Thu Jun 7 '18 Announcement
almost 8 years ago
– Thu, Jun 07, 2018 at 09:06:51 PM
Previous Update
Hi Indiegogo Family,
We are back with our May monthly update. The first delivery is right around the corner and we are incredibly excited!
This is a great time to be excited, but we are also sad to announce the departure of Rishabh. He worked on informu from the inception of it's idea through to the realization of a manufactured product.
Unfortunately his last day with us was June 1st due to his Visa limitations. We'll certainly miss him around here and his spirit can’t truly be replaced, but we have found suitable options to fill in the gaps. Before parting ways, Rishabh made sure the release of Mu tag is possible without his involvement.
We are now working with the CM to get it into your hands and have been completely focused on preparing everything for the 1000 Mu tag delivery. There have been a few obstacles in May, but we still expect shipment to occur at the end of this month. We couldn’t be more excited!
Please help out with another survey
Our company is not happy being good, because we expect to be exceptional. We are always doing our best to understand you better and provide the best product experience possible. It would be a huge help for you to take this survey, not for us, but for you.
Some housekeeping
We have setup a new centralized way for communication. Please email us at [email protected] in order to receive the quickest response from our team. We will be slower to respond to any messages sent to us on Indiegogo.
What did we accomplish last month?
Prepared order details for shipment
Thanks to everyone that completed the survey from our last update. It has been a huge help in determining who will be the first to receive from our 1000 Mu tag production. Many of you were happy to update some or all of your Mu tags to the Charcoal color to make you eligible to receive our first shipment. We parsed through everyone’s orders to update any color changes and also asked everyone to verify their order details and address. Everything has been updated from anyone that requested any changes.
Fulfillment partners
Last month we picked back up where we had previously left off on our search for a fulfillment partner. We spoke with several companies and have narrowed it down to a final few options.
New advisor for problems and strategy
We are very excited to announce Jay as a new advisor to the team! We were introduced to Jay by a Quake VC partner while in NYC. After our first conversation with him our minds were melting with the wisdom he shared.
He is an incredible out of the box thinker with decades of experience solving problems for Fortune 500 companies and Silicon Valley startups. He will be guiding us on both technical and business strategy, and helping us to solve any challenge that comes our way.
Hardware
Slight delay on PCB production
Our CM made a mistake which caused a delay in our PCB production. They used Mu charger PCB specifications as Mu tag PCB specifications to produce 1K units of Mu tag PCBs. It was a pure human error which should have been entirely avoided. It caused a delay of two to three weeks. However, the CM replaced the order and got it done. Here is the result.
IC programming worked
After receiving 5 ENIG PCB samples, the CM assembled and programmed them to test. They work as expected which you can see here.
Plastic trial 2 samples received
We also got our hands on the Mu tag and Mu charger plastic trail 2 samples and they look good. However, the paint on the tag and charger makes the plastic parts out of tolerance. We are currently working with the CM to resolve the issue. Once this is done, we can set up the ultrasonic welding for the final assembly.
Software
Prepared app for publishing
In order to minimize delay, we went ahead and prepared our apps for publishing to the App Store and Google Play. Apple can sometimes take up to 2 weeks to publish an app if they find something unapproved in the code. Luckily both iOS and Android apps were approved! Now we’ll just push the update when the final version is ready.
Data collection architecture
We learned a lot when digging through the data we collected during our 100 customer beta testing starting back in December. There were many aspects in the way we were collecting data that needed to be updated and changed. There are also a lot more data points that we have been planning to collect for the final version of the app. This will open up more possibilities that were are excited to announce and increase the user experience of loss prevention.
Tom finalized the architecture for the new data collection. Aside from adding more data points, we are being more strategic in the way we are collecting data. We have focused on maximizing battery life, minimizing size of data being transferred over the network, and having data that is more true to its source without manipulating it or making assumptions.
App debugging
We have ran into more debugging issues than expected which has slightly delayed the app being ready. Our current estimate still shows the app being completely debugged and ready to ship by the end of this month. Our goal is to ensure we deliver the best user experience possible for the Mu tag!
What are we going to do this month?
Ship 1000 Mu tags!
Of course, our goal this month is to ship 1000 Mu tags. This includes:
- finalizing the hardware with our CM
- conducting Mu Charger and Mu tag QC testing
- finishing the app and ensuring the core features work extremely well without bugs
- locking down a fulfillment partner
- finalizing the selection of lucky backers that will be the first to receive the product :)
When can you expect the delivery?
JUST A FEW MORE WEEKS! (end of June)
Again, it would be a huge help if you take our latest survey. Also, don’t forget to email us at [email protected] for the quickest response to any queries.
