Shipping Update June 25

Tempest Owners
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PRE-ORDER SHIPPING UPDATE

As of date: 25 June 2018
Total Backers completed: 1936
To be shipped: 877
Awaiting address confirmation: 51

915 mHz SKY only: 1119 backers shipped (18 remain to send)
915 COMPLETE: 559 backers shipped up to approx IGG #1800 (671 to send)
868 mHz SKY only: 176 backers shipped (5 remain to send)
868 COMPLETE: 82 backers shipped up to approx IGG #1291 (183 to send)

915: US, CA, AU, NZ, HK, JP, SGP, ISR, TWN
868: EU +

Production update: Our contract manufacturer continues to produce some stations with parts on hand, however, we were notified on Thursday 21 June that a parts supply order containing critical sensors and radio parts are currently still held up in customs in China. Inevitably, this will cause delays in the delivery of the remaining stations. The degree of delay is pending customs clearance. Here’s a summary of the details we know:

Details: back in December 2017, we ordered all final parts to build 3500 complete stations. In March 2018, our contract manufacturer asked us to re-source critical parts which were either sold out from electronics distributors in Asia or had long lead times. To expedite, we located the parts from suppliers in the US, purchased all stock on hand, and air freighted to China. The parts were delivered to the port of entry in early May. An import broker in China has been trying to clear the parts through customs without success citing increased US-China trade friction. We do not know all the details yet, but will tell you when we learn details. Upon learning of the parts held in customs we immediately began a search to order from another supplier; unfortunately the solar sensor part is sold out and unavailable right now (we purchased all stock available previously and it’s being held in customs, dammit).

Again, we do not know all the details on the parts order stuck in Chinese customs — but these parts are critical to complete the remaining weather stations to be delivered. We are investigating all means to extricate the held shipment and/or source replacement parts. We’ll post all known facts to this forum. We don’t have the information required to accurately predict when the remaining shipments can be delivered at this time. If you have questions, concerns, criticism, conspiracy theories, whatever – we welcome a productive dialogue. And if you happen to have a large stash of Broadcom APDS-9200 solar sensors definitely call us today.

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What to say except : Murphy go have a walk in the parc ??? :roll_eyes:

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Is 69,480 units possibly sitting in-theater (Hong Kong) enough to get my 8/2016 Air/Sky package shipped? :wink: (Is this even the correct part? It appears to be from a second source, not Broadcom.)

http://www.kynix.com/Detail/971999/APDS-9200-021(NG).html

Oh, and before anyone breaks out the pitchforks and torches, Broadcom only announced the end-of-life on this component two weeks ago:

https://www.mouser.com/PCN/Broadcom_Limited_OBS060818IPD_Revised.pdf

Keeping my fingers crossed that re-engineering isn’t required to use an alternate sensor…

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As I suspected, you have been “dribble shipping” while knowing full well you couldn’t fulfill all original orders.
You didn’t have the parts on hand when you announced you would be shipping in April.
Startups require some creative speculation to get over rough patches but now you are caught in a lie.
It appears, in fact, that you have no idea of when you might fulfill your promised orders.
At least you have now chosen to come clean.
I’m starting to doubt if you will ever be able to fulfill the outstanding original orders.
My guess is that if WF can’t clean this mess up before the end of July you are going to lose all your future business.
You have serious competition at the new $299 price point.
It takes “fixers” to get things done in China so shell out some loot and get it done!

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Well this is kinda depressing since I’m IGG # 3121

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Why do you have to be such a toolbag? Why don’t you do WF and yourself a favor and ask for a refund?

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Indegogo doesn’t do refunds.
I’ll gladly accept a refund for my order of 6/22/16 if WF wants to offer one.
They asked for respectful discussion not personal insult.
You read much?

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Sorry if i offended you. I have my station so i guess I shouldn’t care. :kissing_heart:

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Dear all

let’s not start blaming WF or others. Guess we have a nice case of Murphy messing up things that should have gone nice and easy. Now it is just stuck, not lost. For sure WF is trying all it can to get this unstuck but for those used to Asian countries, nothing goes easy there. I heard trough the grapevine someone is going direction China next week …

And as posted, if someone can help, remotely or via good advice, they are wide open ears … think WF is eager to get past this nasty situation and concentrate on evolution of the software instead.

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Hi @edtimm While your theory is entertaining, it’s not based on much reality. To get products to eager backers, we produced stations and shipped them in batches. If you wish to label this “dribble shipping”, then by all means that’s what we did intentionally — ship products as fast as we could make them. If you inspect the chronology in communications, we ESTIMATED shipping in April way back in 2017. A handful of obstacles presented themselves in the meantime including but not limited to: 1) Field testing showed the original UV sensor inadequate, so we re-engineered with the new Broadcom sensor, 2) our stringent QC process rejected a higher percentage of devices on the production line resulting in a lower yield of devices which led us to expedite an order of additional parts in March/April as described above, and 3) the parts order is woefully stuck in Hong Kong customs and we have a broker and we are willing to grease palms, still stuck. Until number 3 (chronologically 21 June), there was no reason to believe we could not fulfill all orders in June as previously noted.

