March Update: Drumroll, please...
over 5 years ago – Mon, Apr 01, 2019 at 02:09:56 AM

Hey backers!

What's that drumroll for, you may ask? Well, we've finally hit that big milestone that we've all been waiting for. We're shipping!

We're Shipping!

We've finally hit a stride with production and units are coming off the line that are ready to ship! The team has been working around the clock to continue supporting production activities, and it is quite rewarding to finally have stable processes in place that are producing finished units.

It has been a surreal experience to finally reach this moment! We've certainly encountered many setbacks on this journey, and progress at times has been slow. But we're finally holding finished product in our hands and sending them out into the world! It's been awesome to reflect on how this project has gone from idea to reality. 

Before diving into logistics details, let's check out what the production line is looking like as we finish up these first units!

Check out one of the coolest parts of the assembly line, where we can watch all the subassemblies come together to make a full pair of glasses. After the step at the end of this video, the glasses make their way to the gluing station for the exterior portion of the legs to be applied.

In general, a production line running at capacity is a very busy place. There are a lot of moving parts, and it's taken many months of careful planning and coordination to get everything to work! A lot of small activities happen off the production line too. For example, in the video below, you can see the label machine whirring away as it prepares the labels for each pair of glasses.

As we move down the production line, various staging areas begin to pile high with components. Below you will see the staging area for fully assembled goods. From here, the assembled units go through a few more quality inspections before they are sent off for final packaging!

We're so excited to see all these units coming together, as it means we can finally get your rewards into your hands! We just wanted to take a brief moment to extend a thank you to everyone who has backed this project—it's been a long journey! We'll be quite busy continuing to support production, but we'll continue posting updates as usual. We'll also be working on setting up FAQs, tutorials, and troubleshooting guides which will be made available online that will supplement the manuals in the packaging. 

Logistics

The first units are going to be sent out in several, smaller batches, as the scale-up hasn't been as rapid as we hoped. Backers whose units are ready to ship will be receiving emails shortly with their tracking numbers so they can track their shipment. The courier will vary by region and you'll be able to see this information in the email. 

Due to some timing issues with our lens deliveries to the factory, the first shipments won't necessarily match the overall order in which a pledge was made. As backers wait for their shipments, please note the following:

• First, you'll first receive an email to confirm your lens information. Here you can update prescription info (if your lens needs a prescription) and your shipping info.
• Once the details in the previous email are confirmed, your unit will be made and we'll follow up via email with tracking information.
• If you haven't been contacted by email yet regarding finalizing your reward info, then it means your batch hasn't started production, so you'll need to hang in there a bit longer.

We'll keep you posted as we continue to work on supporting production activities. Full-steam ahead!

On-going Production Issues

We're excited to be shipping, but production work will continue to be an on-going focus for us. Increasing production volume brings its own challenges, and we're constantly working on ways to improve the process.

An example of this is during the charging step for the leg sub-assemblies. Charging each leg was done on an individual basis previously, which was difficult to manage and organize. We've recently designed new custom fixtures that can hold up to 5 legs at a time. As one leg is removed for assembly into a full unit, a new leg is placed into the fixture to begin charging. As volumes continue to increase, we'll produce more fixtures that can hold more legs at a time.

Fixtures, generally speaking, are a great way to standardize the production process by making steps repeatable and easier to perform. The gluing fixtures are a great example of this. Since we last discussed the gluing fixtures, we've had many more made and tested so that we can further boost production volume and avoid any production bottlenecks. 

We continue to implement various quality inspections at different stages of the assembly process. For example, after the gluing steps we perform visual inspections to make sure the glue didn't seep out of the seams. And after assembling the legs, we do an audio frequency inspection to make sure the audio transducers are performing as expected. 

Some of the inspections involve components that are too small to see with the human eye, so instead we have to use specialized equipment to look at the small components and features on the product.

For some of the first units, the team performed a final inspection as they made their way across the finish line, making sure the product was ready to go. Below you can see the team performing a final look-over on some units!

As we continue on through these batches, we'll be adding more fixtures, continuing to troubleshoot issues, and in general will be helping to maintain the production line. This is often referred to as "sustaining engineering"—which means the work shifts from making production work to making sure production is sustained. We're in that transition now—exciting times!