Thank you all very much for your support! It’s always incredibly appreciated.
Tue May 8 '18 Announcement
almost 8 years ago
– Tue, May 08, 2018 at 07:11:14 PM
Hi Indiegogo Family,
We are back with our April monthly update!
Want to be the first to receive your Mu tag(s)? Then please complete this survey.
What did we accomplish last month?
Demo Day!
We did it! We made it to Demo Day with a product to show off.
Since our 1000 Mu tag run is still in the production process we needed some products to show off during demo day. An incredible amount of effort by the team went into sourcing our own PCBs, connectors, batteries, plastics, and having them in New York completely assembled and working.
Tom traveled from New York to Boulder to assemble 15 Mu tags and Mu chargers by hand and also retrieve the preliminary packaging. He and Rishabh finished them up just in time for Tom to arrive back to New York with working Mu tags at 2am, on the day of Demo Day.
In the end we got to show off the product to many people and made some new investor connections. We feel great about the experience and presentation of our product. In-fact, Lang had a meeting with an investor the very next day!
3rd Place at Invent Penn State
Another opportunity arose a couple of weeks before Demo Day. Lang traveled to Invent Penn State. A conference and networking event for new innovative technologies. We were very surprised to win 3rd place among the exhibitors and a $2,000 check! It was completely unexpected!
Mock-up packaging
Last update we revealed a packaging design for the product. We completed preliminary packaging to have for Demo Day and other promotional opportunities. This packaging is a preliminary design for the retail product and will differ from the packaging we deliver to our backers.
Hardware
The last mile has been fascinating for the team, as the saying goes for the very last mile for any product creation and delivery. CAD drawings are all completed, Assembled 5 samples for PCB assembly, QC of all major components are completed, test assembly on May 20th! Mould and all plastic components will be completed on May 15th, 2018.
T1 plastics were produced and its being painted for us to issue a green signal for the 1k production run, all major components like battery, Magnets, connectors, etc are all QC’d now. After the test assembly on May 25th, estimated production will be on May 29th.
Software
App Milestone 3 in progress
Our goal for April was to complete milestone 3 of app development. All of the milestone 3 features are completed but we are still working through the debugging process. This was one of our largest and most complicated milestones for app development.
Better than expected AI results
Now that all of the data has been cleaned, Tom and the inters got busy building new AI models from the beta run data. It was a very magical moment when our predictive results went from 55% on the dirty data to over 90% on the cleaned data! These results were actually a great surprise to all of us. We thought a lot more data would be needed to start achieving this level of predictive accuracy.
We’ll be collecting a lot more data and data points moving forward, so things will continue to look better and better.
What are we going to do this month?
Finalizing 1000 Mu tags
By the end of this month we expect 1000 Mu tags to be near the end of production and ready for shipment. We are very excited to have made it this far and to get these Mu tags into some of your hands!
Finishing App
Also, by the end of this month we expect to have a completely working app with all of the primary features. Out of 5 milestones we should be completed with milestone 4. Unlike the beta version of the app at the beginning of this year, this app will include the ability to add and manage multiple Safe Zones for your Mu tags.
Visit distributor in LA
Lang will travel to Los Angeles today to visit a distributor. Now that our product is near completion, we have a working app, and some good demo units to show off, it’s time to make some sales to distributors.
When can you expect the delivery?
Be the first to receive your Mu tag!
We are in the process of narrowing down who will be the first to receive their Mu tags from the first batch of 1000. This batch of Mu tags will be all Charcoal color, a choice we had to make in order to speed up the production process. If you would like to be the first to receive your Mu tags, but ordered different colors, we would be happy to completely or partially fulfill your order with Charcoal Mu tags. It’s completely up to you, but you must complete this survey.
Thank you all very much for your support!
Mon May 7 '18 Announcement
almost 8 years ago
– Mon, May 07, 2018 at 02:10:49 PM
Hey Indiegogo Family,
We are locking down all BackerKit surveys to prepare for order fulfillment. If you have not yet filled out your BackerKit survey please complete it now.
You can also go here (https://mu-tag-world-s-smallest-loss-prevention-device-travel.backerkit.com/) to make any changes, complete your survey, or fixed a declined payment. For those of you that have a declined payment, you will receive an email from backer letting you know that there was a problem.
Thanks for your patience and have a great week! We'll be posting the April update very soon.
Thu Apr 19 '18 Announcement
almost 8 years ago
– Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 10:37:26 AM
Hi Indiegogo Family,
Finally, we are back with our March monthly update!
What took us so long?
Mu tag design locked down and in production for the first 1000 units!
