September 6 Update

Hey everyone, Ryan here with this week’s update. I have quite a bit to update everyone on this week, so let’s just jump right in.

Software Update

We’ve had some starts and stops with software releases over the last two weeks. Over a week ago, we submitted 0.9.10 to both Apple and Android. The new releases switched the Android connection process to use Wi-Fi Direct, which is a pretty big change under the hood. With Android we try to test on as many phones as we can, but with 25,000 unique models, it can be hard to catch every issue, especially on the connection side of things. The new build worked great on most devices, but we did see some issues we traced back to our new Wi-Fi Direct drivers. Jack, our embedded engineer is now able to duplicate these issues and is working on them now. Unfortunately, this may take him some time, so in this release we’ve switched back to normal Wi-Fi for connections. We were able to make some changes to the standard Wi-Fi connections that improve the experience. That said, if you run into any issues with firmware updates we still recommend the desktop firmware update process.

Since we saw an issue on our Wi-Fi Direct drivers, we had to hold the Apple release until we had a solution. The underlying drivers are the same, and we didn’t want to impact iOS users. Once we had a solution, we had to resubmit since the app had changed. The new Apple mobile app was submitted yesterday and was approved earlier today; it’s now available in the app store. The Android app has also been submitted and should be out in the next day or two.

Thanks to all of our testers and customers who helped us track down issues. Because Arsenal is so new, we’re working as fast as we can to get releases out the door quickly. The normal release cycle for hardware is three to six months. As we go forward, we will be increasing time between releases. For now though, we want to get fixes out as quickly as possible and are committed to very frequent updates. Thanks for everyone's patience as we work to balance quick releases and extensive quality assurance testing.

The key features in this release are the same as previously published. If you want to read the full app release notes and what’s coming next, you can access them here.

Shipping Update and German Orders

With one exception, we remain on track from a shipping perspective. We shipped 6,251 units last week against a goal of 6,000. We lowered this week’s expectation from 6,500 to 6,000 due to the issue outlined below that affected orders shipping to Germany.

As a reminder, this is the current schedule for those that backed or ordered before April 1, 2018:

Week of June 18 - 211 units shipped
Week of June 25 - 338 units shipped
Week of July 16 - 578 units shipped
Week of July 23 - 4,098 units shipped
Week of July 30 - 7,166 units shipped
Week of August 6 - 7,680 units shipped
Week of August 13 - 6,012 units shipped
Week of August 20 - 3,028 units shipped
Week of August 27 - 6,251 units
Week of September 3 - 6,000 units
Week of September 10 - all remaining confirmed pre-orders

Unfortunately, we’ve run into quite a few issues with customs in Germany. While the rest of the EU has not run into rejected packages due to regulation, a material percentage (too high for our standards) of our German customers have. This has resulted in excess trips to customs offices and understandable frustration when the unit is not able to be retrieved. Arsenal has ensured all necessary regulatory approvals for the EU, including CE certification. We have tried to provide all of the necessary paperwork that is requested, but some customs offices/agents are not honoring the exception we have for CE marking on the packaging only (and not the device).

As a result, we are temporarily pausing shipments to Germany. We will have new units with a CE marking on them that will be sent to all orders with destinations in Germany. These are custom units that we’re working on a schedule for currently. Early indications are a mid-October shipment. We will update our customers in Germany as we know more and have more specific dates. Our apologies for the delays here; we want to get your Arsenal out as soon as possible, but we also want to ensure you’re able to acquire it without issue.

Shipping Timeframes

For those of you that have received a shipping confirmation and tracking email, we understand that it can be frustrating if you have not seen movement on your package for a few days (or even a week). However, please allow the full 14 days (from your shipping date) for your package to make it to the final delivery destination before contacting support. Most issues can be resolved by calling the courier who is delivering the package in your country. If your package has not arrived 14 days after your ship date and the courier is not able to provide any additional information, please contact us via email (help@witharsenal.com) so we can file a claim on your behalf or help track down the missing package. If you run into any other issues, please feel free to reach out.

My Arsenal Still Hasn’t Shipped!

We’ve had lots of folks write to us that their Arsenal hasn’t shipped yet and should have per the above schedule. If you’re a Kickstarter or Indiegogo backer and don’t think your Arsenal has shipped, greater than 90% of the time this means either A) the tracking email is in your Spam/Promotions/Updates/Other folder. Look for an email from no-reply@witharsenal.com, or B) we didn’t have your order marked as “confirmed” in our system based on the emails we sent out in April/May. If after checking your email you still don’t have a shipping notification, send us an email at help@witharsenal.com and we can help you confirm the status of your order.

Customer Support

The support queue is still a bit backed up, but has started to improve. We’ve implemented many of the changes we mentioned in our last update and also ramped up additional staff. Doing so has resulted in the reduction of the number of net open tickets by 25% in the last few days. We think we’ll be fully caught up to a more normal response time within 7-10 days. Thanks for everyone’s patience as we work through this queue. We are committed to responding to each inquiry we receive in a reasonable timeframe.

Wrap Up

Again, we thank you for your continued support. Please be on the lookout for an email confirming your shipment if you haven’t received one already. We look forward to your feedback on the latest app release and will notify everyone as soon as Android is ready for download.

-Ryan