App

The app will be published in the next few days. Please note that while you will be able to download the app, you won't be able to do anything with it because it requires a pair of Vue to go through the pairing process. 

Support

Reach us at [email protected] with any questions, and remember the following before emailing:

• The quickest way for us to help is by emailing [email protected].
• To change your shipping address, email [email protected].
• We are still accepting prescription changes at [email protected].
• We are no longer accepting changes to frame styles, colors, or lens types.
• You absolutely must send the email using the email that you originally used to make the pledge. For example, we cannot provide account access if you originally used “@gmail.com” but now you email us from “@yahoo.com”. If you don’t do this, we’ll just ask you to email us using the other email and it will extend the time it takes to assist you!

We receive hundreds more emails than normal immediately after posting updates, so we apologize if it takes longer than expected for us to get back to you!

Until next time!

With love,

the Vue team

February Update: New clamps, app update, and more
almost 6 years ago – Fri, Mar 01, 2019 at 12:19:04 AM

Hey backers!

As mentioned in the January update, most of our factories and suppliers were off work for the Chinese New Year holiday. While the factories were off, we worked through non-production related tasks, including our upcoming website re-design and our mobile app (more below). Our factory got back to work on February 13th, and we hit the ground running!  Let's dive in!

Production

At this point, most of production is running quite smoothly. There has been just one particular step that is causing the vast majority of rejects and quality issues, and that’s the gluing step for the legs.

The glue fixtures have had three main problems: consistent pressure, bad orientation, and ease of use. The fixtures for the most part have been working, but the issue is reliability. For example, because they have been difficult to use, it's easier for an operator to misalign the glasses, and accidentally short a wire in the electronics. In the time since we've returned from CNY, our factories have already helped us produce new fixtures which are far better. 

As seen in the above GIF, the process is more standardized with this fixture. Instead of previous fixtures which have had multiple moving parts that operators had to engage in order to clamp the glasses, this fixture has just one lever. This greatly reduces operator error, meaning more units are glued correctly. 

You'll notice that the glasses are now sitting on their side in the clamp, versus previous fixtures which sat horizontally. The horizontal orientation had some issues with glue seepage. Just due to gravity, glue would seep out of some of the seams when on their sides.

By changing the orientation of the clamp, we've reduced the occurrence of this issue, and thus improved our yield rate.

We've also added additional quality checks during the assembly process to identify rejects before they become fully assembled. For example, if the LED notification light on the front frame is not working, but we proceed to full assembly without catching it, we will need to scrap the entire unit. Since the legs will have been glued on at that point, we won't be able to recover the part, and the final unit will contain a broken notification LED. 

Below is an example of a new station that enables us to catch these issues prior to full assembly. After the front frames are assembled and glued, they are hooked up to a test jig that checks all the wires and components within the front frames for functionality.

When the frames are placed in the fixture, a series of small lights glow orange if the part passes. If the lights do not turn on, the part does not pass, and the unit will not continue to be assembled. This allows us to remove faulty units from the assembly line, thus boosting our yield rate. As time goes on, we'll be implementing more of these types of fixtures when they help to improve the efficiency of production.

We also improved the gluing fixture and the machine's programming to avoid the issue we mentioned in the last update, where the glue dispenser was breaking by colliding with the glasses. The reprogramming can be a tedious task, as some of the troubleshooting, such as adjusting nozzle height, sometimes must be checked manually.

We're actually writing this update after another day spent at the factory working on these issues, and we'll have many more of these days to come. Over the next week, we'll be focused on the qualification of our clamping fixtures and working toward getting the first units across the line! Stay tuned!

App & More

We're happy to say that the mobile app has been reviewed and approved for release on each app store (Apple and Android)! The only thing remaining is for us to officially publish them so that they are available for download, which we'll do once the first units are ready to ship. Below is a brief walkthrough of the pairing process the app will guide you through when you first get your Vue!

