Wrapping Up And Shipping
If you backed on Kickstarter and haven't filled out your survey, please do that now. We will begin shipping all of the phones (not just Early Tester phones) after the upcoming software release.
To-Do List
- DONE - finish setting up wireless firmware updates
- DONE - make sure automatic firmware updates are working well
- ALMOST DONE - send out phones to hackers. the last of these are going out now
- DONE - receive clear front covers
- DONE - make PCBAs for remainder of Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and web pre-sales
- DONE - finish the injection mold for the Regular frames
- ALMOST READY (to ship... software is never done) - currently improving UI/UX related issues and calling
- DONE - update user manual
- DONE - all of the current batch of phones have been assembled. preparing to order components for another batch
- BLOCKED - ship all phones for regular users (current plan is to ship after the next code release at the beginning of next month)
- IN PROGRESS: make tutorials.
Latest Code Release
The firmware is almost ready for regular users.
Firmware version 0.8.30 is live on the regular firmware update URL:
https://wiphone.io/static/releases/firmware/WiPhone-phone.ini
If you have wifi set up your phone should update itself if you reboot it. This update primarily fixes issues with the user interface.
This month we are continuing to improve the user interface and also wrapping up a few calling issues that were reported since the last release.
If you are an admin on an uncommon type of VoIP server please contact us if you can let us make a few test calls on your server. We've done a lot of testing on a few of the major providers by now, but we still haven't verified things work well on less common systems.
What's Next?
The code should be ready around the beginning of next month, and then shipping will take at least the next 6 weeks or so. Given our track record, don't count on us being early :). We currently have enough stock on hand to fulfill most pre-orders made before October 2021 (via Kickstarter, our website, and Indiegogo).
We're also starting a new batch of phones. These will cover the more recent pre-orders. Because the component costs have gone up we will be raising prices soon. If you want to get in on this last batch at the old prices, please order now on our website (or Indiegogo if you prefer).
If you haven't received your phone yet and want to check it out before buying anything else, send me an email to support@wiphone.io saying you want to reserve the old prices and I'll send you a coupon code. If we still have any stock from this batch left by the time you order, you can get the old pricing.
Pop Quiz
What are we doing here? And if you know what we are doing, why are we doing it? Add your guesses in the comments.
Front Covers
I happened to have some pics, so I thought I'd share a little about how the front covers are made and why we made a few related choices.
First the front the panel is printed on a UV printing machine similar to this one:
This is the result:
Next, it goes to a CNC router like this one, and the outside shape is cut:
One difficult part is getting the printing to line up with the cutting. If those are offset, the width of the paint on the right and left sides (or top and bottom) won't match.
We make sure the cutting and the paint match up by making a precise holder (people call this a jig, a fixture, or simply a tool) that stays in both machines. The jig has some metal pins that slide into holes in the panel and hold it in a very accurate position while both the printing and cutting happen.
Some of you may be wondering why we even need to paint the "clear" front covers. The material under the clear panel is the same color so why go to all that trouble? And you're right, we don't strictly need to. But in our testing we never found an adhesive that was super strong, durable, easy to apply, optically clear, and looked amazing after the clear front phones were assembled. We did find one that was really close, but on the clear fronts it was still pretty obvious that you were staring at an adhesive and it bugged me. So we paint the area directly above the adhesive and that makes it almost indistinguishable from the underlying material of the phone frame. It also provides UV protection so the adhesive won't degrade so much over time. I suspect if the paint wasn't mentioned here most people would not have noticed that area is painted. It's a small detail that took a while to get right so I thought I'd share.
The front material is also special, even though it's just plastic. It's hardened on the outside to resist scratches, but softer on the inside to keep it flexible and tough. We check the hardness using a tool like this:
