Hi, everyone. Its been three weeks since our last update; we've been completely heads-down getting Touchfire into production. The final stage of large development project like Touchfire is a very intense time. All the details, big and small, have to be resolved. Right now! 

And there are many, many details, from the artwork on the outside of the box to the final texturing on the production molds. We're not getting a lot of sleep, but we are happy to say that Touchfire is coming together nicely.

The Evolution of Cover Clips

Cover clips help secure Touchfire to an iPad’s Smart Cover by providing magnetic attachment points for the Touchfire keyboard's “ears”. The cover clip design we showed you when we launched our Kickstarter project was a clip containing a magnet, as shown here.

We tested these for many months, and ultimately decided that they worked ok but not great. They would sometimes get knocked out of place, and being on the outside of the cover wasn’t a very elegant solution.

We spent a lot of time thinking about cover clips, and finally came up with a cover clip approach that lives inside the cover.  Here’s what a closed iPad with Touchfire keyboard looks like with these cover clips installed.

We found a 3M sticker product, similar to Post-It Notes, that allows the cover clips to be securely attached to the inside of the Smart Cover, but they can also be removed and re-positioned many times. We’re including a pad of 6 stickers with Touchfire, so you’ll have extras if you ever need them. Here are the cover clips attached to the inside of the Smart Cover. 

The cover clips are made of a thin piece of metal, covered in plastic. Here’s how the Touchfire keyboard attaches to the inside of the Smart Cover with the new cover clips.

Manufacturing and Shipping Update

The complete Touchfire product, including the storage case, is made with 5 molds. We showed you one of these, the keyboard mold, in Update 14. We’ve just learned that the mold with the longest lead time should be finished by February 24th. So, it still looks like we will start manufacturing and shipping by the end of February. 

But until we’re actually producing Touchfires we won’t know how many units can be made each day, nor how long it will take to ramp up to full production capacity. Our manufacturer has committed to running three shifts a day, so we will get to full capacity as soon as possible. 

But we are not going to wait for the entire production run to be completed before we start shipping to you; we will ship out batches of Touchfires in roughly the same order that people backed our Kickstarter project. We will let you know more about the timing of the batches as soon as we know.

And finally, to all our backers, thank you so much for making Touchfire possible!

A Few Things to Start With…

Hi, Everyone! 

A big thanks to all of you who filled out the email survey.  If you haven’t filled it out yet, please log into Kickstarter, where you will be prompted to do so.

If you still need to pay shipping fees, we have set up some PayPal buttons to allow you to do so. Pay the Canadian shipping fee here; pay the International shipping fee here.

If you or your friends would like to order additional TouchFires, we are accepting pre-orders for our post-Kickstarter production run at www.touchfire.com.

Manufacturing Update

Some exciting developments on the manufacturing side, where Brad is on-site at the factory. We have decided to go straight to Liquid Injection Molding (LIM) for TouchFire. LIM is a sophisticated manufacturing technique that is significantly faster and more precise than compression molding, the technique we showed being used to make our engineering prototypes in Update 9.

The first step in LIM production is to develop prototype molds made from aluminum. These allow us to validate the production design, and the relatively soft metal allows any changes needed to made relatively easily. Here is the aluminum mold for the TouchFire keyboard; beautiful, isn’t it?

Something else you might find interesting – the TouchFire prototypes are being made in a clean room, the same sort of clean room used to manufacture medical products.

Here is Brad, suited up and in the clean room, with a TouchFire key array made from the prototype mold.

Next steps – prototype aluminum molds for the stiffener parts of the keyboard, the storage case, the evolution of the cover clips. etc. More to come shortly!

Cheers,
Steve & Brad 

Stocking-Stuff Coupon is Here

Here is the TouchFire stocking-stuffer coupon as a printable PDF file:

http://steveis.com/happyholidaysfromtouchfire.pdf

and here is the original jpg, if you'd like to get creative with it:

http://steveis.com/happyholidaysfromtouchfire.jpg

Happy Holidays!

Steve & Brad 

Success

Hi, everyone. TouchFire was funded on Monday. We are still in awe at the level that you backed us.  You made TouchFire the highest-funded tablet-related Kickstarter project of all time. Wow, incredible!