Your glasses will have two Bluetooth connections that need to be made—one to "Vue Sensors" (which transmits data such as step tracking) and the other to "Vue Audio" (so you can utilize the bone conduction speakers). The sensors pairing is done automatically through the app, while the audio pairing will need to be done through your phone's Bluetooth menu directly. But not to worry—the app includes a tutorial that guides you through the process step by step. 

In addition to the app, we wanted to show backers a quick video of the charging case in action.

We'll be working on creating more videos like this, including in-depth tutorials, to help supplement the manuals that will ship with each of your glasses. We hope these will serve as a resource during your unboxing, daily use, and beyond!

Remaining Challenges

Currently, we're qualifying the new clamping fixtures to ensure they produce quality units. If the fixtures need additional adjustments, we'll adjust their dimensions and perform another qualifying production run. While we work on this main issue, we'll continue looking for areas of the production line that can be improved, typically with automated quality inspections or fixtures. Once production is stable and producing consistent units, we'll start packaging and shipping them!

Timelines

Timelines are a little tricky right now. The ultimate gatekeeper is getting the first quality units off the line. Doing so will help us establish a baseline production rate which we can then use to more accurately estimate the timelines for each remaining batch. We anticipate that units in this first batch will begin shipping as early as the next few weeks, though exactly when is difficult to pin down. Now that we're back after CNY, we have full access to our factories again and will be spending the majority of our time supporting production activities. As soon as we know when the first units can ship in the first batch, we will give everyone a heads up through an update. Our overall goal is to get all units shipped out within a couple months of each other. 

Support

Reach us at [email protected] with any questions, and remember the following before emailing:

• The quickest way for us to help is by emailing [email protected].
• To change your shipping address, email [email protected].
• We are still accepting prescription changes at [email protected].
• We are no longer accepting changes to frame styles, colors, or lens types.
• You absolutely must send the email using the email that you originally used to make the pledge. For example, we cannot provide account access if you originally used “@gmail.com”but now you email us from “@yahoo.com”. If you don’t do this, we’ll just ask you to email us using the other email and it will extend the time it takes to assist you!

We receive hundreds more emails than normal immediately after posting updates, so we apologize if it takes longer than expected for us to get back to you!

Until next time!

With love,

the Vue team

January Update: Full Production
almost 6 years ago – Fri, Feb 01, 2019 at 01:13:49 AM

Hey backers!

We’d like to wish everyone a Happy New Year! We think 2019 is going to be a big year for connected eyewear, and we’re excited to share that with you all. As mentioned in our previous update, we knew January was going to be a busy month due to all the work we had slated to get done prior to the Chinese New Year shutdown. Let’s dive in!

Production

This has been our most exciting month yet. Our full production line is up and running, and we’ve been watching units go all the way into final packaging! We’d like to walk everyone through the entire process, discuss where we’re at, what we finished prior to CNY, and what we’ll pick up after.

Production starts by making most of the smaller components, including our electronics and housings. The frames, for example, are made at our injection molding facility where they are molded, trimmed, polished, painted, and dried. One of the first steps is to trim off excess material from the parts and perform a brief quality inspection. 

Once these parts have finished the post-processing work, they are painted in large batches and sent to a drying rack.  

The other components, including the legs, are sent through their own painting and drying process as well.   

Once the housing is manufactured, processed, and inspected, they are sent to our assembly factory where they are staged for assembly along with the electronics.  

The actual assembly process is what has been taking up the bulk of our time in the past several months. While each individual component of the glasses (like the frames, legs, or electronics) contain their own engineering and manufacturing challenges in and of themselves, the act of assembling all of those pieces into the final product is quite complex.

As the saying goes, practice makes perfect, and it is through training, mistakes, and learning from those mistakes that ultimately the product comes to fruition. Though challenging, it’s been rewarding to better understand the process and to see our manufacturing partners work with us to bring Vue to life!

Below you'll see a section of the production line assembling legs for the glasses.

The following video is of the charging case assembly line, which is also up and running from start to finish.

Throughout the assembly process, there are also a few different inspection and testing points where we look for defects and test functionality. This includes anything from scratches on the frames to the ability of the glasses to pair via Bluetooth.

Once the glasses are inspected and the lenses inserted, each pair of Vue glasses is given its own charging case and is placed into packaging. Once it's in its packaging, it is sent to a machine where a protective film is applied.

