Hello dear backers,

After over one hundred updates, it has been quite a journey to say the least, and this will be the final one.

We’ve been blessed with getting many backers. This kept us motivated so we could fulfill our promises. Considering our delays, we experienced a good amount of disappointed backers which we rightfully deserved. There were dark times where we almost gave up.

Fortunately, we had a great number of backers that believed in our good faith. At times, this faith has been understandably shaken. On many occasions, we thought we were so close to starting pre-production, it’s embarrassing in hindsight. 

We had our fair share of misses which we stated in previous updates. At that moment, it seemed to be in the best interest of the project & backers. Once again, we deeply apologize for the delays encountered, there are no words that can describe our regrets and apology.

We can’t thank our backers enough for believing in us when we started. You took a huge risk and we are forever grateful. As detailed in previous updates, with the cash flow getting increasingly dry, and asking the backers’ committee for their input, we are shipping you a similar form factor & features as this is the best output or else the possibility of shipping nothing at all was on the horizon. Mistakes made on our end and the everlasting Chinese lockdown played a significant role in getting this set of earbuds. A slightly different form factor with improved electronics. We hope you’ll enjoy it.

What’s next for Phazon?

We don’t know yet. We had a superb head start but the competition is getting increasingly heated, we’re not convinced the timing is still there. Understandingly so, confidence is far from an all-time high. We learned so much and we now have a solid foundation. Your patience & support was very much appreciated.

Take care everyone,

Phazon team

PS You’ll shortly receive an email with your pre-order tracking number

PPS We won’t be looking much to this Indiegogo’s page in the future so the best way to reach us is at [email protected]

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Hello backers,

We are glad to announce that the manufacturing went without a hitch and the shipping is going as planned.

We have documented the manufacturing & shipping process, in a 2 min video.

By Friday, we will individually email all the backers by providing their tracking number.

Before that event, we’ll provide a final update.

boxes of Phazon units 

Phazon team

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Dear backer,

Following up on the last update, pre-production units have been sent & it’s time to reveal the model we have chosen. We tested dozens of variations and evaluated them in order to represent the best experience for our backers, considering our initial offering.

More importantly, you’ll need to update your address & make your color selection so we can ship you the unit.

Let’s dig into the details.

Pre-production units

Units were sent and the overall feedback was great. Granted, the initial pairing process was annoying (Bluetooth 4 vs Bluetooth 5) but the fit & sound quality was amazing.

We certainly wished we could go to China and manufacture at scale those sweet little buddies but it’s incredibly hard & restrictive for foreigners to do that. We are very much disappointed by this whole situation and we are appreciative of your kind understanding.

Phazon packages being sent to backers

New form factor

In the spirit to provide a really good product for our audience, we established a point system, with these factors considered:

• Ergonomy
• Bluetooth & waterproof standard
• Attractive similar design
• Easy pairing process
• Reliable connectivity
• Audio quality
• Charger functionality
• Color availability

And here is our top pick

Open charger with earbuds

Closed charger

This new design is great:

• Bluetooth 5.0
• Waterproof IPX7
• Fits quite nicely in the ear
• Doesn’t cut out
• 3 available colors
• Touch controls on the surface
• Microphone available
• Miniature charger which still provides +20h of battery

Update your address and select your color

There is a good chance your address changed so you will need to update it. In order to get a faster shipping time, it would be great if you find your pre-order number (up to 5 digits). It is indicated in the email confirmation when you backed the project. If you can’t find it, no worries we’ll find a way.

ACCESS TO THE FORM HERE.

We again thank you for your extreme patience and incredible understanding.

Phazon team

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1. Pursue the project

2. Provide a similar pair of earbuds in terms of design and functionalities

3. Refund with what could be refunded

This is the result of their votes:

After the poll, we reached out individually by email and phone to some members to gather additional insights and they said that the option which presented the best interest for the project was option 2.

The committee has spoken and we will abide by it.

Working pairs

As mentioned in the intro, Sylvain managed to secure only 10 pairs out of the 50 pairs he projected to do. The circuits are breaking a lot and the extremely small components on our dense flexible board are making this whole at-home assembly very problematic and time-consuming.

He took pictures of the whole process and even made a 16-page document on how to correctly assemble the earbuds in case the committee voted to pursue the project as is.

You can view by yourself the pictures and the earbud assembly document right here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19shhrTLRqLx_9qBglbB4NExRrcurW5eK?usp=sharing

We recorded the procedure on how to pair the earbuds, you can check it out here:

We know it’s definitely not the outcome we all wanted. We reiterate we feel terribly embarrassed and ashamed of the situation and the delays that occurred.

What’s next?

In the coming weeks, we will ship the pre-production units to the backers and continue working with the wireless earbuds manufacturer to get our very own custom solution on point. More details will soon be provided. We will require the backers to update their address and color selection at the appropriate time.

We understand all the frustration that went through these delays and we are appreciative of your understanding.

Phazon team

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Hello backers,

It’s been a while since the last update.

We were awaiting a key batch of PCBs and I prefer relevance over consistency at this point in our long journey.

We almost gave up in late September; we tried so many manufacturers and none could make reliable PCBs as Sylvain designed them. We decided to try one last and completely give up if they can’t make it.

It turned out to be a total success. They got it right, after detailed instructions and troubleshooting, so we ordered a batch of 100 PCBs. I was tempted to order more but we got to mitigate risk since we can’t physically be there.

Troubleshooting with the manufacturer

Follow-up with our manufacturer about the 100pcs PCBs order

We were kind of relieved but still feeling pretty bad considering our delays.

Anyway, we received the 100 batch PCBs (earbuds and charger) recently.

They looked really great, the best assembly we got so far.

100pcs earbuds & charger

Sylvain started to inspect them and all was looking good – until it was not (earbuds’ PCB only).

