The following is a photo shoot of the final wristbands. Other than the obvious color and logo change (which we are very happy with), there are a few minor changes here that together make a difference. The elastic is much more stretchy, making the wristband much more comfortable. The stitching has been slightly adjusted to look and feel better, too. While we aren’t thrilled with the wrinkling around the edges, it has no effect on the comfort of the wristband.

Overall the wristband is very comfortable and we are extremely happy with the final product. It hides the electronics well and it’s very difficult to tell they are inside during normal wear. It’s like wearing a microfiber pillow!

As seen in the bottom left picture, you do not need to remove the electronics from the wristband to turn the unit on or off or to charge it. Just bend the wristband a bit (or turn it inside out as in the picture) to perform these functions.

We are still waiting on an expedited timeline from the manufacturer, but the order is being placed and we will update you when we know more.

Current Shipping:

We will be shipping the first batch of new units in mid-August. We have a small batch (<5% of all orders) already built, but with 1st generation wristbands. Anyone who gets the 1st generation wristband will be sent the new version as soon as we have them.

As for the mass manufacturing and fulfillment of the bulk of the orders, please see below for the timeline laid out as clearly as we can right now.

Mass Manufacturing:

Wristbands: We are getting samples of the final wristband on 8/6 and will be starting the mass build immediately after that. The mass build will take 30 days, but we have a request in for an expedited build and hope to get that down as much as possible. Even if we cannot, we will be able to ship out in batches as the factory makes them.

Hardware: We will be sending boards with the final layout in for prototyping on Monday. We will have them back by the end of next week. Assuming everything goes well we can start the large build immediately. There is a lead-time on the boards of about 2-3 weeks, but we can pay extra to expedite this as well, which we will do depending on the timeline we get for the wristbands. The one thing that could hold us up here is that we are implementing a new flash memory chip – while it should work flawlessly, there is always the chance it could cause a slight snag.

Apple Authentication: Once we have the new boards we will send them in to apple for the final certification. We can’t release much detail, but we are working with them closely and assuming everything goes smoothly their estimated time for approval is 2 weeks. Because of this we will be sending out units to our Blackberry and Android customers first.

There have been some questions around pre-orders so let me clarify. All pre-order customers (orders placed before April 1st) will be receiving Free Shipping and Free Lifetime Premium Features. The premium features have not been announced yet and everything currently on the site will be free for everyone.

In the next few weeks look for the redesign of our website including a new demo video and a new product tour detailing all the features with screenshots.

P.S. If you paid via PayPal you will be receiving a refund in the next few days (the request for mass refund was placed today). Do not worry; we still have your order and your place in the queue. Once these payments are refunded no one who pre-ordered (Google or PayPal) will have been charged any money and as a result will be charged $50 upon shipment.

~Greg, Arun, Craig, Tom

We’re down to three items on our to-do list before we can ship.

We may not hit the July 31st date at this point, but we’ll come close. We’ll post an updated ship date (measured in days or weeks at worst, not months) when we have a better idea of when it will be and will be posting small updates more frequently as so few issues remain outstanding. Additionally, our first run should cover orders slated for August and a large part of September as well, so later ship dates will actually be moved up rather than back.

1. Apple MFI certification

Everything is finally working with the Apple authentication protocol and we just have to submit the WakeMate to Apple for their final approval. Dealing with the finicky authentication chip took up about 75% of our hardware development time and new quirks were being found all the time, particularly with our final board; look for a future blog post with the frustrating details. As far as we’re aware, no commercial product has made use of Apple’s authentication 2.0B coprocessor chip over Bluetooth yet so we’re not surprised by the number of strange issues we’ve encountered.

2. New wristband final touches

We are on what should be our final iteration of the new wristband. Here’s a photo of the current iteration:

Which is relatively close to the original concept drawing done by the design firm months ago:

We’ve learned during the industrial design process that concept drawings can be difficult to realize. The wristband is close to being something we are very happy with. We’re currently dealing with:

• An excess of fabric / bulk
• Bad elastic
• Heat-seal issues (hence the stitching and split ends in the above photo)

3. An unexpected part disappearance

The Flash memory we have been using up to this point is suddenly on factory restriction with a lead time of 26 weeks. We’re now forced to use a different Flash memory component which requires another spin of our PCB and testing before we feel confident going to production. This was an unexpected change, but not a very difficult one to make.

And that’s all we—hey, is that supposed to be on fire?

Other than these few issues, we’re pretty much ready to go. We recently passed FCC and CE certifications and continue to make progress on all fronts.

To all of you who’ve pre-ordered, we express our deepest thanks for your continued patience. You took a chance on a new, unproven company and your support has gotten us where we are today. We’re not perfect and we’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way but you’ve stuck with us anyway. Now that we’re finally nearing the finish line we want to recognize that it is largely because of you that we’ve kept running these past six months.

So, from all of us at WakeMate, thank you.

Somehow, July is already here! I’m sure time isn’t going so quickly for those of you patiently (or dejectedly) waiting for your WakeMate, but it has certainly flown by for us! Given that our adjusted ship dates called for many more pre-order units to go out by the end of this month, we figured it’s about time for an update (okay, a bit on the late side even).

A lot has happened since April, besides what we’ve shown on the blog. To highlight, we’ve:

• Lined up a local manufacturing partner for faster turnaround
• Designed and implemented a new board layout that gives vastly improved Bluetooth performance as well as battery life
• Sourced all parts for said board
• Designed and prototyped a new wristband, currently in its final production revision
• Expanded and improved phone support
• Iterated on the Analytics site, making it more useful and eye-catching
• Dealt with regulation, Apple approval, packaging, etc.

So where does this leave us in terms of shipping by the end of July? We remain optimistic—if we don’t make it by month’s end, we’ll definitely get close. We’re addressing a couple minor snags but the hard problems have been solved and it’s now a matter of urging the gears of industry to turn more quickly; something they’re not accustomed to doing. In April, we felt it extremely conservative to say we’d be shipping by July 30th; as any new company can tell you, things never happen the way you think they will and we were no exception.

We’ve overcome a lot this year and learned a ton in the process. Many mistakes have been made, to be sure (I’m considering writing a book)—but through them we’ve been working tirelessly to ship the product we’ve promised and couldn’t be more psyched to finally see the finish line.

I have been with WakeMate for about seven months now, but Arun and Greg have been toiling on this idea for over two years. Although no money was ever collected from those who have pre-ordered Although only a small amount of money was collected (but not touched) from the pre-orders*, we’ve received many emails from people who reasonably thought they’d be getting their WakeMate in a timely fashion (or worse, thought we stole from them). Trust me when I tell you, nobody wants this product in your hands more than we do and we wanted it in them much sooner.

Finally, a special thanks to our Beta testers who have helped iron out bugs in the product these past few months; you’ve ensured we appear far less incompetent to everybody else

The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew

*the majority of pre-orders (> 80%), which were through Google Checkout, were never charged; the Paypal pre-orders, however, were.