Everyone told us that we were trying to do the impossible delivering Mu tags so quickly. We don’t believe in the impossible just because that’s the way things have been done in the past. We came out of the other side with our battle scars now understanding why everyone told us this.
Hardware is hard. That’s no joke. We have relentlessly executed on plan A, B, C, and D to get the first 1000 Mu tags produced and delivered ASAP. Finally, after much strategizing, our first 1000 Mu tags are in production and set to be ready for delivery mid-May!
Update of our branding
We are not another Tile! Branding and messaging is one vitally important aspect if we want to grow as a company is to stand out among our competitors. Although we put the product first, that will only take us so far.
More often than not, when we are explaining our product to someone that has never heard of it before, we get a “Oh, so it’s like Tile”. It’s only after we specifically emphasize ‘Loss Prevention’ and “Proactive, not reactive” that our unique value proposition clicks and the person says “Ohhh, that’s really great! I need that!”.
Through our extensive competitor research and continuous feedback from advisors, potential investors, and potential customers, we have come up with a new branding guide. We are really excited to show everyone the new website in the coming weeks.
Started on packaging
We reviewed many different packaging designs and decided on the configuration seen above. The next step will be to design the outer part of the package with graphics.
Hardware
Since everything has been mostly locked down, Lang has been hard at work pushing things forward with our contracted manufacturer. He went to visit them at their headquarters to review their process and ensure that a quality product will be the result.
We locked down on the Mu Tag v8 and the Mu Charger v3 electrical designs last month. While working with our CM to finalize moldable mechanical designs we made slight modifications to the electrical design. These modifications were tested successfully and have helped us to reduce the size of Mu Charger - as it was interfering with the USB or charging interface on some laptops.
On the Mechanical design side - we made changes in the existing CAD files to make them ready for Injection Molding. The molds have been completed and ordered. This is a huge deal, this will allow us to ramp up our production line in the next coming months.
Currently we are working on finalizing a Production programming and testing jig. This jig would be used to program and test the Mu tags in production. The previous programming jigs we had were meant for small batch programming but this new one will make it easier and faster to program more mu tags.
We have ordered the first 1000 run - PCBs for the Mu charger and Mu Tag. All the components have been ordered except for the Batteries and Connectors which we are in the process of sourcing for higher quantities.
Last month we also put an extraordinary amount of effort in sourcing and getting 50 retail ready Mu tags produced by Quake’s Demo Day. This means that we had to source all of the plastics, PCBs, and components ourselves in order to not slow down the contracted manufacture in producing our first 1000 units.
Firmware
We made some improvements on the firmware as requested by the Software team and also the beta users who are still using the tags. We are trying to find any small bugs and UX issues and fixing them right away.
We have pushed the most stable release to the software team who are in the process of testing and consuming it for the final version of the application.
Software
App Milestone 2 complete
Milestone 2 of our app has been completed and tested! All screens are completed along with all authentication, account control, and database integration.
Next up is Milestone 3 and everything is on track according to our app development schedule.
Obstacle with AI data
We began to explore and train our AI on the data we collected during our previous beta run but something just wasn’t right. After digging deeper into the data we found a major problem with the way it was being written to the database. Training Machine Learning models on bad data is worse than taking Spanish lessons to learn Japanese.
This was one of those “I didn’t sign up for this moments”. After spending days reviewing the code that wrote data to the database and diving deep into the collected data, we came up with a plan to parse and restore 90% of the data to what it originally should have been.
Stay tuned in a few weeks for the results...
What are we going to do this month?
Quake Demo Day
While pushing full force into completing our 1000 Mu tag production, we are getting ready for the big day of our accelerator program. Demo Day is a very unique opportunity to attract investment and build more interest in the Mu tag. Raising our seed round will be a big stepping stone for informu and allow us to greatly increase the quality and value we bring to our customers.
First round of packaging
We need packaging to go along with our 1000 Mu tags when they are ready. This month we’ll be producing and testing our first set of packaging.
Complete App Milestone 3
Completion of Milestone 3 means our app will be fully functional and production ready, but missing just a few non-critical features. These remaining features will be completed during Milestone 4 and 5.
Everything is on track for Milestone 3 to be completed by April 24th. We’ll then begin the process of publishing to the App Store and Play Store!
When can you expect the delivery?
Last month we locked our Mu tags into production for the first 1000 units. We are still driving full force to get the first batch into the hands of our backers! We would be placing the remaining order by end of June. Be on the lookout for your Mu tags between May and August.
We appreciate all of the support and patience!
Tue Mar 13 '18 Announcement
about 8 years ago
– Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 03:26:19 PM
Note: Please read the part one first.)
