Epiphany onE Puck

Post funding Update #1

Update #8 · Apr 23, 2013 · comment

Hello onE Puck Backers!

Thanks again for your awesome support! Here's a quick update on what has taken place since the project ended a couple of weeks ago:

1) During the last few weeks of the project funding window, we were approached by even more big name investors and major retailers from all over the world. That means that when we take the onE Puck to production, we are likely to be making 100,000 at a time, in addition to the 1,300 or so that were ordered through the Kickstarter campaign. We have all of you to thank for bringing us the popularity it took to make that happen!

2) As many of you know, there is a 2 week hold on the funds after the project completes. That hold just ended a couple of days ago, so now we can access the funds and get to work.

3) Last week I made a scouting trip to the SF Bay area to start getting ready to set up our West Coast development team. A very good friend of ours is a partner in a really cool startup called Suaree (check it out at suaree.com), and they are going to help us out with office space and technical expertise as the project develops.

4) For the past week, we have been in the process of moving the offices of our sister company, Epiphany Solar Water Systems, to a much larger and nicer facility in the Lawrenceville area of Pittsburgh, PA. This is a huge step forward for us, as it will give us the prototyping lab space and production space we need to take both of these projects to market during the next several months.

5) In the middle of all of this excitement, we are in the process of ordering the T-shirts and window stickers we promised all of you.

So, although we have not done a great job of keeping you up to date for the past few weeks, we are moving forward quickly and aggressively to lay the foundation we need to take this project to completion. Within the next week or so, we will be settled into our new place, and we'll get back to the real engineering work. At that point, it will be our goal to provide you with regular updates on technical progress.

We will also be revamping our website and setting up a blog so all of the onE Puck backers can communicate and share in the progress.

Lastly, keep an eye out for emails asking for your T-shirt choice and size in the next several days.

Thanks again!

Tommy Joseph and the onE Puck Team

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Ask your friends to become part of our onE World!

Update #7 · Apr 5, 2013 · 3 comments

From all of us here at Epiphany Labs, we would like to thank you for helping make this campaign a great success and for being a onE believer.

The response has meant a lot. We are grateful to all of you for supporting this project.

There are 2 days left for our campaign. Please help us reach our stretch goals by spreading the word for a final push. Ask your friends to become part of our onE World. It would be greatly appreciated!”

Tom Joseph and The Epiphany Team

3 Comments

onE Puck Update - Thanks for your support!

Update #6 · Mar 31, 2013 · 2 comments

To all of our onE Puck Backers and Supporters: We have received several questions and comments lately relating to our patent filing strategy, efficiency values, and details about the design of the Stirling engine we are using. Below is the private response we have sent to our existing Backers, but we thought we should share the message with the rest of you too... Thanks for your support and for the spirited discussion! We are thrilled with the level of enthusiasm and support all of you have shown us. To address your questions, let's start with this: 1) We have not filed patents yet, but for good reasons. Our patent filing strategy, including Provisional Applications, PCTs, and National Level entries, are all very well planned well in advance. Tuukka's advice to cancel the project and reinitiate it after filing patents would seem to make good sense at first glance, but there are many variables to patent filing strategy. For example: Consider that patent applications become public information to the whole world 6 months after filing, and most of the world has a "first to file" standard, rather than "first to invent." This means that, unless you are prepared to file patents globally from day one, you are sometimes better off keeping your secrets to yourself for as long as possible, then filing provisionals for a year, then PCTs, which give you another 12-18 months, and then, finally filing national level entries after you have vetted your markets. If this seems like a long, drawn out process, that's because it is, but it provides the inventor with the best long-term protection. The whole discussion of our patent protection strategy could take a page of it own, so we'll leave it at that for now, but if any of our backers are curious to know more, please let us know and we'll be glad to share our thoughts. On your comments about efficiency, the answer is yes, it varies greatly as the temperature varies, and yes, we expect the onE Puck to be able to handle much higher temperatures (at least as hot as an open candle flame) by the time we ship them to you. As we have explained in other comments and updates, it would be unreasonable to expect your phone to get anywhere near a full charge from a single drink. A series of drinks could potentially provide a full charge but, again, that would be missing the real point of the onE Puck. Although you can use the onE Puck as a cool way to keep your phone topped off on the road, and you can use hotter (or colder), and longer lasting heat sources to get a full charge from scratch, the most the onE Puck is ever going to accomplish, in its current form, is the ability to keep your cell phone working. It's (probably) not going to save anyone's life, and it's not going to change the lot of humanity for the better. What we're hoping for is that our backers, in addition to wanting a really cool phone charger, understand that the real point here is to provide this technology as a stepping stone to something that is going to change our onE World. Over the past 54 days, you, our backers, have helped us prove that there is widespread demand for this technology. In addition to the funding you have provided, your support has also helped us receive a tremendous amount of attention and interest from media outlets, distribution, and manufacturing partners around the world. We are now absolutely certain that the world is ready for widespread adoption of this technology in larger, and mass-produced versions. When that happens (and it will be sooner than we thought), the technology that you are helping us to promote here IS going to change our onE World, it IS going to save lives, and, most importantly, it IS going to enhance lives and grant otherwise impossible opportunities to people around the world. We have all of you to thank for that, and we hope you are all as excited to be a part of this as we are! Thank you to all of you once again! Much more to come soon...

