads a very small margin for error when everything needs to be in the right spot to work. It also doesn't mean a problem will happen every time, since a tolerance is only a range of how far off it "could" be from the target. Sometimes, it is incredibly hard to predict or catch until you see hundreds of samples. 

The error was compounded by bad data. A factory will give a customer like us a "data sheet", which describes all of the relevant measurements and tolerances concerning a part. However, we found that the values for the button we got on the data sheet versus how they are in real life are slightly different. This can happen by the factory's error, or even something like thermal expansion as the component goes through the hot wave soldering machine.

The solution:

This is why manufacturing starts with hundreds of units at first before ramping up full-scale, to catch sometimes unpredictable or unlucky problems like these, especially if data don't match their data sheets. We are also pushing the PCBa supplier to achieve a stricter level of tolerance, and make them re-do boards that are out of spec.

Our CTO will finish handling the problems and oversee the rest of the assembly while staying in China. The 500 in progress will be finished first, but the above problems are why it's taking longer than we thought when we started.

What this means:

Jacks will start going out the door next week. These have been produced successfully up to standard. The rest of the 500 will be finished but may take up to 10 days to do very carefully and test each one 100%. We are adjusting the PCB layout designs to accommodate the new, correct data with more leeway, adjusting plastics slightly, and will assemble with these improved tolerances for the next run of 6,000. If the changes are effective as planned, then those can be finished and shipped out in Dec. 

We wish we had better news, but we are encouraged that the finished product is working great and everything we expected. We've never manufactured a product this tiny and in such large numbers, but we will solve this problem and make sure every unit is up to par. We will update you as soon as we have more news.

For a few of you, please expect tracking numbers by the end of next week. For others, please email [email protected] if you have questions or need assistance like changing your shipping address. 

Thank you for your continued support, and we will continue doing everything we can move quickly onto the phase where everyone is enjoying their Jack. Have a great weekend everybody!

Best,

The Podo Labs Team

October 6th Update
over 6 years ago – Sat, Oct 07, 2017 at 01:15:34 AM

Dear Backers,

Today we have pictures of a production-model Jack and a shipping update. Currently, China is on a 7-day holiday called "Golden Week" to celebrate the founding of the People's Republic of China. The majority of people in the country do not return to work until October 10th.

Our goal was to get a few hundred units out before the holiday but were unable to do so, especially with such a major holiday on our Chinese partners' minds. There has not been much to update during the holiday.

Once our partners in China return to work, we will continue on with production and give more updates. Expect the first shipping notices to go out by the end of the month. Again, we are extremely sorry about the delay. We know we are entering the 4th month since targeted delivery and 8th month since your contribution, and we feel the pressure every day to get these Jacks to you as promised. 

The best thing we can do is deliver, and that is what we are working on every day. We really appreciate your continued patience and support, as we're all on the same team here wanting the same thing. And a big thank you to all of you backers who have sent us words of encouragement. We know everyone is just as excited as we are.

Best,

The Podo Labs Team

P.S. If you need to change your shipping address, please do so by changing it on your BackerKit profile. You can access it with the original link you used to create it, or search here: https://jack-by-podo-labs.backerkit.com/

P.P.S. Pictures of the production-level Jack made before holiday:

This Jack is a full production-level unit. So unlike a prototype, this was created with final production processes and materials. In the video, Jack is turned on and immediately auto-connects to my phone used for the recording. (Normally, the light will flash blue waiting for a connection if you haven't connected to it before). Clicking the play/pause button started my music and unintentionally ended the video!

Power/Play/Pause, volume up + down buttons. You can use these controls to skip songs, enter sharing mode, check battery level, etc.

 The micro USB and 3.5mm aux ports side-by-side.

 A bit under 60 cents-wide...

...and $1.50 thick.