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Project Update #61: Partner / XDA-Developers Forum / Osmart / MWC Barcelona / #TrueSmartHackaton
Posted by Omate ♥ Like
Dear All,
These past few weeks have been so hard. Let’s call that the Chinese New Year "hangover”… CNY is the period with the highest turnover rate in the Chinese factories so there are less qualified staff, new workers and team members must be trained, mistakes are made…
Furthermore, we are still in the learning curve of becoming a B2C company and as we grow and get more popular in the wearable field, we are struggling to reply more and more daily requests. Therefore, we must admit that our customer support is definitely not at the expected level. Indeed, we do not have a 24h 7/7 hotline and we do our best with a very limited team to reply hundreds of emails and social media inquiries everyday. So here are the right channels:
• Kickstarter@omate.com: only for backers: anything about your pledge (except request about personal shipment status)
• Partner@omate.com: anything about ideas, hardware, software, Oapps, business related topics
• Service@omate.com: anything about after sales services, features, functions, tutorials
Therefore, please understand that we will NOT reply any emails asking for personal shipment status as long as we will contact you before shipment to double confirm your address and send you a tracking number as soon as your parcel is shipped. Thanks.
We know that the announcement of our shipping delays was a big disappointment for you and we are really sorry. Omate/Umeox have been struggling to manage the complexity of the pledges, we messed up and we take responsibility for this. The TrueSmart has been a much tougher product to make than we had envisioned when Rocki supported us to launch our Kickstarter campaign back in August.
On top of that, Omate had some legal obligations with Umeox to support the OUI 1.0 to its licensees while developing our own TrueSmart hardware and mechanical design and enhance the OUI 2.0 and Omate Ecosystem.
End of Partnership: As you know our Kickstarter project is a partnership between Omate and Rocki as our marketing business partner / service provider. Well, that was a pretty good idea on the paper but it turned out to be hard to manage. Rocki did a great marketing job during and right after the campaign setting up and managing our social networks, website, webshop and press releases.
Omate’s Kickstarter backers have been charged by Rocki LLC and extra payment have been charged to Rocki Paypal account. At the end of October, Omate finally got a first partial payment allowing us to prepare raw materials for the full production. It did not cover the full amount as per our contract but it was enough to pay our suppliers and start the production at that time.
The same goes for the preorders which have been charged by Rocki Stripe and Paypal accounts through our Trycelery webtool from September 21st, 2013 to January 30th, 2014.
To make a long story short, Omate is not working with Rocki anymore but we are now in active discussion with Rocki management team to recover balance payments of both Kickstarter and preorders under their management period since Rocki decided to stop supporting Omate in January.
We do control our webshop since Jan 31st, 2014 and we will only charge the balance a few days before shipment therefore customers can cancel their preorder anytime before shipment.
The good news is that we have full support from Umeox and seed investors so we do hope no further delays will occur as a collateral damage of our business discussions with Rocki management team.
A Chinese proverb will summarize the situation: 小洞不补，大洞吃苦 xiǎo dòng bù bǔ, dà dòng chī kǔ - A small hole not mended in time will become a big hole much more difficult to mend.
Forum: Since Jan 31st, we have also officially taken over all the responsibilities managed by our ex - service provider Rocki. We have also took back the access to our server in order to redesign our website and that’s the reason why the forum is down. We will be working with Marc Schattorie who was hosting it. We were very satisfied by Marc’s hosting but as we are in a transtition period we are very pleased to be officially registered on XDA-Developer Forum to support you in the meantime: http://forum.xda-developers.com/smartwatch/truesmart
Shipment Status: It’s hard to please every backer at the same time because the pledges are different.
- We decided to ship first in line the EU units [512MB+4GB / 2100MHz] because we were ready and certified, some of the 1900Mhz backers were disappointed by this choice so to show our willingness and apologize for the delay, we decided to upgrade all of 1900MHz and put them in priority for the next shipments.
- We did it and started shipping the [1GB+8GB /1900MHz] just before the CNY at the end of January and more importantly as soon as we got FCC certified. Another batch of the [1GB+8GB /1900MHz] has been dispatched this week Mid of February. The Developer Edition will follow and will be gradually dispatched until the End of March.