We’ve provided a plethora of updates all along the journey. Sometimes our lack of daily communications creates a void which gets filled with crazy speculation and wild accusations. When actually, we’re simply trying to focus on the project at hand: complete production and deliver the products ordered. If you want more details please feel free to call us anytime and we’ll be happy to answer any question you may have.

As with any customer who has contacted us over the 2 year campaign, we have offered a refund of all funds received by WeatherFlow for your order. To date, you have have never requested a refund. Should you wish a refund, simply email us at indiegogo@weatherflow.com and include an email address to remit via PayPal. We’d be glad to oblige.

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PS – it was ALWAYS our intention to deliver all Indiegogo pre-orders prior to selling station to anyone else. Our website previously noted direct sale stations as “Available in June”…which was what we were originally hoping for (pre-orders fulfilled, then sell direct in June).

Given the production delays, some backers were concerned that we’d sell stations to the public before delivering their pre-order. Well, that would be absurd. So, we changed the messaging on our website to say “Sold Out, awaiting inventory” to make it more clear and to give pre-order backer a sense of priority and peace. Because that’s the right thing to do.

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Thanks for trying, @vreihen ! Our supply chain expert in China suggested that part as well, a while ago. But unfortunately that’s a much older, deprecated part from Avago (before Broadcom bought them). It’s a completely different part (different core sensors, different form factor, different interface). It’s also not made any more. We’re not sure why they didn’t change the name more definitively. We’re also not sure why there are so many in stock - but it’s not an option for us.

Alas, we just saw that recently as well. Our Broadcom FAE assured us as recently as a month ago that the part was still “active”. We’re not sure what the future holds for that part yet but I have two calls in, one with our supplier and one with our FAE… Fortunately, we should have enough in the batch currently sitting in customs to fulfill the Indiegogo orders. Beyond that is a bit uncertain at the moment…

That would be me! Note, this trip has been scheduled for a while with the goal of working on new things (solar panel, radiation shield, etc), not negotiating with Customs agents…

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I think I would let the Broker do the Haggling I have heard that the Chinese jails are not a nice place to visit let alone stay in. I don’t know about everyone else but there no way in @ell you could make all this @hit up. There is no other weather station company that would publicly state this on any website or any kind of public statement. I know one of the other manufacturers always tell people to PM them and never publicly admit a problem it is great to hear the truth from the owners just makes me more confident that we will all have a quality product that smart people stand behind.
I would think that Broadcom would have a upgraded spec’s to replace the one they are shelving ,going to be a lot of mad companies ( and happy Lawyers ) if they have to fit round parts into square holes let alone rewrite code
Good luck and Thanks for the update

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Given that customs delays appear to be as a result of Trump’s trade war is there any scope for exempting stock for non US customers?
Thanks for all the updates.

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I wonder what the prison sentence is for smuggling UV/solar sensors into China with someone’s luggage? At this point, I’m betting that the possibility of prison time in China would be more desirable than dealing with some angry backers to a few WF staffers! :rofl:

Per the EOL announcement that I posted above, Broadcom has no suggested replacement part to offer:

image
image1806Ă—1190 213 KB

@Mike_Rogers - The problem is with an existing parts shipment from the USA to China. Without the parts, they cannot make units to ship anywhere in the world…

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If I hadn’t already sunk 30 hours of my time building a mount for your device, I’d be gone.
What particularly irritates me is that I chose to have the Air and Sky units shipped together to save WF the extra hassle and expense of shipping twice.
Little did I know that that choice would move me to the back of the line.
At least, the truth of the situation is now out and I rather expect WF will be accurate and not speculative about future possibilities for shipping.
ALL of your shipping updates were speculative in nature and led the reader to believe that delivery was imminent when, in fact, production was stalled.
Your story is the story of Tesla writ small and Musk is now learning of the business hazard of overpromising and underdelivering.
Good luck in delivering your product, I won’t harass you anymore now that my suspicions are validated.
It’s not like a 73 old engineer like myself hasn’t been in your shoes.
If you try this again, try underpromising and overdelivering, it will work out better in the long run.

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Yeah, that could get nasty degotiating with customs!

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I personally would like to see WF get the parts needed and susceed as a company. I still want to own a WF station! I, like others have everything in place to install when shipped. Good luck!

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Thanks for the update.

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I choosed to decline the opportunity to order an air about a year ago becaused i got the impression that Sky would ship within a couple of months and I could as well wait and get a complete station.
This I regret deeply today when I’ve learned that I will have to wait another few weeks, months, years before I get a station.
It may be time to make a new shipment of Air devices to overcome the customer’s frustration.

I would also like to know if everything that can be produced have been shipped or if you have any more to ship in the near future?

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