We’ve spent the last two days heads down, getting TouchFire into production, and working with our manufacturer to develop a committed schedule.

Manufacturing Update

We have now chosen our manufacturer and given them the green light to start building the tooling (molds) needed to make TouchFire.

We had three manufacturers on our short list – two in China and one in the United States. Frankly, we delayed the final manufacturer selection in order to give the US vendor every opportunity to bid the job. At the end, they came back with a “no-quote”.  This was pretty disappointing, and we lost precious time.

Thus, the first production run of TouchFire will be manufactured in  Dong Guan, a big industrial city in the south of China, about a two hour bus ride from Hong Kong. Both Brad and Steve will be spending quite a bit of time there soon, and you will get front-row seats to the whole process.

The first step is for our manufacturer to cut steel molds and assemble the tooling used to make the silicone and polypropylene parts that make up TouchFire – the keyboard, the cover clips and the storage case. This will take about 3-4 weeks. Brad will be at the factory as soon as the molds are ready to make the first test runs. This is known as T1.

It could take about a week to initially debug the tooling. Then the fine tuning begins, especially for the keyboard. Steve will join Brad at the factory for this part.  After the fine tuning is complete, the tools will be polished and textured to produce the proper part finishes.  This will take 3 or 4 days, taking us to the third week of January. We will then be ready to start production runs, slowly ramping up daily volume as the full manufacturing process is debugged.

But Wait – There’s Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday in China. It is a tumultuous 10 day  celebration (lots of firecrackers) and all manufacturing shuts down for the duration. This year, the government mandated Chinese New Year vacation starts on January 20th.  Unfortunately, this comes right when are ready to start our first TouchFire production run.  

We will have to wait until after Chinese New Year to start making TouchFire.  This takes us to the first week of February.  Assuming we can ramp up production steadily, we will have all our Kickstarter units ready to be shipped to the United States for distribution the second week of February. We plan on air-shipping everything, of course.

Once the TouchFire shipment is in the US and has passed customs, we will ship it out to you. We will use a commercial fulfillment center, so we can get them to you as fast as possible.  You should get your TouchFire by the end of February.

Back in October, we estimated that we would have the first TouchFire run in the United States by December. Getting into production took longer than we thought, and we sincerely apologize for that.

Next Steps

We will email you the Christmas Stocking Stuffer coupon this weekend.

On Monday, December 19th, Amazon will complete processing credit cards. If you were notified that there was a problem with your credit card, you’ll need to fix the situation by then.

After the holidays, we will send out a survey to collect your shipping address and a few other details.

Thanks Again!

Your belief in TouchFire has made it possible for us to make TouchFire. We are truly grateful to all of our backers.  You’ve given us the opportunity to bring our dream to market, and we can’t wait to get it into your hands.

Steve & Brad

The TouchFire Kickstarter project been an incredible ride, but it is now coming to a close. We are enormously grateful for all of your support!

The end of our Kickstarter project also marks the end of taking orders for our first production run. We will then start taking reservations for our next production run.

We would really appreciate it if you could spread the word about TouchFire one last time! 

Press Roundup

TouchFire has been getting quite a bit of press coverage lately. Here are some highlights.

"The keyboard is incredibly simple to use. Typing on it is like typing on a physical keyboard"
– New York Times

"Two Seattle-based inventors have come up with an iPad keyboard that could dramatically alter the tablet keyboard landscape"
– Wired

"Turns the iPad into a true laptop killer"
– Fast Company

" TouchFire doesn’t set off a single key when you rest your fingertips on the product"
– Mashable

"The super-thin-and-lightweight TouchFire adds virtually no physical bulk"
– CNET

TechCrunch asked Steve to write a 3 part series of articles on TouchFire and Kickstarter, “The TouchFire Chronicles”

What Happens Next

As soon as our Kickstarter project finishes, your credit card will be charged by Amazon and you will receive a confirmation email.  If there was a problem charging your credit card you’ll get an email from Amazon and you’ll have a week to resolve the problem.

Kickstarter does not have access to the address information you entered with Amazon. So we will send out an email survey asking for your shipping information and a few other questions about a week after Kickstarter ends. We will also email the TouchFire stocking-stuffer coupons around that time. 

 Thank you for backing us!