Thu Apr 11 '19 Announcement
almost 7 years ago
– Thu, Apr 11, 2019 at 06:18:57 PM
Hi Indiegogo Family,
We are back with a quick update!
iOS App Is Live!
The iOS app is now available to download on the App Store! We are very excited that the Mu tag is now ready to be used and are very eager to hear about your experiences. We’ll be setting up backer interviews in the coming weeks to get your feedback and learn how we can improve your experience.
This is only the beginning!
Fulfillment Progress
A few weeks ago we started fulfillment with a small batch of backers to test out the process and the fulfillment company. As mentioned in our previous update, we ran into several problems during this process. The biggest issue was shipping to international backers because of the lithium-ion cell inside of the Mu tag.
We continue to have issues with the international shipments, but are in the process of working through it. In the meantime, we are now locking down addresses for all backers within the US that are part of the 400 Mu tag batch. All of you that are part of this next shipment should have already received an email with the details.
We’ll Be Back Soon With More
That’s all for now. Don’t forget to send all of your questions or concerns to [email protected].
Again and as always, thank you all very much for your support! We couldn’t do this without you!
Fri Apr 5 '19 Announcement
almost 7 years ago
– Fri, Apr 05, 2019 at 03:32:38 AM
Hi Indiegogo Family,
We have amazing news for you all… We have started shipping!
The 400 Mu tag batch is going out and several backers have already started receiving their pledges. You should be able to find the iOS app in the App Store by the end of next week.
This is such an exciting accomplishment for us!
It’s been a long journey. We are now more than 15 months behind our promised delivery date. We totally understand why some of you have become frustrated or even infuriated with the late delivery. We will continue to sacrifice and do whatever it takes to get a quality product into your hands as quickly as possible.
iOS App in the App Store
The app is now being submitted to the App Store and should be available by the end of next week. Apple goes through a required reviewal process before any app is published on the App Store and this process can take a few days.
Tom completed the following as mentioned in the last update:
- Firebase security rules
- Enforcing single-device login
- Implement showing updates of Mu tag battery level
- Optimize phone battery consumption
However, after completing these app updates, we did some internal testing among the team and friends only to discover that we had to completely refactor all of the Bluetooth code! The process of adding a Mu tag would not work at all in some environments that had many other Bluetooth devices around. Extremely frustrating! At this point Tom has rewritten nearly the entire app after obtaining the source code from the previous development company.
After the Bluetooth refactor we have performed a lot more internal testing and things are working really well. We are now ready to get the app into your hands and get some feedback. For those who already received the Mu tags, you will receive an email from us when the app is live in the App Store. We would love to hear your feedback soon.
For those who don't have the product in hand yet, please also download the app and check out the app user interface. Your feedback is also very valuable to us for our app improvement.
Feedback can be directly submitted within our app under Settings → Support and Feedback.
400 Unit Delivery
We have begun shipping the 400 Mu tag batch with our fulfillment partner ShipBob, but we must be cursed because nothing ever goes smoothly for use. There is now a problem with international shipments due to the lithium-ion cell inside of our Mu tag. New regulations in 2019 have limitations for air shipments which are currently limiting us to only two Mu tags per package for international shipments according to ShipBob.
Many of you have ordered more than two Mu tags so this must be resolved. Currently we are in discussion with DHL, ShipBob, and our battery manufacturer to find a resolution. After carefully reviewing these new regulations, it is to our best understanding that we should be able to ship at least four Mu tags per package.
The regulations have a distinction between a lithium-ion ‘cell’ and lithium-ion ‘battery’. According to our electrical engineer, Raza, our Mu tag contains a lithium-ion ‘cell’, not ‘battery’. The regulations require four or less cells per package and two or less batteries per package.
Next Batch Production
During last month, we made a major mechanical design change with our contracted manufacturing engineer.
Here is the latest Mu charger design below.
With this new design, you can take the Mu tag off the charger much easier than before. The two sides curve next to the pogo pins which are designed for your fingers.