Software
App Designs Complete
We are happy to say that all of our app screens for the official Mu tag release are now complete. Here are some of the new designs!
The beginning of February was quite a challenge because our app designer was not working out. They could not provide the quality of UI and UX design that we demand for our customers. After going back and forth with the previous design team for over 3 weeks and many hours of Tom’s own time going into the design work, we realized it wasn’t going to work out.
Immediately we had to put forth full effort into finding an alternative design team. We combed through our team’s resources to find an alternative as quickly as possible. We found a few options to provide mock-up designs and quickly selected the new design team.
In order to stay on track, we pushed the new design team extremely hard to finish all the app designs within one week. This required Tom to wake up at 3 am in order to provide immediate feedback to the design team and keep things moving as quickly and smoothly as possible.
Despite all of the challenges we did it and are very happy to get back on track with our release schedule!
Locking Down App Development Timeline
Development is continuing at full speed and is on track for product release. After spending countless hours processing tester feedback, concluding app features and functionality, we were able to lock down the app development timeline.
We learned many things from tester phone interviews which gave us more clear direction to provide the best user experience with our product. As mentioned in our previous monthly update, we are moving in a new direction for the Mu tag status. Either a Mu tag is considered ‘Secure’ or ‘Unsafe’. Knowing if your things are either Secure or Unsafe is the single most important piece of information to be able to have peace of mind for all of your precious belongings. Now we can focus on highlighting this fact to you with a quick glance at our app.
With this new direction and simplicity of user experience, we realized that we also needed to adjust other UX features of the app. Specifically, the way we handle ‘States’ of a Mu tag. States are Mu tag conditions alternative to Status such as Safe Snooze, Check In, Missing, etc.
AI Development
We brought on three highly skilled AI NYU interns to increase development speed and quality of our app’s AI. Over the past couple of weeks, they have learned all about the product and have started working with the data from our testers. They are all very excited about working on the AI and how they can help to make the best possible product.
Not only did we bring on new talent, but our data has grown 10x since January to over 1 million data points. After exploring the additional data and training new AI models, the preliminary results are looking really promising. This means our predictive accuracy for “Left Behind” notifications will be very high with almost no false notifications. Our goal is to send notifications ONLY when you need them and NEVER when you don’t.
What are we going to do this month?
Finalize Mechanical Design
We are working with a mechanical designer to lock down necessary improvements to the current design. This is one of the last steps before our first large batch can be produced. Several improvements that we are making based on tester feedback include:
- Better Mu tag connection to Mu charger with more physical feedback when it’s placed on the charger in the correct position
- Shrinking the Mu charger slightly to not block other ports when plugged in. We noticed on some Macbooks it was getting in the way of the MagSafe charging connector
- PCB shifting out of place after Mu tag usage
- Improved button feedback and function
We are very confident that our next round of physical improvement will create a product that we are very happy to ship, but more importantly that our customers are happy to use.
Lock down the production plan of 1000 - 2000 Mu tags and 500 - 1000 Mu chargers
We are pushing hard with the CM to align all of the moving parts to produce the first large batch of Mu tags. The expectation is to produce between 1000-2000 Mu tags by the end of the month no matter what it takes.
The next steps for this to happen are:
- Placing all electrical component orders to prepare for PCB manufacturing
- Visit our contracted manufacturer facility for two weeks to ensure the product meets all expectations
Packaging Design and Samples
We started to work with Stephen Gould on our packaging design. They are the largest independent custom product and packaging solution provider in the United States. They have done retail packaging for Apple Airpods, Misfit, and GoPro.
Complete Production Ready AI
We have several different components of our AI. This includes “Left Behind” predictions, travel list suggestions, “Safe Zone” discovery, on-the-fly risk analysis, personal item profiling, and much much more. Even these use case categories can be broken down further into more specific AI models.
Obviously, the more data we collect from the real usage of our product, the more powerful our predictions will become. Our primary focus with the current data is perfecting left behind notifications to be delivered when you actually need them and only when you need them. Our target for this month is to have this part of our AI to work extremely well.
Complete Two App Development Milestones
We should have all of the new screens completed which includes the new app design with new elements. We also expect to have all login and account functionality completed along with a couple other features.
We already have this functionality in the pre-release MVP that we created for iOS, but now we need to build Android and a more robust version of the iOS app. This includes thorough testing and debugging for a bug-free and scalable release version of both iOS and Android apps.
When can you expect the delivery?
Thank you for patiently waiting. We hit a major milestone last month! Mu tag electronic design is tested and frozen. We are pushing full-speed forward to get the product out as soon as possible. We still expect the product to arrive at your address between the end of April to August. Thank you very much for supporting us!
