SUZY IS SHIPPING!
about 7 years ago – Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 10:42:41 PM

Dearest backers - thanks for your continued patience - we are now officially...

!!!SHIPPING!!!

We've been working really hard here in the UK and in Shenzhen upping the security on Suzy. We have now reached the stage where we are comfortable with Suzy's level of security! And we're ready to ship! Yay!

We are just completing the final tests on our first batch in Shenzhen and then we will begin shipping direct from China, through Hong Kong to you guys all over the world. Backers should start to receive their Suzys over the next few weeks :)

When your Suzy arrives please share some pics with us on Instagram by mentioning @BleepBleeps or using the hashtag #SuzySnooze - we'd love to see any unboxing and also pics of Suzy in her new bedroom in your home!

The BleepBleeps App

We'll be releasing a massive upgrade to the BleepBleeps iOS and Android apps very soon allowing you to remote control Suzy and use her as an audio Baby Monitor. The app will also manage the upgrading of Suzy's software in the future so it will be essential if you want to get the best out of your Suzy. Stay tuned!

Feedback and Feature Requests

We can't wait for you all to meet Suzy! This is just the start for us and we want you guys to know we are committed to making Suzy even better over the coming months and years with regular software updates, improvements and features.

We'd love to know what you think of Suzy and answer any questions you may have. Check out the Suzy Snooze forum on the BleepBleeps Helpdesk. You can find FAQ on how Suzy works, tell us about stuff you think we could do better or share your ideas for what Suzy could be like in the future.

Suzy in London... in bits

Suzy is featured in a fab exhibition called "Prototypes and Experiments" at The Aram Gallery in London. The exhibition shows models, samples, tests and drawings picked fresh from the studio shelves of architects and designers - and shows our very own Suzy from concept to reality - kindly put together by our wonderful friends at MAP.

Laters!

We'll be back with our next update very soon...

TTFN

T&TBB

Production Update #8 + Suzy wins her first award + Tom in Creative Review
about 7 years ago – Wed, Jul 05, 2017 at 03:40:06 PM

Dear backers,

Getting closer...

Suzy is almost ready to ship - we still have a couple of niggles and snags to fix. One issue around long-term durability and one issue concerning security and audio streaming. We know these are worthwhile things to get right and we think you'll agree. We hope to get Suzy out to you very, very soon!

Suzy won her first award!

Suzy Snooze won best Consumer Product at the Core77 Design Awards. We are well chuffed. And look, in second place: Google Design Team! They have slightly more resources than us ;)

Tom and Suzy... in the UK's leading design magazine!

In their words: "The Creative Leaders 50 is an annual scheme from Creative Review to celebrate, educate and inspire those who are leading creative businesses, organisations and teams. We have selected 50 people from across the UK creative industries who we feel are driving change, not just within their organisation but in the world at large." So there.

We'll be back very soon with our next update

In the meantime, thanks to each and every one of you for your support. We really couldn't do this without you.

Team Bleeps

Production Update #7
over 7 years ago – Wed, May 31, 2017 at 03:36:29 PM

The last few tweaks and the final weeks

Fast Track Beta backers have received their Suzys and are doing a great job with their feedback on the BleepBleeps Forum. Together, we are catching the last few snags to make sure Suzy is perfect for the rest of you when she arrives very soon.

Mods

We've made some modifications to Suzy's base to allow her sound to pass through more freely. Firstly, the way the felt is bonded to the plastic base. And secondly, we've added a ring of holes on her underside and changed the labelling design to accommodate these new holes.

This change has meant we've had to push back mass-production a few weeks.

We now hope to start shipping at the end of June.

Thanks so much for your continued patience and support - we all really appreciate it here!

Tom and Team Bleeps

Production Update #6 - Fast Track Beta Backers - shipping!
over 7 years ago – Mon, May 15, 2017 at 03:15:43 PM

Dear all,

Just back from our latest trip to Shenzhen...

Fast Track Beta Backers should be receiving their Suzys very very soon!

And as they say:

If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.

Well, I can safely say we are a bit embarrassed by this first version of Suzy. As lovely as she is, there are a whole bunch of things we are still striving to improve and finish for mass-production. But we want to get Suzy in your hands asap so we can get feedback and catch any snags we may have missed.

