Fri Aug 16 '19 Announcement
over 4 years ago – Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 09:55:36 PM

Dear Wynd community,

The Wynd team has been working hard and we’re close to the finish line! We wanted to provide an update on our progress, and the shipping schedule.

Halos are lined up and ready to roll

Product progress

First a quick update on some additional improvements we've been making to the Halo product since our last update.  We know we targeted shipping in May and we’re already 3 months late, and we're truly sorry about missing the target. However, we are committed to bringing you the best possible product, and had to spend a bit more time on several items:

• Over the Air (OTA) updates - the ability to conduct the wireless delivery of updated firmware. OTA is required when we want to upgrade the firmware of our devices, or automatically send fixes for any embedded hardware issues. In our previous generation of devices, we only had to develop OTA for one microchip. This time around, we had to make it work on 5 different electronic chipsets and it took longer than expected.

Chips that require OTA programming in our Halo and Home Purifier

• Wi-fi fixes - this is the first time we’ve created products over wi-fi and had to upgrade the wi-fi chip. Also, we wanted to implement several layers of security so we can ensure your data and privacy are secure. Each device has its own unique digital certificate installed at the time of manufacturing!

Our firmware engineer testing several layers of security to enable wi-fi

Shipping plan

We wanted to use this update to focus particularly on shipping, and understand that everyone’s anticipating having their Wynd Halos and Home Purifiers in hand. With over 3,000 pre-orders going to over 75 countries, many logistics are involved in finding the best fulfillment solutions to ensure we ship the products in a timely, cost effective, and environmentally friendly manner.   

Preparing master carton boxes and packaging

We are on track to begin shipping at the end of August, however, we have separated the shipments in multiple batches where the majority of products will be shipped in September. The shipment method in most cases, and especially if you ordered the 12 kg Home Purifier, will be by boat in an effort to reduce negative environmental impact and to optimize on shipping costs. We are preparing for a three-phase shipping plan as follows:

First shipment will begin last week of August. These will be our units that are First-off-the-line (FOTL), which is extra special but also means the recipients of these units will be part of a Pioneer Program and one of the first to receive the products, ever! To set expectations, while we thoroughly check all units for quality, these FOTL units  may have unidentified bugs which we hope to have identified and then readily fixed before the next batch of production. Don’t worry though, we promise you will have the same end product with the full set of features as everyone else, and if your FOTL doesn’t work as advertised then we will replace it with a unit from the next production batch.

We’ll be reaching out to backers in China, Hong Kong and those near our office in the US Bay Area who had signed up from the previous Beta Tester program – if you’re interested in being part of the Pioneer Program please fill out the form here.

Second shipment will be from a much larger production batch, and will begin shipping in early   to our customers in the US, Canada, and Mexico. This is because orders from North America were of the largest order volume.

Third shipment will be dispatched towards mid to end of September to our customers in the rest of the world. 

Complete your backer surveys 

You’ll be receiving your tracking information on the products shipments as it becomes available. If you have not done so already, PLEASE fill out your Backerkit information – the FINAL deadline is 3:00PM PST, TOMORROW Saturday, August 17. Also, We’ve emailed all backers who had ordered an extra wall mount if you have not done so already, please respond to the email as to whether you would still like to keep that order.

For any specific inquiries please let us know. We will be sending out another update on mass manufacturing, and software soon, as there’s been tons of progress!  We understand that everyone’s been patiently waiting for their Halo and Home Purifier units and appreciate your continuous support.

Warm Regards,

The Wynd Team

Tue Jul 23 '19 Announcement
almost 5 years ago – Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 02:23:39 PM

Dear Backers,

We’ve been quite busy these past few weeks in both the Bay Area (where our headquarters and main R&D is) as well as in Shenzhen (where our factory is that will be making units for everyone). We are one major step closer to mass production, and wanted to provide the latest update with a summary of a key milestone called Design Verification Testing (DVT), as well as preparation for final Mass Production (MP).

Our test assembly line at Aztech. We have developed Standard Operating Procedures (there are papers hanging above each station) to instruct the factory and their teams how to build, assembly, and quality check every component and system.

Design Verification Testing

DVT stands for Design Validation Testing, and it’s a critical step of the manufacturing process where we work make sure it meets all the technical and cosmetic specifications. We wanted to take you through several examples of product improvements we’ve made as a result of DVT.