Both the Mu tag and Mu charger have strong N52 magnets inside of the plastic shells and have finally achieved a fantastic magnetic fit!
We are finalizing the last details of the new injection mold designs, the final product testing requirements, and acceptance criteria with our contract manufacturing this very moment. Once that is done, we sign the formal manufacturing service agreement and kick-off the 10,000 unit production at a full speed!
We have also required our injection molder to use the high-end NAK80 steel imported from Japan to ensure the highest of quality. Ask us what this means just a few months ago and we would have had a very confused look on our face. We sure have learned a lot since being left with a few Chinese addresses and told that we were all on our own by the last CM.
To make it this far on our shoestring budget has been an absolute miracle. One of blood, sweat, and tears. It will all be worth it when the Mu tag puts a smile on your face every day!
Refund Policy Update
As mentioned in the last update, we are very sorry to inform everyone that we no longer have the ability to process refunds. We allowed refund requests for one year and a half, keeping it open for as long as possible. All funds, personal credit cards, and loans have been allocated to manufacturing production. We are extremely low on cash and have no other choice moving forward to ensure backer delivery and product success.
How To Update My Shipping Address?
To update your address, go back to your BackerKit survey by inputting your Indiegogo email here. If you are not able to update the address through the link above or need any additional help, please email us at [email protected] for the fastest response.
Thank you very much for your continued support. We truly hope to amaze and please you with your final product!
Tue Feb 19 '19 Announcement
about 7 years ago
– Tue, Feb 19, 2019 at 02:09:36 PM
Hi Indiegogo Family,
We have some great news to share everyone!
First of all, we finished the new and improved mechanical design by working directly with a new mold factory. It reduces assembly issues and increases the yield.
Secondly, we formed a strategic partnership with a trusted 34 year-old manufacturer in which they become a shareholder of informu. With such a partnership, we will ensure the highest cooperation and the quickest delivery. We completely stopped working with the previous plastic manufacturer.
Thirdly, the iOS app is very close to being ready. It has achieved great stability within our internal testing. More details will be explained below.
400 Unit Delivery
To clear up any confusion, we have not yet shipped any Mu tags from the 400 batch. The product has been resting in the distribution warehouse until the iOS app is ready to use.
When the software development company gave up on our project, they left us an app with many bugs and a few incomplete complete features. We initially thought that cleaning up the remaining bugs would be much quicker than it has turned out to be. Please find more details below on the iOS app progress.
Improved Mechanical Design
As we mentioned in previous updates, the mechanical design of the plastic parts lead to assembly issues and low yields. We decided to make structural changes to the mechanical design to resolve the issues and have now finished the major changes. We worked with the Chinese tool designer very closely to ensure mistakes were not repeated. To name few changes, on the Mu tag we removed the tiny magnet insert process and changed the button position to make the click feedback better and Mu tag thinner. We changed the Mu charger completely to make it easier to align the charging pogo pins and connect to the charger snugly.
Here is our first CNC sample of the new Mu tag and Mu charger design. It’s spray painted and assembled by hand, so this sample shows many flaws that will not remain in the final product.
Strategic Manufacturer Partnership Formed
In December and January, Lang visited 8 different manufacturers before determining which one to work with. We decided to work with a Hong Kong-based CM, HT (abbrv). The factory has 34 years of experience making consumer product plastic parts and is very interested in growing with our company.
Due to the lack of cash, we seriously need a manufacturer who can cover all manufacturing cost up-front and we have convinced HT to do so. In this partnership, HT will lend up to $500,000 credit to informu to cover production cost, in which informu can pay back later. In exchange, informu gives a small percentage of equity to HT. This partnership brings multiple benefits to both parties and all backers. With HT owning informu shares, there is much more incentive towards the long-term success and well-being of informu. Product quality and production speed is now in the best interest of our manufacturer.
iOS App progress
Since the software development company gave up on our project, Tom continues to discover very poor quality code that has required lots of major refactoring of the iOS app. We are doing our best to minimize the amount of refactoring required, but we continue to uncover bugs that are easier to fix by a refactor.