Once the protective film has been applied, each Vue box is placed into a shipping box.

From here, labels are scanned, shipping labels printed, and the boxes are staged in the shipping area where they are sent off to our courier, and ultimately, to all of you! This is a high-level overview of the process from start to finish, and it’s been awesome to see the production line truly come to life and become fully functional from start to finish throughout January. 

Remaining Challenges

Though the production line is now fully operational, there were still a few bumps in the process that need adjusting. Namely, we found that our glue fixture's tolerances were off. Occasionally, the dispensing nozzle would collide with part of the glasses and damage the tip. When the glue nozzle is damaged, it’s unable to perform any dispensing accurately and thus production is halted until it is fixed.  

We've ordered an adjusted fixture to be made to ensure that the clearance remains sufficient throughout production. There were a few other issues we found during production—including kinked wires or shorted electronics—though these are resolved by revising our assembly instructions and re-training operators. 

Timelines

Of the first 1000 units, we opted to make the “Classic - Carbon Fiber” units first as those were the most popular. Doing this would keep production less confusing during our first batch. We actually finished some of these units, but due to a translation error with our lens factory, we received lenses cut for Trendy frames instead of Classic. It’s a really small detail, but sometimes when you are rushing to get things done, small things go unnoticed. With the CNY holiday break, we won’t get lenses re-cut until mid-February. 

This means early backers can expect their units to be shipping next month. We’ll continue to reach out to backers via email to lock down addresses and prescriptions, and we’ll provide tracking numbers once able. 

The full schedule of shipping will become clearer next month once we pick up production again and run production with some of the above mentioned issues fixed. We’ll then have a better understanding of throughput which we’ll use to put timelines on everyone else’s units. 

Support 

Reach us at [email protected] with any questions, and remember the following before emailing:

• The quickest way for us to help is by emailing [email protected]. 
• To change your shipping address, email [email protected].
• We are still accepting prescription changes at [email protected]. 
• We are no longer accepting changes to frame styles, colors, or lens types. 
• You absolutely must send the email using the email that you originally used to make the pledge. For example, we cannot provide account access if you originally used “[email protected]” but now you email us from “[email protected]”. If you don’t do this, we’ll just ask you to email us using the other email and it will extend the time it takes to assist you!

We receive hundreds more emails than normal immediately after posting updates, so we apologize if it takes longer than expected for us to get back to you!

Until next time! 

With love, 

the Vue team

December Update: Finishing 2018 Strong
almost 6 years ago – Tue, Jan 01, 2019 at 12:33:15 AM

Hey backers!

Happy holidays to those celebrating around the world, and we wish everyone a very happy New Year as we move into 2019! We’ve been wrapping up 2018 by forging ahead on our various production tasks, and we wanted to take a moment to thank all of our backers for hanging in there with us throughout this journey! It wouldn't be possible to get this far without you and we are thankful for your support! Let’s dive into December's update! 

Production Progress 

Work on adhesive procedures continued into December and went well. We decided to build additional fixtures to help further streamline the process of applying adhesive during production. Fixtures, though fairly quick to make, still require a lot of design and review before they are made as they are quite critical pieces of equipment. For example, in the fixture below, holes were added that make the fixture considerably lighter and therefore easier to handle during production. Moreover, fixtures are typically built out of robust materials so that they can remain on the line for long periods of time, likely helping to produce tens of thousands of units.

After testing the new adhesive procedures with the new fixtures, we are happy to say that the glued components meet our functional specifications! Vue’s size and structural requirements have posed quite a few challenges for us as we’ve worked toward manufacturing, but we’re happy to have finally arrived at a robust solution for bonding the parts during assembly. We’ve performed a series of functional reviews on the parts and they are looking good.

Note that you should not bend or twist the glasses as you see us doing in the video—treat your glasses carefully! This is just a demonstration that showcases that the work we’ve put into solving our assembly and adhesive problems seems robust.

We also have finalized the matte texturizing that is applied to the various parts of the glasses. This work was nearly complete but had been put on the sideline for a bit while we focused our efforts on our assembly issues.