Light diffuser

In our earlier DVT prototypes, the light diffuser for the ring around the Halo didn’t sufficiently disperse the light from the LEDs outlining the face of the Halo, resulting in a “dotted-line” look. We experimented with a variety of options to fix, including switching the material. We ended up adding a thin coating of white paint to the inside of the LED enclosure to prevent light from leaking into the rest of the device and direct it out through the diffuser. This did the trick, and, now, there’s a continuous halo of light around the Halo!

Packaging

Sneak peak of prototypes of the Halo packaging. These samples have different foams that we tried to optimize for protection of the device as well as environmental-friendliness.

We did this +500 times to ensure the perfect fit and resistance when pulling the Halo out the sleeve.

The unboxing experience sounds trivial when compared to things like hardware and software, but we still want you to have a great experience. We used premium-feeling, recyclable XPE foam inserts to make sure both your Halo and the planet are safe, and iterated box specifications to ensure a sturdy, premium feel, while also being easy to unbox.

While we have been mostly working 7 days a week at the factory, we did get to eat some tasty street food, including these tasty oblong pancakes.

Thanks for all of your patience as we work to get you your units. We really appreciate your support since this campaign started in November of last year, and want to make you proud you waited to get the good quality products you deserve. As always, please feel free to email us at [email protected] with any questions or feedback. We look forward to updating you soon with more progress!

Regards,

They Wynd Team

P.S. Here’s an awesome campaign we love!

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The HUB is Discord Sound's flagship waterproof wireless earbud with a record-breaking 100 battery life and wireless charging with a ton of other features: 

➿  100 Hours of Playtime On The Go
➿  Smart Ambient Mode
➿  Wireless Charging Compatible

➿  Hands-Free Music + Call + Voice Assistant
➿  Doubles As Power Bank - Charge Your Phone to Full!

We think you'd all love their product too, so we scored a $10 discount off EARLY BIRD pricing - exclusive to our campaign! Make sure to use THIS Secret Perk link on your computer (it's sometimes buggy on desktop) to see it! You can read more about their campaign HERE.

Wed Jul 3 '19 Announcement
almost 5 years ago – Wed, Jul 03, 2019 at 07:38:08 PM

Happy July everyone! We wanted to provide a quick update on our progress, including improvements we’re making to the products based on input from our beta testing. 

For the past 6 weeks, we’ve been running beta testing for the Home Purifier. Several Bay Area backers were provided with pre-product Purifiers to try out in their own homes, and we’ve received some great feedback! 

Some things they liked are:

• How easy it is to unbox, set-up, and begin running the unit.
• The sleek and unobstructive design of the purifier.
• Its effectiveness in different situations, such as in bedrooms to help with sleep or kitchens to reduce cooking smoke.

Some of our Beta testers used the Purifier in the kitchen during and after cooking. The Purifier removes smoke particulates as well as odors.

Other Beta testers found it useful in the living room

Most users placed the Home Purifier in their bedroom and said it helped with sleep

While many testers were happy with aspects of the early units, we also learned about areas of improvement, including:

• The noise level on max was loud. We’re tweaking the fan settings such that most of the time it won’t need to be on max, and offer a more comfortable noise level without compromising on filtration efficacy.
• The Home Purifier has a light strip to indicate settings as well as local air quality. Sometimes it was confusing what visual information was being presented. Our design team is working to make the UI more intuitive.

The Home Purifier is best paired with the Wynd Halo, which we’ll also release for beta testing this month. 

We loved this photo...

If you're reading this update and wish to participate in the next round of beta testing, don't worry we will have more units soon for testing! If you haven’t already signed up for beta testing please do so here. 

Shipping information

If you haven’t done so already please complete your Wynd BackerKit survey by the end of this week! A lot of work goes into managing the logistics of shipping thousands of large units around the world, so please help us ensure we have all the right information to get the product to you quickly. We suspect some people may have used their “spam email” instead of their primary email for their Kickstarter account, so they may have missed the BackerKit email. If you think this might be the case for you, check your Kickstarter email account and search for “BackerKit” or “Wynd”. If you can’t find it, email us at [email protected].

