May has been an intense month filled with lots of shipping, lots of personalized customer support, lots of valuable feedback from our backers, and lots of improvements (with many more to come). Here are some stats:

By the end of this week, we’ll have shipped over 81% of our Kickstarter backers in the US and Canada. If you have not received a shipment confirmation, there are four potential reasons:

• You did not provide us contact information (preferred email, phone, etc.) at the end of the Kickstarter campaign,
• You did not respond to the ‘Choose Your Things’ request sent at the end of last year,
• You selected a Thing that we are still working to get into our inventory, or
• You are in Canada and we were working through the best (most efficient) cross-border shipping.

If you fall into bucket 1 or 2 above, please reach out to support@smartthings.com. If you fall into bucket 3 and want to discuss options, do the same. If you are in bucket 4, we’re confident we have a good solution in place now, so you’ll have yours soon.

We’ve activated tens of thousands of connected devices and are processing millions of events per day. The Physical Graph is coming online with your help.

The Android Beta has started. If your name is on the list, look for a message from SmartThings Support asking to coordinate a time to set you up for testing it. This is being staged, so if you’re not in the first group, we ask for your patience.

For our International backers, here is an update:

• We have a solution to the 100 MHz degradation that was in CE pre-testing yesterday and both devices passed. We are now moving to prototypes of that version in advance of scaled production.
• We have 5 of our SmartSense Multis and 5 of our SmartSense Motions being built with CE-compatible chips by mid June.
• We are scheduling formal testing also by mid-June when those devices are ready.
• We have ordered and are testing a range of 3rd party devices that are CE compatible such that we can build a compatible devices list like you see here - http://build.smartthings.com/compatible-devices/
• Once we have that, be on the lookout for your ‘Choose Your Things’ email from our team such that we can begin preparing your packages for delivery.
• For our friends in Australia and New Zealand, we’re scheduling your pre-testing now and will give a specific update like we did in Update 32 once complete.

We’re trying to stay active on discussions and comments across all our communications channels - Facebook, Twitter, Support Email, Support Chat, Build Community, and Kickstarter - but as volumes increase, we may miss something and apologize if we do. Please use the Support Knowledge Base and email support@SmartThings.com if you have an explicit support need.

Finally, we had a big announcement this week at Wall Street Journal’s 11th All Things D Conference. Starting today, the SmartThings Developer Toolkit is publicly available to the world. This means anyone can help us build SmartApps and can add new types of connected devices to the world of SmartThings.

Our ability to get this far is directly attributable to your support and backing. We couldn’t have done it without you, so thank you. We are actively making the world smarter, together.

Want to see our D11 demo in action? Watch the video.

Thanks,

The SmartThings Team

We thank our international backers for being so amazingly patient as we go through the process of certifying and optimizing SmartThings for your individual country. Many of our updates moving forward will be focused on you.

In addition to registering SmartThings with those countries that support FCC, we have significantly progressed our CE Certification testing. Here is a summary of all our pre-tests and the implications for each device (where required):

The final four tests in the table above require test automation (we can’t be present), for which we are preparing. 3 of the 4 are actually tests on the power supply, so if they fail we find another power supply, which should not be a problem.

So what’s this about RF immunity testing failing at 100MHz? What happens is the Z-Wave chip loses communication when exposed to that frequency of RF interference. The likely resolution approach is to add a filter to the Hub, and potentially modify the Hub for longer antennas and then tune those to optimize.

The good news is we don’t think changes are required for end devices and are pressing forward with formal CE certification testing. As soon those are completed we’ll start mass manufacturing. What this means is we’re getting very close to letting you choose your SmartThings for your kit. Be on the lookout for an announcement of when we’ll send you a survey to complete.

For our US and Canadian backers patiently waiting for your kits, we shipped over 700 kits in the last week and hope to ship closer to 1000 in the coming week. Based on the feedback and unboxing photos on Twitter, it sounds like the experience has been great. Here’s our current favorite pic. It’s from @TomSmallwood on Twitter.