It’s now very clear that the previous software development company failed to complete the project due to bad practices and development quality. This caused debugging to become a slow and grueling process, forcing them over their underestimated budget and to eventually give up altogether. Our app seems to be just beyond the threshold where poor development practices begin to exponentially increase the challenge of debugging and time to delivery. Lean and rapid software development does not mean a hack-it-together approach.
The iOS app is very close to being ready. Here is what remains before the iOS app is ready to ship along with the 400 Mu tag batch.
- Complete Firebase security rules
- Enforce single-device login
- Implement showing updates of Mu tag battery level
- Optimize phone battery consumption
- A final round of internal testing and debugging
Our Left Behind notifications are now working well, but as you can see in the screenshot below our app is consuming a lot of battery. Highly accurate location updates are the culprit, but are extremely important for the functionality of our product. A major complaint that Tile customers have is completely inaccurate locations when they lose something. It’s quite a challenge to maintain low battery consumption while maintaining highly accurate location tracking. From a cold start, it can take anywhere from thirty seconds up to one minute before getting an accurate location reading. These sort of delays do not work for us because our product requires very quick response times. We are already using the accelerometer to power down location tracking while the phone is not moving, but should be able to fine-tune this some more. We’ll also conduct some more tests to quantify the battery life consumption of different modes and operations to better understand our options.
February Update #1 continued ...
Tue Feb 19 '19 Announcement
about 7 years ago
– Tue, Feb 19, 2019 at 02:04:59 PM
... February Update #1 continued
Since the last update, Tom has completed the following.
Various bug fixes
- Fixed bug that can cause Mu tag 'last seen' update to crash
- Fixed bug where Mu tag would not add properly to Firebase
- Fixed bug where removing Mu tag could get stuck on a spinner forever
- Fixed error message bug when user does not exist with entered email address.
- Downgraded several library versions for Xcode 9 compatibility
Create new login/logout session system (The old code was completely impossible to debug. Worst code quality found to this date in the app.)
- Started adding re-authentication requirement for account deletion
- Fixed re-authentication requirement when deleting password type Firebase user
- Stopped Activity Manager permission alerts if authorization has not been determined. Also did the same for Location Manager permission alert.
- Replaced main thread sync closures with thread safe ones
- Fixed back button on navigation views not working
- Created a test for ValidPassword
- Fixed ValidPassword Regex
- Fixed password text field error messages on all screens with password fields
- Updated error messages
- Cleaned up the Session module; Refactored the way Realm stores Session State and how Session State is updated.
- Fixed screen loading based on Session State.
- All functionality complete. Just need return errors for invalid function calls is different Session states.
- Completed more logic in Session States
- Cleaned up more bullsh*t from controllers and AppDelegate
- Started moving login/session logic from View Controllers to new Session module
- Basic Session module framing complete
- Created the framing for a new Session module
- Disabled syncing from Firebase if user is already logged in
- Stopped writing 'lastSeen' to Firebase every update and instead only upon user logout
Create new Smart Notification system
- Disabled remaining application badge number changes
- Changed the minimal Safe Zone radius to 50m
- Fixed Mu tag Status updates
- Added heuristics for Safe Snooze, Checked In, and Picking Up
- Fixed crash on Mu tag Details screen by refactoring out the requirement for an unmanaged Realm object
- Fixed crash caused when SecureState was first saved to Mu tag during Add New Mu tag
- Fixed heuristics for SecureState to work when user exits Safe Zone
- Disabled access to CLLocationManager in iBeaconService
- Fixed current location source for various map screens
- Fixed bug where locations stopped continuously updating after app terminated
- Fixed stopping Mu tag monitoring after Mu tag is removed
- Moved Firebase configuration and Crashlytics initialization to 'willFinishLaunchingWithOptions' because these should be setup before anything else
- Fixed bug of first 'recentValidLocation' update being ignored in 'didSet'
- Added location update callbacks to LocationService
- Fixed Map screen user location updating using LocationService update callbacks
- Disabled SmartNotifier. It's now legacy.
