***4/18/23***

The first 11 Rotary Un-Smartphone "Option A" kits are in the mail. These went to the earliest people in the order list to respond requesting "option A" after my previous update on 2/26. If you don't know what I'm talking about, that update is linked here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vStu3hiSf4eTU2jQZlVvSnf705lEXHDhnUbiKYKYmJXbANFgoZfriXxqhFQGwmSfip3tGTp8Um8wYtK/pub

I'm still working through responding to all the emails I got since 2/26. There were more than a 1000 in just the first couple days, so if you replied and haven't heard from me yet, I'm working through them slowly. IF your response to that update was that you wanted a refund (Option D) and I haven't responded yet, please email me at info@skyedge.com with the word "REFUND" in the subject so I can address it more quickly. So far I've been able to process every refund immediately, but I expect I'll need to start pacing them at a certain point.

Considering my current email backlog, if you would like to to respond to this email but don't necessarily expect or require a response, the letters "NNTR" in the subject would be appreciated to let me know there's No Need To Reply.

To keep it simple we're goin' "Q&A" style for the rest of this email:

Why 11 kits? After getting burned with my production flow so many times, I only made 15 for this first batch and 4 failed quality control (yes, there's a test fixture).

When will more "Option A" kits ship? I'm ordering more blank boards soon but want to make some small tweaks that should dramatically improve the fraction of boards that make it through the quality check. I'm working this out now and expect the next production run to cover about 50 kits and to go out in early June.

The open source spirit (empowering the "Option A" customers): I need help, and this is an open source project after all, so I'm hoping that now that these phones will be appearing in the wild we'll get some early maker energy helping move things forward. Many of the emails I've received since 2/26 have made the importance of this sink in. Other brains working on this will be really good. I've linked a working draft of my development notes on the website, we're keeping the forum pruned from spambots, and I'm working on finishing the assembly guide and detailing a development roadmap.

I haven't ordered. Can I still? Realizing that many people are OK with the currently experimental nature of the kit (even energized by it), I re-activated the order link on the website with a note about the regulatory problem. In this sense, all new orders are essentially "option A" by default, but of course these won't go out until the current option A backlog is filled.

What's the status of the regulatory approval effort? I've mainly been doing research and working on growing the business for the past couple months so that I have a team for this journey. It seems like lab testing takes months, not years, but some significant upfront money is required as well as a lot of consultation with the testing labs, so I don't yet want to project when I think this might be done. This leads into...

BIG NEWS: I'm excited to announce that I now have a business partner (I remain the majority partner) to function as a CFO and help with other things. We'll be moving up from the "basement/garage phase" in the coming months, too, with our new headquarters/manufacturing/fulfillment facility in Riverhead, NY. With this move I'll be able to take on employees (my dream right now is to have a manufacturing technician, an administrative assistant, and at least one additional engineer). We'll also be able to entertain more serious investment. Doing this all alone isn't, and hasn't been, sustainable, and I realized that going "all in" is the only way to make this happen. On a personal note, I also have a lot of ideas that aren't the RUSP and would like to be able to get to those at some point, hah.

~Justine

To unsubscribe from this list, use the button at the bottom of this page: https://skysedge.com/mailman/listinfo/rotaryun-smartphone_skysedge.com

***2/26/23***

I usually try to keep updates concise, but in this case, if you're already a customer, please read:

The hardware all works! Everything's fixed, more or less, and I can produce phones.

Oh wait, what's that, universe? Not good enough? The major US network providers started requiring separate independent lab testing certification before they let my IMEI numbers on their networks, even though the radio hardware I'm using is already approved on those networks?

I'm pretty sure the phone is done. Kits can be put together, and used, functional, etc. I have the production process in place and many hundreds (and in a few cases many thousands) of parts on hand ready to go. Thank goodness, finally, I did it. I can make good on my promise and send these out to my long-term pre-order customers, some of you have now been waiting just over 2 years. OK so why is this email so long? That seems like a bad sign right?

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) SIM cards have been working fine to date. The chip I use to handle the cellular radio functions (called the LARA-R6 from uBlox) has already been certified by most carriers, with others pending. For the past two years I've been working on this project, every time I order a SIM card from a network provider, they ask for the phone's IMEI number, I put it in, it comes up as valid (because uBlox already went through this process), and they send me the SIM and it works. I've been depending on this being the end of the story. And it has been.

