Kickstarter

We've been back in Shenzhen for the past few days, and as always it's a stressful but exciting time. The factory is humming along as the tooling continues and we await the first batch off the line. 

Having done the rounds on Monday though, the 500 initial units are behind schedule, which is frustrating, as the UL/CE certification can’t commence without them. This isn’t down to any single factor, more a combination of many little things (e.g. minor component swap outs, power supply performance tweaks, correcting texture samples, serial number printing, end of line test gear, etc, etc).

The revised date for the initial 500 is now June 14th and considering certification takes three weeks, all going well we should be in a position by July 8th to push ‘go’ on the main run and starting rolling shipping as the bulbs come off the line. 

This is has been frustrating but as I have to remind myself we're creating the assembly line, not just the first batch. Once this first 500 are tested, certified and we're 100% happy with it all then we’re in a good position to crank a lot of these things out in a short amount of time and get them on their way to you! :)  

Probably the only people in the world happy with the few extra weeks are the software team. Damn them (note: we do love them), but having a few extra weeks up their sleeve gives them time to refine, test and build more stuff before submitting to the app store (and Google Play). For example, the ability to issue over-the-air firmware updates to the bulbs was always going to be a push for us, but we’re now confident this will make the cut.

The other thing we wanted to show you in this update was some real-world examples of how your bulbs will perform in the wild. Here’s a comparison we took of LIFX on one of its brightest settings vs some other bulbs we had at hand.

‘Images taken using identical camera settings for each bulb. With rubber chicken control’

So, apologies again to keep you waiting. The bottle neck has caused us a headache but it's something we'll push through and it's good to know we're inching ever closer. 

Next update will be before June 14 when we're back in Shenzhen again and I'll report back on these dates as we guide the production through this tricky phase, and onto the fun part, eating Congee at the hotel, wait, no, sending these on their way to you! 

It may appear that things are quiet at the LIFX HQ at the moment but there's no shortage of stuff happening! Tooling is nearing completion with 500 units being readied to hit the production line and back home the firmware has progressed to alpha testing stage, and here we are below gathered around for a demo from Barney showing the mesh network in action. 

It's exciting to be this close but also quite daunting as the next steps are now almost entirely in the hands of our team in Shenzhen. The time we’ve spent with them over the past three months is greatly reassuring at this stage: they certainly know what they’re doing and they know how to do it well. 

We've booked flights back there on the 20th of May, and we don't anticipate any deviation from the revised timeline but we'll have a much clearer insight when we're on the ground.

One unpleasant surprise we've had is the cost of tooling and certification works out roughly double our initial estimates, including tooling for the packaging (yep, packaging has tooling too!). This isn’t a huge drama for us, but it's a lesson to remember the correlation between production volume and higher setup costs. Overall the packaging has been an adventure in itself (e.g. minimum surface area for postal labels, etc). We’re happy with progress on that front too and think you’ll dig it. Here's an early concept below without the artwork. 

The other major component of the project nearing completion is the app. The iOS version and Android versions are mostly written and functional; and we'll update you when they've been submitted to the App Store and Google Play. The overall interface has gone through a few iterations even since the last video, and we've sweated the testing of UI/UX with different users of varying degrees of skill. The overall goal is to make things fast, fun and easy to use but with plenty of ability to customise your lighting and geek out on some finer points if you so desire. Part of these efforts involves trialling a browser/AirPlay implementation of a virtual bulb so you'll be able to experience the app even before your bulbs arrive. Developers will hopefully find this useful too when the official API/SDK specs are released in the near future. 

Logistics is another aspect we've been focusing on, and thinking about a lot. Once we’ve tested and refined the first 500 bulbs, we push 'go' on the production run from Shenzhen. As the bulbs come off the production line, we will commence rolling shipping (most likely via air mail). Air mail costs more (we'll absorb) but it means getting the bulbs out faster. Between myself, Andrew and Mike we've spoken to nearly 25 different logistics companies and settled on Shipwire as our preferred option. They’ve been a massive help and have personally spent a lot of time on optimising our campaign. Big thanks to Jeremy on this one!

So, overall there's a lot happening in parallel, and I'm incredibly happy with how hard the team are working. I'm also nervous, excited and feeling a tad edgy as this is crunch time and although I'm rapt with the progress I won't feel 100% comfortable until they're on their way to you. One thing that did help me relax this week was backing Christopher Walken Rex :) 

Stay tuned for our next update from Shenzhen. 

We touched down Saturday in Hong Kong, made our way back to Shenzhen and have been diving right back into production since Monday. It's fun to be back, and you almost don't realise how close you've become with a team until you see them again after being away.

After a few tea's with John (the factory owner) we started to discuss the roadmap for the next few weeks and locking in some choices like bulb colors, types of finishing and most importantly the GU10/Downlight. 

The trickiest aspect with the downlight is because you have a smaller space to work with, naturally the heat sink is smaller, and as you'll know from following along heat is our big enemy. 

The other aspect is we have to fit all the LIFX technology including control board into a smaller space! The good news however is that the world's most popular downlight is a 50w (~440 lumen) rather than our 900+ lumen standard bulb. The reason for this is that down lights are often installed in greater numbers than standard lights. If you've got down lights at home, say in the Kitchen, you'll know exactly what we mean. 

So with this in mind, we realised the heat sink won't have to be as big, and that the GU10, doesn't have to be as bright as the A21 bulb you've all seen. We don't have exact lumens yet, but our goal is to 50w which I'm sure we'll be able to exceed! 

This also means when you receive the backer survey you'll be able to select not only the color of your LIFX bulb, but the type you want. The A21 or the GU10 downlight. We've always known we could produce a downlight, but in moments of self doubt you wonder if you can, if the team is capable, will all the components fit etc - it's nice to have those doubts laid to rest, and the heat simulation should prove that further :) 

The team looking at the GU10 / Downlight Design and starting CAD modelling. 

Also, going back to the topic of colors, after the survey it's been decided that the choices will be Pearl White & Gun Metal Grey, which you've seen renders but we'll show you the finished versions of soon. Guy and I even headed to a paint factory nearby today to look all the finishes available and the exact colors we'll use to create the finish. In an ideal world we'd do all four colors, but having two is a bonus we didn't expect and whilst it does complicate our logistics it's not too cumbersome and doesn't distract from the main job - making a kick arse lightbulb. 

So, all in all, it's early days into our visit here and I'm keen to get my hands on the solid works prototype of the A21 design this week, and start thermal testing on this GU10 design, but happy with the progress so far.

On the ground this time are myself, Guy, Jake, Dan and Marc and I'm starting to feel like I'm getting a feel for the city now. It's great to have a big part of our team here which enables us to get more done too, and they enjoy taking ridiculous photo's of me drinking what I thought was Strawberry Milk, but found out it was Coogee. 

Cheers LIFX'ers! 

PS. We haven't sent the backer survey out yet, keep an eye out for it soon. Also, few more anecdotes over at the blog http://blog.lifx.co.