Practice assembly work continues with our factories. Now with the adhesive procedures locked in, the efficiency of assembly is greatly improving and the production line is looking much closer to a true mass production line. From here on out, we'll be focused on practice runs rather than big technical hurdles. 

We’ve got a tight schedule ahead of us after the international new year, as we will be working to get first units out the door before Chinese New Year. We’ll keep you posted!

App

Work on the app has continued and we are finishing off final touches now before submitting final versions to their respective app stores! The app will continue to be updated before and after backers receive their glasses, and we’ll rely on feedback from all of you to improve the experience! We're looking forward to getting your feedback from real-world use. 

Below is a brief scroll through the main app sections.

In addition to being able to stream audio from your phone, another main feature set with the glasses is the ability to track steps taken throughout the day. You can set your double-tap gesture to hear your step and calorie count for the day, or you can go into the app to see the totals in graphical format. If you adjust your step goal in the app's settings, the circular graph on the activity tab of the app will adjust its progress accordingly, as seen in the demo video below. 

In addition to the core features most backers are familiar with, we also have a few experimental features that we touched briefly on during the campaign. These will likely be buggy as they haven’t been our main priority with the app, but they are included in case backers want to test them out. We’re looking forward to hearing what you think of the app and what features you’d like to see! Once the apps are live in their respective app stores, we will let you know.

Branding + Photography 

Though this journey has taken a while, it truly is just the beginning! Thanks to all of our wonderful backers, we will have managed to launch a new product. In the long term, we hope and plan on being a major player in the emerging connected eyewear space. We stand a chance to shift the global eyewear market toward connected products, and your feedback will help determine how those products look and function.

In anticipation of this next big phase, we’ve been working to refresh our branding. We’ve recently had the chance to take new photography with the glasses, and will be publishing a lot of these assets across our social media and in our soon-to-be revamped website.

These pictures are just a sneak peak, and we have more to come. You’ll begin to see this branding roll out as soon as we start shipping.

Timelines

We're now entirely focused on our practice assembly runs, and ensuring that the production line can consistently produce quality glasses. The assembly lines are being staged with the necessary components to assemble the first 1000 units (and more). Once we achieve satisfactory results with our practice runs, we'll kickoff a production run with the staged components and begin shipping immediately. 

Many of you will be receiving emails to update your prescriptions (if you haven't already), as we are currently sending lens data to our lens partner to begin manufacturing batches of lenses by the thousands. Full-steam ahead!

Support 

Reach us at [email protected] with any questions, and remember the following before emailing: 

• The quickest way for us to help is by emailing [email protected]. 
• To change your shipping address, email [email protected]. 
• We are still accepting prescription changes at [email protected]. 
• We are no longer accepting changes to frame styles, colors, or lens types. 
• You absolutely must send the email using the email that you originally used to make the pledge. For example, we cannot provide account access if you originally used “[email protected]” but now you email us from “[email protected]”. If you don’t do this, we’ll just ask you to email us using the other email and it will extend the time it takes to assist you! 

We receive hundreds more emails than normal immediately after posting updates, so we apologize if it takes longer than expected for us to get back to you! 

Until next time! 

With love (and happy new year!), 

the Vue team

November Update: Making Progress
about 6 years ago – Sat, Dec 01, 2018 at 01:03:09 AM

Hey backers! 

Hope everyone had a pleasant month of November! Production work continued throughout the month and we've been able to complete training with our factory as planned as well as resolve most of our issues. Unfortunately, a few hurdles remain that we're working to clear. Let's dive in to the details.

Production 

We’re happy to say that most of the optimization, inspection, and training activities have been going quite smoothly. We’ve managed to iron out a lot of quality issues with practice. We’re really thrilled with how the glasses are looking as we get closer to the end of this journey!

Each practice run has been showing marked improvement, and assembly work is starting to speed up considerably, which bodes well for higher volume manufacturing runs as we work on shipping all rewards.

In particular, charging case assembly is looking great, and it looks like assembly will be able to keep pace with the glasses, or will be done well in advance.