Except now that seems to have changed.

Verizon is now requiring separate certification from the product manufacturers (i.e. me), so if I try ordering a SIM card from them, they won't send it unless I (Sky's Edge) have uploaded all the product IMEIs to their system, and they won't let me do that until I have independent laboratory RF testing called PTCRB Certification, and apparently I can't do THAT until I have FCC Part 15 certification. This is new. This was not the case before.

AT&T Just started requiring the same kind of thing. I don't know about Canadian, European, and other carriers yet. They may be fine, they may not.

I mean, I get it. With current technology trends, there are so many small cell-connected devices coming on the market, and carriers need to protect their infrastructure from interference and bad actors. And I've been circumventing the FCC licensing requirement because I'm selling this as a kit, and hey, uBlox had already done all the hard work of getting the FCC and carrier compliance out of the way.

But no more, apparently, at least in the US. Manufacturers, however big or small, whether it's me or Apple, now have to go through a couple layers of additional independent lab testing to be allowed on their networks. #@&!

I don't know what to do now. This such a gut punch. The goalpost keeps moving. I have you guys, customers, some of your waiting 2 years now, and now... what? How long is it going to take me to get the regulatory compliance out of the way before the phones work reliably on the networks? 6 months? More? I was expecting to send the first batch out this past Wednesday and I've been balled up in a corner since I realized the new SIM cards I just got won't register to either AT&T or Verizon. I tried Consumer Cellular but that's actually T-Mobile and that verification is still pending anyway.

uBlox gave me the following advice:

    For a T-Mobile or ATT device, you can use a previously activated public SIM and at least attempt connecting.

    You can use a Out-of-country Carrier Sim (Orange, Vodaphone, etc.) – Most likely you’ll connect to Att or T-Mobile (But it might connect to Verizon)

    You can use a “Non-carrier” sim, such as Sierra, TruPhone, ibasis, or any prepaid data sim.

I did try a previously activated SIM but it didn't work any better for me.

The bottom line is this:

I can send phone kits out in batches, roughly according to the previous timeline I sent (offset by a week or so now), but I can't guarantee network connectivity in the US until the certifications are out of the way. This email has been US-centric because I honestly don't know how all the other networks around the world will behave until phones get activated in those regions.

My stress has more or less surpassed critical-mass, so now I'm just numb. This is kind of the worst outcome I could have imagined. Part of me wishes I could just refund everyone and go back to robotics etc. This wasn't supposed to be a 2+ year project. But, I will keep going and trust the process. I'm looking into getting the regulatory approvals I need, and the silver lining will be that I'll also be able to legally sell fully-complete phones when that's done (i.e. not just kits). I'm seriously entertaining approaching this from a new direction by finding a local business partner and possibly exploring VC funding so I can build up my manufacturing facility outside of a residential basement with the aim of also doing complete kit assembly. Just an idea right now.

For now, here, these are the options I've come up with:

A: Anyone who wants a kit (any region) regardless of the regulatory concerns I expressed above, I can go ahead and send it to you. This may require a higher degree of tech savvy to find a provider/SIM card that will let the phone register on your local network, and in this sense I would consider these to be a true "beta test", which I had originally envisioned a couple years ago. I'd also expect you to be OK doing firmware updates using the Arduino IDE, which isn't hard in and of itself. I'll have instructions for that.

B: For those who ordered a kit but didn't really want a kit, I offer to send fully assembled phones as a "free, consolatory upgrade" AFTER the regulatory compliance is taken care of, but I can't even begin to guess at the timeline for that yet.

C: For those that ordered a kit and definitely want a kit, maybe I would offer a partial refund?

D: For those that want a full refund, that's the other option of course and if everyone picks this, I will make it my life's work to honor them. But if everyone picks this option I'll have to pace the refunds out over quite some time (as in, until I can get some kind of bridge funding, or until the proceeds from another product can finance them). Preorder money has been going to parts, tooling, equipment, etc, so my liquidity is quite low.

As of now I've removed the order link on the website and added a note about what's going on. Once I've gotten all the kits on the roster out to those who want to experiment with non-approved SIM cards and such, I'll re-activate the link but with a suitable "beta test" note, and return it to "normal" only after the regulatory certifications are sorted.

~Sorry. Justine.