- Now, we are focused on assembling [1GB+8GB / 2100MHz]. We do understand that this model has been delayed from End of December shipment plan but we could not manage it faster. That [1GB+8GB / 2100MHz] model will be gradually dispatched from the beginning of March until mid of April.
As explained a few times, there are several weeks between first shipments and last arrival of each batch. It usually takes 4 weeks per batch from first to last arrived so there isn't any difference compared to update #60.
Hardware Status: As you know, we have added a warranty card to warn user about the water damage; if you open the battery cover then your TrueSmart warranty will be voided ONLY for water damage. Actually, the same goes for any sport-watch. Manufacturers of water-resistant smartphones will also not guarantee their device about water damage.
Here is the definition of IP67: Immersion up to 1 m / Ingress of water in harmful quantity shall not be possible when the enclosure is immersed in water under defined conditions of pressure and time (up to 1 m of submersion). Test duration: 30 minutes / Immersion at depth of at least 1 m measured at bottom of device, and at least 15 cm measured at top of device.
We have passed that test and also QC from our B2B partners. The main issue is related to the pressure of the water as we cannot prove how deep the immersion was or the pressure applied on the TrueSmart, a simple shower water-jet applies much more pressure than water from the tab or body sweat... We just want you to be careful with your TrueSmart because the water-resistance is a tricky part.
Software status / Omate Ecosystem: While all efforts are made to ensure timely completion of software functions, software development too can have unforeseeable delays which may result in software functions being delivered in an update after a product has shipped.
Today, we are pleased to announce that the Osmart companion app is live in the Ostore. You can also get the APK for the TrueSmart from Osmart creator and VID – Kurt Huwig here: http://www.huwig.de/companion.apk
Please note that it will not work on anything else than a TrueSmart as it is exclusively part of the OUI 2.0 ecosystem
The Osmart Master for your smartphone is available on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... art.master
Please read the description of the Osmart Master on how to install and pair the devices.
Packing / Packaging: Some of you have received damaged packaging due to the design of the gift box which easily breaks during transportation… This is not acceptable even though the TrueSmart itself is not damaged as it is a pretty rugged device but we are working on improving the packing to avoid such a bad unboxing experience. We have added a pillow to protect the TrueSmart itself but we are investigating other solutions and the 1GB+8GB 2100MHz may use a new gift box. We love the plastic box, it’s good looking but not a feasible solution for international shipping.
Mobile World Congress 2014 / Barcelona: As you know we have also been testing new materials and colors at our facilities in Shenzhen and performed trial runs with some of our B2B partners in China. We will unveil new extensions of the TrueSmart at MWC along with new Oapps.
You are more than welcome to visit us at Pepcom Event on Sunday evening and from Monday Feb 24th to Thursday Feb 27th at our booth Hall 7 - 7F21 if you plan to attend Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
We will be on stage at Wearable Wednesday https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wearable-w ... BCN-Friend and part of the official GSMA wearable panel on Thursday afternoon. For more information: www.mobileworldcongress.com/
#TrueSmartHackaton Number 2: Our winner of the day is Otip designed by Developer Backer - Lucas Baran: Tip calculator optimized for the screen of a smartwatch, specifically the Omate Truesmart
You can find it in the Ostore and in Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... otip&hl=enNext dates:
- Feb 28
- March 7
- March 14
- March 21
Please post your Oapp proposal followed by the #TrueSmartHackaton on our Facebook page and G+ communities. We will be more than happy to test them and feature them into the Ostore and let the community test them. You can also send your APK to partner@omate.com
Each winner will be rewarded with a special Hacker Edition of the TrueSmart. These Limited Edition models will be marked from #1 to #10 with a customized laser printed battery cover + each winner will be granted VID status (Very Important Developer) and early bird samples of any new product development of Omate in 2014.
We look forward to developing the TrueSmart Ecosystem with the Omate Developer community!
Thanks for your support,
Best regards,
Omate TrueSmart Team
www.omate.com
Forum: http://forum.xda-developers.com/smartwatch/truesmart
www.facebook.com/omatetruesmart
Twitter: @omatetruesmart
Google+ : +Omate TrueSmart