- Fixed bug of clearing optimalLocationSearchCache in LocationService too early.
- Added tracking of user in Safe Zones to LocationService.
- Refactored the way Mu tag locations are being updated.
- Completed and debugged SmartNotificationState
- Refactored the way Mu tags receive didExit/EnterRegion events
- Removed legacy code from FIRMuTagModel
- Excluded new leftBehindState and secureState Mu tag properties in Firebase singleton
- Completed SmartNotificationState classes
- Fixed bug where LocationService activity could not update in background
- Updated some Mu tag instances to Mu tag ManagedObject instead
- Started modifying SmartNotifier logic
Once the iOS app has shipped, we’ll immediately begin moving forward on Android. Tom will first assess the options we have for Android. The former software development company still wants us to pay more in order to received the Android source code, however we expect it to be just as poor of quality as iOS. This means with all of the refactoring required, it might be quickest to start over from scratch.
Our preliminary plan is to hire an experienced Android developer to work directly with Tom. They will likely build a new app from scratch on React Native for Android. This will ensure a clean app with proper planning, development practices, and architecture. As already mentioned, Tom will need to compare different options for the new plan moving forward. We’ll proceed with the option that we believe will be quickest to deliver a high quality experience.
Refund Policy Update
We are very sorry to inform everyone that we no longer have the ability to process refunds. We allowed refund requests for one year and a half, keeping it open for as long as possible. All funds, personal credit cards, and loans have been allocated to the manufacturing production. We are extremely low on cash and have no other choice moving forward to ensure backer delivery and product success.
How To Update My Shipping Address?
To update your address, go back to your BackerKit survey by inputting your Indiegogo email here. If you can't update the address through the link above, or need any additional help, please email us at [email protected] for the quickest reply.
As a supportive backer commented in our last update, “A delayed product is almost always better than a broken rushed one, especially for hardware”. We couldn’t agree more.
Thank you all very much for your support and patience! We couldn’t do this without you!
Thu Jan 10 '19 Announcement
about 7 years ago
– Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 12:17:14 PM
Hi Indiegogo Family,
Happy 2019! We hope you all had an amazing holiday with your friends and family.
400 Unit Delivery
As explained in the last update, there were some things that still needed to be buttoned up on the iOS app. Tom was focusing on the data collection system before tackling the other various remaining bugs, but found out that it would take an additional week of debugging to guarantee high data veracity and stable app functionality. He has now shifted focus and completed most of the remaining bugs needed to ship the app so that we are not waiting on the data collection before shipping. Even though data collection is an important feature needed to improve the Smart Notification experience, we’d rather ship sooner with a basic Smart Notification system than to further the delays.
Currently, we are going through another round of internal testing of the iOS app. We want to make sure there are no major usability issues before we release it to all backers. However, nothing can ever be perfect and we expect a few things could be wrong.
Tom has also started studying Code Complete, Second Edition to expedite the development and quality of our apps. This will also help us more wisely search for additional help to complete our Android app.
Next Batch Production
As we explained in the last two updates, we experienced the low yield issue during the last 1,000 unit production due to non-working ICs.
However, the mechanical design of plastic parts also leads to assembly issues and low yield. To be specific, the tiny magnets were really hard to insert into the Mu tag plastic parts and the Mu tag button feedback was not consistent. With all of the mechanical issues, we have decided to make structural changes to the CAD design. These changes will lead to injection mold tool changes.
Our team is putting full effort into preparing the next batch run. To do so, we need to improve the yield by changing designs and selecting the right vendors. The previous CM (contract manufacturer) did not turn over something that was production ready. What they created was only suitable for manufacturing in really small quantities.
We have been notoriously bad at timeline estimations, so it’s better that we don’t even provide them, but instead just continue providing detailed updates on progress. When we are almost certain of a particular time that something will happen, then we’ll of course let everyone know.
Again and as always, thank you all very much for your support! We couldn’t do this without you!