The bigger challenge for us has been optimizing the adhesive procedures, which we noted in our previous update was one area that had slowed us down. Vue’s dimensions are quite small, so the process must be very precise. As we mentioned in the October update, an obvious quality standard that we maintain is that the glue that is applied by the machine during production should not seep through any seams in the product. It’s a tough balance to maintain—too little glue and the bonding is not strong enough, whereas too much may seep out as seen below.

There has been a considerable amount of fine tuning for this process. The amount of glue that is laid down onto the parts depends on a lot of factors, but most critically it depends on the speed of the adhesive flow, the speed of the dispensing head, and the diameter of the dispensing needle. Unfortunately, it isn’t always simply a matter of adjusting the settings. In our case, some of the machines we used simply were not able to perform with the level of precision we required.

Due to this, we ended up evaluating several other machines our factory had available, and ultimately ended up ordering custom equipment that could perform to our specifications. With the tweaking, testing, and ordering of a new machine, this added weeks of work that we weren’t anticipating.

A good chunk of November was spent evaluating these new procedures and machines and then validating them. We also had to create entirely new fixtures for the new machine to help properly place the frames beneath the dispensing head as well as clamp the pieces together after they’ve been glued. 

During the last week of November, we ran through the new equipment and procedures and will be evaluating those units shortly. Once the gluing adjustments have been validated, everything will be in place for full production.

We think it’s important to eliminate as many of these issues as we can before shipping so that backers have the best product possible. This first generation of Vue that you are all helping to launch will be the first of many generations of product, and your valuable feedback is going to directly help shape how Vue seeks to change the global eyewear market. We know the wait for some of these details is tiresome, but we want you all with us for the long haul, and we think these details will be important for that!

In anticipation of advancing to full production, our lens factory has been finishing lenses and shipping them to our assembly factory, where they will wait to be installed into each backer’s frame.

The lens manufacturing has been far more straightforward than the frames, so we’ve had no hiccups in the process thus far. Most of the processes for lens manufacturing are well established and automated, meaning the process is predictable and controlled.

In the above video, the machine is actually cutting a lens to shape. Once finished, the lens is dropped into its corresponding tray and moved down its conveyor system. You can then see the next lens be picked up by the machine where it will go through the same process. It’s pretty impressive to see some of this advanced equipment in action!

We’ve also started to prepare for our second production batch for the units beyond the first 1000. As you may recall from previous updates, the PCBs for the first 1000 have already been completed and are already at our assembly factory waiting for final assembly. We’re aiming to time it so that we can start work on our second batch as the first units are shipping out.

We recently received our next batch of over 8000 PCBs. Once the first production batch is running, we’ll have the PCBs go through SMT, and they’ll immediately be ready for the next production batch.

We've been putting the finishing touches on this update after another long day at the factory, and will be back at it again after posting! We'll continue to keep you updated on progress as we get closer to the finish line. 

Timelines 

We acknowledge that we’ve been too optimistic with these previous few updates. Production work has been really busy, but also really exciting. Being in the factory and seeing so many units come to life is what we’ve been waiting for throughout this journey, and in our eagerness we’ve been too quick to assume the best. We haven’t been factoring in buffer to account for some of these issues. Because of this, we don’t want to lead backers on that we can ship these out in December. Instead, we’re going to plan on January. We really do apologize for the delays, and we hope that the details in our updates provides clarity on our progress. If we are able to get units out earlier, we’ll certainly let you know. But we’d rather set expectations that first units will go out around mid-January, then will pick up again in late February after Chinese New Year.

Support 

Reach us at [email protected] with any questions, and remember the following before emailing:

• The quickest way for us to help is by emailing [email protected]. 
• To change your shipping address, email [email protected].
  
• We are still accepting prescription changes at [email protected].
  
• We are no longer accepting changes to frame styles, colors, or lens types. 
• You absolutely must send the email using the email that you originally used to make the pledge. For example, we cannot provide account access if you originally used “[email protected]” but now you email us from “[email protected]”. If you don’t do this, we’ll just ask you to email us using the other email and it will extend the time it takes to assist you!

We receive hundreds more emails than normal immediately after posting updates, so we apologize if it takes longer than expected for us to get back to you!

Until next time! 

With love, 

the Vue team