And of course, there’s this.

We’ve received some rave reviews of our support team, as well. Whether you’ve talked with Ryan, Garrett, Tyler, Andrew, or any of our engineers or others on the team directly, we hope they’ve done everything possible to make your SmartThings experience great.

As always, if your shipping address has changed and you haven’t alerted us, please email support@smartthings.com. Note that you may receive a survey from us asking you to validate your address as we want to be proactive in making sure you get your SmartThings.

Thank you,

The SmartThings Team

In the spirit of continued and more frequent updates, we wanted to share the results of the week.

• We continue to improve our manufacturing process and efficiency, over the week doubling our testing setups such that we have 4 simultaneous automated programming and testing stations running across 2 shifts.
  
• During testing, we identified some changes to how we assemble the PCB for the Hubs such that we could increase durability and strength of the power supply assembly. We decided to retroactively apply that change to existing Hubs in the warehouse which reduced our inventory for a few days, but we’re all caught up.
  
• A typical SmartThings kit includes well over 20 distinct SKUs that need to be picked, assembled, packed and then shipped. This includes boxes, manuals, labels, tape, devices and more.
  
• In response, we’ve been tightening that up to make it as efficient as possible for the warehouse. We’ve been moving components around, changing how cartons are populated with devices, and refining settings in the warehouse management system around how processes work.
  
• The results are showing. We started the week moving through 50 or so kits in a day and ended today pushing over 200. We expect that pacing to continue to improve.

Next week we have a backer appreciation event in DC. We’ve heard the requests for other cities loud and clear and are looking at the schedule.

Did you get your kit? Share your experiences with us. Ready for more Things? Tell us what devices you most want to see. We’re listening and constantly improving.

Last night, we hosted another event to thank our Kickstarter backers in the New York City area and to demo exciting new applications of the SmartThings platform. About 75 people attended, and some of their reactions are below. Along with plenty of beer and food, we demoed fun new apps that showcase the power of the SmartThings open platform. One is an integration with Twilio which allows users to text or use interactive voice response (IVR) to control connected devices. So, you can text ‘turn off the lights’ and make it so. Another demo showed a simple device controlled by a SmartApp that would enable apartment dwellers to press the elevator button before leaving their apartments (you might want to check with building management before installation!). We feel it was a great success, but don't take that from us:

‏@nicholas_hagen: Just picked up my #SmartThings kit...super excited to get home and play. Blown away by everything, beyond expectations! #NewToys

@tapsboy: @ahawkinson Awesome product!! From unboxing to creating account to reading the manual and setup of all 5 sensors .... only 30 min

@RobliketheVerb: Holy crap @smartthings is freaking awesome. Now I have a reason to replace all the x10 in my house with zwave.

A fun integration that we didn’t demo was the use of Alfred to control SmartThings. You can see it below.

Today was a milestone for SmartThings. As planned, we began kitting and shipping to our Kickstarter backers from our warehouse. After fixing a few unexpected issues with the integration to the warehouse management system, we spent a lot of time training a full team on all the different unique kit combinations to make sure you get the items you ordered in your SmartThings kit. We made good progress, though we weren’t able to hit the volumes we hoped to on Day 1 from the new facility. We start again at 7AM Monday and expect to complete the first 500 either Monday or Tuesday.

Moving forward, our pace of delivery will be tied to receipt of inventory from the manufacturer. We are expecting the components to be completed for another 1000 kits next week and 1000 the week after. We will kit and ship as soon as these component parts are at the warehouse. As of Monday, we’ll be shipping Kickstarter reward kits to backers every day.

On international, we’ve scheduled time to test our existing devices and enclosures in the pre-certification lab. This will be based on the current design, so as soon as we know if a redesign is required to meet ESD compliance, we’ll let you know.

Thank you,

The SmartThings Team

We’ve been too quiet on updates. Lots of possible excuses....ranging from the obvious (we’re super heads down cranking on the product, fulfillment, etc) to the exotic (board burrs, flux residue, testing over the air firmware updates, even April thundersnow). None matter. We’ll be better, starting with this detailed update.

