Hi Everyone,

We hope those of you who celebrate it had a great Thanksgiving holiday and are settling in for the upcoming winter holidays. There was a bit more of a gap between this update and the last update than we intended. We got 30 units from the manufacturer and spent several days inspecting them and putting them through their paces. We wanted to make sure not to bottleneck production, so that process got our full focus for the last couple of days. That brings us to our first topic which is well… we got the first 30 production units from our manufacturer and they look great! 

These Oasis Minis are part of our first real production batch. They use the actual physical components, the actual electronics, and the actual manufacturing processes that will be used to make many thousands more. The small batch is intended to highlight any issues with the assembly process or finished product.

Typically, there are at least medium-sized changes that come out of this test build. After days of inspection, we’ve concluded that these are almost perfect. There are a few cosmetic and assembly changes that we requested, but overall there are far fewer changes required than we might have anticipated based on previous work. Here’s a video of our testing on one of the new Minis: 

The physical product looks great, and the core features of the app are built out as well! If you watch closely, you can see the device connection, pattern start/stop, playlist, and pattern library features are all implemented. We have a lot of small revisions to make and additional features to build out, but we're very excited to have the core functionality finished. 

That also means that we’re ready to start sending these to all of you! We’re going to start with voluntary beta testing. There’s no substitute for getting the product into actual customer’s hands. Beta testing is only available for Kickstarter backers, and please refer to this update on Kickstarter if you'd like to learn more. 

Timeline and Shipping

Currently, it’s looking like we’ll have the first big batch of Oasis Minis to ship out in late January or early February. We expect that batch to cover almost everyone in the Super Early Bird and the first Early Bird reward batches. There may be slight differences for backers in those tiers who are outside of the United States. We’re organizing a warehouse in shipping provider in Europe to keep costs as low as possible for our international backers. Shopify backers can still expect theirs to arrive in April. 

We’re very excited to hear what the first of you to receive Oasis Minis think! It feels like things are really starting to come together. The app is working and getting a coat of polish, our packaging design was finished and submitted with your help, we’re about ready to sign on with a shipping provider, and more. 

Thank you for all of your support. We hope you have a great winter holiday season and as always reach out if you have comments, questions, or just want to chat.