Here’s a picture from our last Kickstarter of a complete pallet about to head to our warehouse for worldwide shipping - this is the goal! We are doing a significant amount of work on organizing shipping and logistics, including finalizing shipping partners, designing the master cartons and pallets, determining shipping rules by country, and more.

 

On manufacturing we’ve been hard at work both in the Bay Area as well as at our contract manufacturing facility in Shenzhen. We’ll be sending another update next week on the details of the Design Verification Testing, so please stay tuned! 

We will keep you updated on our progress and as always please send us any questions, feedback, and comments. Thanks again for your support of Wynd Halo and Home Purifier. 

With love,

Wynd team

San Francisco, CA

Fri May 31 '19 Announcement
almost 5 years ago – Fri, May 31, 2019 at 05:30:01 PM

Dear Wynd Community,

Thanks again for your support and patience as we bring Halo and Home Purifier to life! In our last update we mentioned that the next key milestones are to begin the Engineering Validation Test (EVT). We are happy to report that we are on track and have provided a more detailed update for those of you who want to follow along this journey below:

Engineering Validation Testing (EVT)

We have begun this critical phase of manufacturing, with the goal to ensure that the initial 25 trial-run products made at our factory satisfy all the key functional requirements. Below are some of the work we’ve been doing:

Tooling

We finished the steel tooling used to make the plastic enclosures for the Wynd Halo and Home Purifier. It took us T+2 (3 refinement stages total) to get the tools to fit just right. Mechanical engineering should now be mostly complete, and now we can mass produce the outer shells of the Halo and Home Purifier!

Completed tooling for Halo - shape of the Halo backside, including the USB-C port on the left image. On the right image you can see the front-side which shows the spacing for the LCD screen​

Buying supplies

To make anything at scale requires the preparation of materials. Even if we’re missing a single $0.01 resistor the product would not work at all.

Some materials that we purchased for a manufacturing trial run for EVT at the factory. These materials include plastics (left), rubberized backing (middle), and front-plates with the logo pre-etched (right).

PCBA

On the hardware, most of the critical components are the electronics (including the screen, power controllers, sensors, etc.) and they reside on PC Board Assemblies (PCBA). The process to create finished PCBA’s that work starts with making a “Gerber file” (unrelated to babies) which specifies precisely how the conductive layers, metallic pads for receiving electronic components, and other design specs can be translated to making an actual board.

We ran into some challenges finalizing this file due to changes we had to make during testing. For example, we had to upgrade a chip to store more memory to provide over the air updates, resulting in larger file transfers. Two weeks ago we finalized the Gerber file and started making actual boards at the factory. Here are some photos of our PCBA process:

Finished PC boards (the black and green pieces) with copper wiring etched, and ready for electronic components to be placed onto them

Here we see a line of SMT component placements systems (otherwise known as “pick and place machines”) where our electrical engineer is programming the machines to know what chips to grab from the reels and where to place them on the PCB. The reels feeding into the machine contain resistors, capacitors, inductors, chips, and all other PCB components.   

Examples of sub-assemblies to combine the PCBA to the enclosure.

Fully assembled Halo

With a finished product, we also need to run a number of mechanical and electrical system tests to make sure they function correctly. These functional tests include sensor accuracy, connectivity (WiFi for example), and others. In addition, we are putting these EVT units to a variety of reliability tests including drop, vibration, temperature cycling, and other tests so that the end product is high quality.

We will keep you updated on our progress and as always please send us any questions, feedback, and comments. Thanks again for your support of Wynd Halo and Home Purifier.

With love,

Wynd team

San Francisco, CA

Tue May 28 '19 Announcement
almost 5 years ago – Tue, May 28, 2019 at 11:56:10 PM

Dear backers,

We hope you are all doing well! Thanks again for supporting our Indiegogo InDemand campaign. I know it's been a few weeks since our last update, and we are working on a detailed progress report from our Engineering Validation Test that's currently underway at the factory. Please be on the lookout for the update this week!

See below for a sneak peek of one of the units from EVT (note that it's not the final product but will be used to test for functionality. We are making 25 of them them in this phase, and afterwards will spend additional time during DVT and PVT to tweak the final cosmetic finish as well as prepare for the actual mass production of 4,000+ units.

Please don't hesitate to ask us any questions or provide any feedback. You can send questions directly to us via IGG or at [email protected].

Thanks!

Wynd team