Please share any thoughts or problems on the BleepBleeps Helpdesk.

Here are the things we are working flat out on, striving to improve:

Sound

Suzy is a bit quieter than we’d like. And sometimes playing audio causes her to vibrate or resonate at certain frequencies. Overall, she sounds a bit muffled, missing the top range of audio. This is due to a few factors...

The felt we selected for mass-production is different than our prototypes. It’s a much nicer felt but it’s also thicker and denser. We looked at going back to this previous fibre but unfortunately, it melts during the bonding process (which requires heat to activate the adhesive.) We are now sourcing a thinner and less dense version of the felt we are currently using (that doesn’t melt!) and we should have this in the next few days. We can test and then order enough for mass-production.

The adhesive itself is quite thick and stops the sound emerging from Suzy’s speaker slots. We are talking to the factory about applying the adhesive in two horizontal strips leaving a gap around the speaker holes so the sound can travel more freely.

Some of the speakers from our supplier are failing our QC.

Suzy requires some dampening using rubber seals fitted where the parts meet each other.

Suzy’s base could be modified with the addition of a ring of speaker holes to aid the sound emerging. This means we would have to redesign the base and modify the tool for the injection moulding. And we would also have to re-design the labelling artwork on Suzy’s base. We are obviously hoping not to have to do this - it will depend if the above tweaks give us the results we need.

Brightness

Twisting Suzy’s hat adjusts her brightness. This isn’t working to the full range on this version. It will be fixed for mass-production.

Rubber feet

Just one of those things, our partner misunderstood the spec for the feet and these are currently red instead of orange - doh! We are fixing this for mass-production.

App & Firmware

It’s taken us longer than we’d estimated to produce Suzy's iOS/Android apps and her embedded software because of the extra time and attention we’ve spent on security. A worthwhile sacrifice we hope you’d agree. We hope to release the beta version of the app in the next few weeks giving Suzy remote control, audio baby monitor and over the air firmware updates. We are continuing to evolve Suzy's firmware in parallel and will be releasing updates adding functionality to Suzy throughout her life.

Cable

Suzy uses a black and white stripy Micro-USB cable with black heads and an 8mm head length. Right now we only have the cables with silver heads and 10mm head length. This means the cable head sticks out a bit when plugged into Suzy. The correct cables will be supplied with Suzy for mass-production.

Powerpack

This looks awesome but there is some labelling we were unaware of during sample stage. Plus the labelling is on the wrong face. For future batches this will be on the bottom face rather than the top.

Packaging

This is looking sweet but there are a few snags. The colour of Suzy on the front and back is a bit off. We are tweaking on-press to get this better. We swapped from a pull-tab to a cut-out on the Quick Start Guide and shifted the artwork over to the right on the reverse. This hasn’t been implemented by the printer yet. The foam is a bit small for the box - we are increasing this so its nice and snug. The foam also has the position of Suzy’s tab in the wrong place. This will be fixed. The BleepBleeps Note Logo on the blue lid is slightly wrong - again, being fixed.

That’s it for now folks!

I’ll be back soon with our next update - thanks so much of your continued patience and support :)

T&TBB

Production Update #5 - security challenges + sweet packaging
over 7 years ago – Mon, May 01, 2017 at 05:15:23 PM

Dear backers,

We are so close! We have some Suzys here in the UK now and the rest of the pre-production units are due here this week. We'll be sending out the Fast Track Betas as soon as we can.

And we are still on track to ship to all backers in late May.

Now, let's talk about security...

We've run into some challenges with security and encryption. We want Suzy to adhere to the highest security standards around - appropriate for an IoT device that lives in your home, uses your WiFi network and streams live audio from the bedrooms of your babies and children. There are shortcuts we could have taken here (and a lot of Kickstarter creators and startups seem to) but we've chosen the hard way and the best way for you guys. The last thing we want is anyone's home WiFi credentials being hacked or God forbid, some weirdo listening in to your children. So we're getting some external help from a real specialist, (an IoT Security Consultant) to check over our work and make sure what we've done is watertight, robust, bulletproof or as least as safe as humanly possible right now in the world of connected devices. This is obviously taking a bit more time (and costing us a lot more money!) but we know it's the right thing to do - we hope you feel the same way too. We hope this won't have an impact on the current timeline. You guys will be the first to know if it's going to.