Today, we continue fulfillment progress with a SmartThings delivery event in San Francisco. We’ll personally deliver 100 kits, enjoy 300 beers (that’s a good ratio, right?), and be able to say thank you face-to-face.   

We’ll also be demoing some exciting SmartThings integrations. From the SmartCrockpot to a Minecraft Mod, to an IR receiver and transmitter, our community is helping to make the world smarter.

Next Thursday, April 18th we’re doing it again in NYC. Email ben@smartthings.com if you want to attend (and have access to an iOS 6+ device). Space is limited.

If you are an Android user, here is the direct update. We have a beta in use within our development team, but it is at least a month before we can get a public version released. If you’d like to get your kit earlier and have access to an iOS device, we’ll send it earlier. If you’d like to participate in the beta Android app, let us know that too. We are adding multiple additional full time mobile developers to our engineering team (25 and growing), and are committed to keeping Android at parity or better once we get the app launched.

To date, all kitting and shipping has been done by hand out of our office in Minneapolis. You might have seen this video of receiving boxes and packaging into the office. That’s about to change. Next Friday, April 19th, our scaled shipping and fulfillment center comes online. For iOS device users, we will schedule your delivery date beginning on April 19th based on when you backed us, backer tier, and availability of the SmartThings you chose. We plan to ship up to 1,000 kits weekly starting on that date.

When you get your kit, the unpacking experience will look like this:

Before you unpack your kit, take a moment and watch this tutorial of how the SmartThings mobile app works:

Then watch this video about how SmartApps work:

Those should give you some good insight into how to get started with SmartThings and begin to make your world smarter. We have also added a bunch of helpful video tutorials right into the mobile app itself and will making lots of improvements based on your feedback.

International Update

For our International backers, here is our best sense of status:

• There are 36 countries or territories that will accept our FCC certification such that we can legally ship the kits to you. Unfortunately, there are only 8 of you who live in those countries. We are progressing that anyway and are waiting for feedback on cost and registration requirements. We’ve asked our certification partner for details
• We have completed pre-certification for CE on the SmartThings Hub and we passed. This is great news as it moves us closer to an initial scenario where backers can receive their hub and use it with hundreds of 3rd party things that are already internationally certified.
• We need to do the same CE testing for all the extended SmartThings devices, including the SmartSense Presence, SmartSense Motion, and SmartSense Multi.
• We are actively researching compatible 3rd party products for moisture, outlets, alarms and lighting such that we have a rounded product set. If you have experience in your country with any Z-wave or ZigBee devices you like best, share them in the comments and we’ll add to our list.
• As part of certification of our devices, we have to swap out the current ZigBee module we use with an alternate module (since what’s in there now is amplified at a level that is not certifiable in the EU and elsewhere where lower signal strength is required). This is at least 2-3 more weeks of design and then production setup will take 6-8 weeks.
• Our biggest concern on certification is the ESD (electrostatic discharge) testing compliance. Basically, we have to drop a lightning bolt on the devices and they need to come through smelling like roses. Not fried roses.
• Based on pre-certification testing, the Hub should be okay. We’re not as sure on the end devices. We haven’t zapped them yet.
• If the devices do not pass ESD testing, then the best strategy for improving their tolerance is to increase the size of the enclosures. Basically put more insulation (read: air) between the PCB and the source of the ESD. This requires enclosure redesigns and then new molds/new enclosure production. This is at least a 45 day process.
• So we’d like your feedback.....we can partner with existing providers of CE-certified devices - like motion and contact sensors - ensure they work with our Hub, and likely deliver quicker, but the design of those devices would not be under our control. Or we can redesign and certify our own devices with the Hub as planned (and as we intend to do), and take longer. Which would you prefer?

Based on the feedback on the last question, we’ll provide another update with timing.

As always, please accept our sincere thanks for all your continued support.

The SmartThings Team