Mark II Update – December 2020
over 3 years ago
– Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 04:47:34 PM
Seasons Greetings to everyone! 2020 has been a big year, and we hope that 2021 will be different in so many ways. First and foremost we’re excited to get devices shipping very early in the new year!
Dev Kit Production
tl;dr: we’re shipping in February!
The Development Kits are our first priority, and we’re getting ready to ship! (Yes, lots of exclamations in this update- we’re excited!) We have received almost all of the parts necessary to make our first production run of 400 kits, and we’re placing the order for our custom circuit board (the SJ201) today. We’ve added a custom speed-controlled 40mm cooling fan (the SJ222) to ensure the exposed circuit boards in the Dev Kits stay cool to the touch.
Since we’re using a new manufacturer for this run of SJ201’s, we’re doing the production in two stages. The first will be 20 boards to ensure that everything goes smoothly. In the past we’ve had companies put chips on rotated 180 degrees in the past. We will then do both automated and in-person testing of these samples, and assuming those check out we’ll immediately authorize the remainder.
All the final parts are being shipped to our fulfillment partner, Crate Crew. They produce HackerBoxes and have years of experience doing exactly what we need – carefully packing a detailed set of electronics and other components for end-users to assemble and experiment with.
SJ201 Rev 6
Since our last report, we had to make two revisions to the SJ201, our audio front end daughterboard. We discovered an issue with the audio output jack, and then subsequently an error in choosing a clock buffer chip. Both were readily resolved and we’re now ready to go to production.
If you’re interested in the details:
- Added I2S to line-out to headphone-out circuit. We promised headphone output, so when the speaker amp chip didn’t work the way we thought it did, another chip was required to enable the high-quality headphone output. Note: with certain earbuds it appears to be way too loud, however we don’t expect that to be the normal use case.
- Removed the USB bridge chip. We simply don’t need it anymore, as we don’t have more than one USB device on board. (In fact, we have none at present.)
- Removed the buffers from the Pi to the SJ201 I2S clock lines. They were originally copied from the XMOS reference design but are unnecessary and caused routing problems. (Rev 6)
Mark II Production
Now that the Dev Kit production is fully under way, we’re turning our attention to the Mark II production. In a way, this is nothing more than higher-volume production of the same product as the Dev Kit. However there’s a lot more to it than that. Starting with the fact that most people don’t want to build their own smart speakers from parts.
The major hardware change from the Dev Kit to the Mark II is the use of an injection-moulded housing. This is not only what people expect for an off-the-shelf product, but it’s a lot cheaper to manufacture in bulk. The first plastic enclosure will cost about $50,000. The second through 10,000th ones will cost about $1 each. Overall that saves about $10 per device in cost relative to the laser-cut enclosures. The second major change is having the whole thing assembled at the factory. There goes our $10 savings in plastics.
But before we commit to the million-dollar outlay for production parts and labor we want to have the Dev Kits in the field for long enough to ensure we didn’t miss anything regarding long-term stability, as well as testing the firmware and software update processes. So while we can gear up for Mark II production by getting the injection moulds underway and qualifying a final product assembly partner, we won’t have a solid ship date until we are confident in the performance of the Dev Kits.
Invest with Mycroft
almost 6 years ago
– Mon, Jun 11, 2018 at 01:06:51 PM
Your chance to invest
Our goal here at Mycroft has remained a constant. We are building a voice assistant that runs anywhere and interacts exactly like a person. When the technology is completed people who talk to Mycroft won’t know whether they are talking to a human or a machine.
Together we’re going to put this technology within reach of everyone – individuals, small businesses, doctors, pilots – everyone who can benefit from it. That means Big Tech won’t have a stranglehold on voice technology. It also means that people who care about user agency and privacy will have a choice.
On the path toward our goal, we’ve solved a lot of difficult technical problems. We’ve worked hard to attract talented team members and build the trust of the wider open source community. We’ve built partnerships with open source leaders like Mozilla, KDE, and Ubuntu and worked with companies like Jaguar Land Rover, Sprint and Hewlett Packard to explore the future of voice.