When the PCB bends, it tends to break some connections. Furthermore, the antenna’s impedance is incorrect (width is inaccurate), which largely affects RF performance (loosely means connectivity quality).

We were completely stunned. It seemed like the last shot we had.

For an advanced tech product, you absolutely need to be beside the manufacturer to make sure it all goes as planned.

Oh wait, we still can’t go to China

Text response from the owner of our manufacturer

I was ready to close the project. Sometimes you do need to give up and this felt like it. Just to make sure, I asked Sylvain to test more PCBs, like 20 of them. This would provide a good statistical idea of what portion would work or not.

After some mad assembly, he told me about 70% of them work right now. He estimated that with the right tuning, probably 50% of the whole batch would be fine. However, considering the subpar RF performance, people with a deep ear canal (harder to get a good RF signal) would find the earbud to disconnect somewhat often. People with normal ear canals should be relatively fine.

Inspection & measurements

As you guessed it, this is quite unfortunate but somewhat a thing you could expect from not being there in pre-production. We were confident since they nailed the previous one.

So, we expect to make more or less 50 Phazon units. It won’t be the super solid connectivity we accomplished before but somewhat fine, especially for people with normal ear canals.

Here’s the link if you would like to apply for one of them: https://forms.gle/AzdAd6SngTtgrtWZ7

Phazon team

PS: If the next batch fails, we would reconsider closing the project. We simply can’t wait indefinitely for a manufacturer to correctly make the earbuds’ PCBs. We should expect a 3-4 months delay to test it out. If it fails, refund backers with what could be refunded.

PPS: Making an easier PCB design would not work since we would need to enlarge the earbud’s casing once again and make a new PCB design; this would easily take +10 months.

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Hi backers,

Sylvain (our CTO), is responsible for the technical development at Phazon. He has a message for you:

Here’s the transcript:

Hi backers,

I’m Sylvain, I’ve been responsible for the technical development of Phazon since the beginning of the project. 

In the last update, we were hoping to get many pairs from our manufacturing partner in China. They messed up the first batch and we provided actionable feedback for the next one. 

 

I was confident they would resolve the issue.

Turns out the new PCBs received are barely usable from this batch. That was quite a surprise to me. 

 

It’s inserting the electronic components on top of the PCB that is problematic, what we call the “assembly”,

The same issue keeps reappearing even if we pointed them out earlier. I’m very confident that being physically present I would have quickly solved the issue. If only we could get to China.

 

We can easily wait weeks if not months from each failed batch.

To be clear, the charging case has been completed for a long time. The PCBs are relatively easy to make. The issues are only about the earbuds’ PCB, which is the only remaining bottleneck I see. Once we get through that, the rest should follow smoothly.

 

We’re in the process of getting a quote from a more reputable PCB manufacturer. Meanwhile, the actual PCB manufacturer is doing another batch for free, working with a tier-1 assembly supplier this time.

 

I’m very sorry for the long delays we’re having. 

 

I made some key technical educated guesses that turned out to be incorrect and got us where we are today. However, we are now seeing light at the end of the tunnel with the production ready prototypes I have here.

The manufacturers simply need to make them as I design them and I know it’s clearly possible.

 

Thank you for all your support and patience.

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SUMMARY OF THE PAST WEEKS

APPLYING FOR THE FIRST 60 PAIRS 

The post Upcoming PCB run should unlock 1st shipping batch appeared first on Phazon.

Hey guys,

Been a while since the last update. I delayed this update because I wanted to provide more value. I think you’ll prefer this instead of keeping consistent updates with more or less value in them.

While I’d love to provide this update with exciting positive news and deep value… well, we’re not there yet.

Our historically reliable PCB supplier committed to provide us the assembled PCBs before the Chinese New Year. A few days before the deadline, they choked and rescheduled for a 3 weeks delay

Assembled PCBs = PCBs with the electronic chips soldered on

They were doing the nicest job making the PCBs out of everyone we tried.

They said they could also assemble our PCBs, so we naturally tried them.

They shipped the assembled PCBs and almost all of them were defective. We have 2 chips with tiny touchpoints underneath (called BGA), on the Bluetooth chip and touch chip, and those are NOT well soldered on the PCB.

We’re pretty sure we have one working pair, maybe 3 more pairs if our repairs are effective.

Sylvain had quite an issue getting the touch control to work on the earbud. He was using the demo board and standard parameters. We needed to adjust and apparently this cause a lot of problems for it to work properly. Now, it looks like we got this right.

About Sylvain

Sylvain as the senior technical director takes all the technical decisions so the project would move forward as fast as possible. Of course, we consult together but he knows best. When he says he’s 100% it will work and it doesn’t… you may have that face:

You & I had a quite fair share of anger regarding the very slow process this project takes. Sylvain took key educated guesses that turned out to be incorrect. As you recalled, we even invited experts and they sided with Sylvain’s decisions back then. Sure, a bunch of companies succeeded but this tech is still hard, especially before the advent of Bluetooth 5.0.

I still think Sylvain is a good technical director overall but he made the wrong decisions that slowly killed the project’s momentum. Not saying it’s dead though.

Long-distance manufacturing

This pandemic hit us at a really bad time. 

We needed to start the whole pre-production in their factories and around the same time travel bans were being put in place .

Doing at a distance would prove quite tricky and it’s exactly what is happening. They need to clearly understand our requirements but by writing it’s definitely not enough as we can see. We simply need to be there

I am pretty sure that by being physically there, we would cut cost time by half if not more.

Vaccination is getting to work fast but we’re still a few months away before things start to look “normal”.

I had my estimate for shipping late summer but surprises will come along so I would say the estimate is not at a high conviction one right now.

Thanks for being part of the journey, with the highs & lows.

Chris

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