2 Comments

STRETCH GOALS!!!

Update #5 · Feb 21, 2013 · 13 comments

Dear onE Puck Backers,

We are completely flattered by your enthusiasm and support. Tons of you have sent us ideas for features that you would like to see included in the onE Puck, and we have decided to make our stretch goals conform to the most popular of those ideas (except for Bobby C, who suggested we include a flux capacitor– sorry buddy, but that’s what our science teachers would call “beyond the scope” of this project).

Current projections say that we’re easily on pace to hit the $350,000 mark. On top of that, we have some big media coverage coming and, with your help, $500,000 isn’t far behind. If we get to that point, we’ll be one of the hottest Kickstarter Projects, so jumping up to $750k or $1M becomes a real possibility. We combined that info with your ideas and desires, along with our budget to deliver on each of these goals, and here’s what we came up with. The first two are simple add-ons, and it’s almost inevitable that we’ll reach them... then things start heating up a bit!

At $150,000 total funds pledged, we will include a Neoprene Sleeve with every onE Puck so you can keep it looking shiny and new during all of your adventures.
At $250,000 total funds pledged, we will include a Stainless Steel Cup with insulated sides. The cup will have our trademark “E” on the side, so everyone will know you’re onE of the team, and it will handle hot or cold beverages. With the stainless steel bottom you’ll get a little more juice out of your onE Puck, and a cool looking cup, too!
At $350,000 total funds pledged, we will upgrade the LED light on the side of the onE Puck to include multiple indicators, telling you the internal battery charge status as well as real-time power production status. This will let you know how much juice your onE Puck is producing and you’ll be able to experiment with different hot or cold sources to get maximum output.
At $500,000 total funds pledged, we will upgrade the onE Puck to be a full-fledged External Battery Pack, in addition to being a Power Generator. By upgrading the onE Puck’s internal battery to a minimum of 1000mAh (more if possible), you will be able to charge your onE Puck using either the internal generator or a wall outlet. Then, you can dump that stored charge to your phone later, even if you don't have a heat/cold source available.
At $750,000 total funds pledged, we will upgrade the onE Puck to include Transparent Side Walls, so you can see what’s going on inside. Now, some of you are thinking, “What’s so hard about that?” The answer is that, as much as we lovE this idea, it’s not going to be as simple to pull off as it might seem. Once you see the guts of this baby, it will make more sense.
We have onE more really cool add-on that we would like to implement if we hit $1M in total funding, but we're not sure if we can commit to it just yet. We're working hard and we'll let you know if we can pull it off.

We will upload 3D models (and real photos in some cases), of each of these items asap so you can see what each of them would look like.

In the meanwhile, here’s how you can help us reach these goals:

Like/follow us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/EpiphanyLabs) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/EpiphanyLabs).
Email one or two friends and ask them to back our Kickstarter campaign.
Repost our social media posts, and keep spreading the lovE.

Thanks again!

-Tommy J and the Epiphany Team

13 Comments

WE MADE IT!!! - (and more on San Francisco, too)

Update #4 · Feb 20, 2013 · 5 comments

Wow! We have officially reached our funding goal in just 2 weeks. We're flattered by the number of messages we've already received congratulating us. We still have 45 more days to go, so now things will start getting really exciting! We've also received a ton of messages congratulating us on the San Fran announcement, including some from local supporters who would be sad to see us leave. Please allow us to clarify just a bit... we're not packing up and moving EVERYTHING to San Fran. Pittsburgh is our home and our headquarters and that's not going to change. In fact, Epiphany SWS is on the verge of signing a lease for a new, expanded facility right here in Pittsburgh's Strip District. San Fran will be a branch development office for the onE Puck project only. By setting up a separate team in San Fran, we will be able to maintain focus at HQ, take advantage of the local talent in SF, and expand our horizons. Epiphany isn't leaving, we're expanding!

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