But $2.5M in investment is not enough to achieve our goals. We need to improve our marketing efforts, recruit a sales team and most importantly, hire additional developers. To build Alexa our friends at Amazon made three acquisitions and assigned hundreds of employees to the project. Here at Mycroft, we benefit from a great community, but we need additional resources to achieve our goal.
Past fundraising efforts at Mycroft have only been available to accredited investors: wealthy individuals who make more than $200,000 per year or have more than $1M in assets. Though lots of smaller investors have shown interest, we were unable to accommodate them. Until now.
Here at Mycroft, we want our community to benefit from the technology they are helping us build. We want the visionaries who are developing skills, contributing samples, tagging data and interacting with Mycroft every day to be the ones who benefit financially from a voice market that is growing faster than any other segment of technology today.
So if you are tired of standing on the sidelines while the Venture Capital community and accredited investors are getting all of the early deals. If you believe in an open internet, user agency, privacy and the future of voice. If you are looking for a bit of risk in a fast moving market with an early stage technology. Head over to our campaign and take a look. We enjoy having you as a member of our community and would love to have you as an investor.
What should be on our Raspberry Pi and Picroft Roadmap?
almost 6 years ago
– Thu, Jun 07, 2018 at 08:06:02 PM
Picroft – Mycroft on a Raspberry Pi – is the most popular way for people to get familiar with Mycroft software and to start experimenting with Skills and our other tools such as Precise, Padatious, and Mimic. To date, we’ve had tens of thousands of downloads of our Picroft disk image, and it’s wonderful to be able to unite affordable open ARM-based hardware with our software to deliver an open source voice assistant.
We want to hear how our users use Mycroft on Pi. Please take a moment to read the blog and share your thoughts.
Join the Conversation about Mycroft Roadmap
about 6 years ago
– Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 12:37:04 PM
If you use the Mycroft software, either with our hardware or your own, you might have noticed several recent updates. 18.02b was a major milestone for the project, and we’re working diligently toward our next major release, 18.08b. User input is what fuels progress here at Mycroft--whether that’s through testing, updating skills, or documentation feedback. In fact, a lot has been happening lately. Check out our pieces about Mozilla Deepspeech, the Pi Day release, and how you can help train a neural network.
We NEED your input, and would like to invite you to help us decide on the direction of our next major release. What do you want to see with the 18.08b release?
We are inviting our community to join CEO Joshua Montgomery as he works with Mycroft members and open up a discussion. What do you want Mycroft to be able to do?
Joshua is holding three Ask Me Anything sessions over the next few weeks. Find the dates and how you can join on the blog!
Hey Mycroft, How Can I Get a Free Mark II?
about 6 years ago
– Fri, Mar 09, 2018 at 06:48:37 PM
How would you like a free Mark II? Free is a good price--unless you’re getting a tattoo, or knee surgery... but nonetheless.
Today we’re announcing a referral program for the Mark II Indiegogo campaign. If you’re yet to reserve a Mark II this could be your chance to get one for free. If you have backed us you could get a second unit. Or a third.
There’s two ways to benefit from the referral program:
- For every backer you refer to us who selects a Mark II you will get a $10 credit, which you can spend on merch or another device.
- Once you send 10 backers our way who purchase a Mark II, you can select a free Mark II device instead of the cash.
The referral system is simple, all you need is an Indiegogo account. Log into your account and find the Mark II campaign.
Click on the link image to generate your custom link and share it with your friends. The link button is the one circled in red below.
Put it on your blog, share it on social, or email it to your friends. The more you share, the better your chances.
Indiegogo will keep track of your referrals for you. To see how many referrals you have, simply log in and click on the icon for your account. In the drop down menu click on My Contributions. Once that page opens you can click on the tab for Referrals. We will be using Indiegogo’s tracking system so do make sure your friends use your link. If Indiegogo doesn’t count it, we won’t count it.
This campaign begins today and ends May 11th. Are you ready?
To Indiegogo!
