Hi Everybody,
They say a good story requires many ups and downs. Well, our story would do for an Oscar-worthy drama script. One August morning we got a call from a manufacturing partner, telling that our tooling sub-contractor got bankrupt, their executive is arrested for fraud, and two of our injection molds are confiscated. It took a lot of nerve to handle the situation and arrange some extra night shifts at the factory, but that wasn’t the end. Earlier this week, right before the start of mass production, we got a second call. This time our camera modules manufacturer went bankrupt (yes, second one in a row) so they couldn’t provide components for us.
We’ve been through so many complications and there’s no easy way to announce yet another delay, so here it goes. Our new estimated shipping date is by the end of November. This delay will take only up to a month.
There’s an extra storyline that became rather suspenseful, but it turned out well, without throwing us back on the timeline. Petcube camera module was testing out just fine when suddenly, a warm greeting from China arrived. It was around 82° F in Szhenzhen, and once the air conditioner was turned off, the video streaming from Petcube started to fade. It turned out that long gaming sessions lead to the camera’s overheating. Luckily we came up with a solution and used a special shield to prevent global warming inside Petcube’s housing.
So we are close to the finish line. We got all the PCBs (printed circuit boards) produced for the whole production run, and successfully passed 5 iterations of tooling, and all of our molds are finally ready to go. We made sure that Petcube’s aluminium housing has the best look and feel, having rejected several samples that weren’t smooth enough or simply smelled bad (yes, that surprised us too).
By the way, our finally approved housing will go through a special oxidation process that will give it a nice slightly velvet-ish finish. This process includes using these funny-looking tools, we just wanted you to see them.
Apart from the hardware, we did some great paperwork, literally. Our manuals, packaging and master cartons are almost there.
We’ve sent out a survey earlier this month and kindly asked you to complete it, so we know where to deliver your rewards. In case of a location change, you’ll still have some extra time to update your shipping details.
Drama is not always so bad after all. Our pet lovers community dramatically increased when Android users joined us. There must be a limit for everything, but every time we think that Petcube app reached the maximum level of cuteness, it appears that there can be even more of it.
After all the plot twists, our story is finally very close to a happy ending and we’re super excited to share this moment with you. Thank you for waiting, we are almost there!
Love,
Petcube team