Which part broke?

Matt_207680

I am sympathetic to the massive undertaking that a new product launch truly is. However, there were no updates between December and April 21st to say that things were even a slightly delayed. Is there anything that can be said about the nature of the design and manufacturing issue that could help me understand what's going on, and renew my sympathy for you. Right now i'm running low.

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tshewman

You may recall in the announcement, part of the issue was the radio power (too strong) and this will have to be scaled back (likely different radio used, tested etc etc). See @HammeredChef DEFINITELY does NOT work at ChefSteps recent post regarding the components and the detail. I personally don't have any sympathy for them because I have been there. As a manufacture, it is difficult to constantly update even when things are on schedule. Why, if one thing goes wrong, then many things get pushed down the road and then the let-down is huge ("you told us......"). So navigating our fragile hopes has to take some difficult decisions while they maintain their course/schedule of every day work on the project (which is anything but "every day work"). From the few of us that have been privileged to see or test the prototypes in action, I would respectfully submit, they don't need our sympathy, but our enthusiasm couldn't hurt. :-) JMHO

fisher23

Matt I believe that ChefSteps kept us updated with the information that they had. The last information in December was that it had been submitted to the FCC for testing. When the testing failed in April we were notified. This is not an unusual time frame for government regulatory requirements. I have been involved with other companies and this is not unusual albeit disappointing, and more for them than us end users. The other issues is that because of complexity of the unit itself and the unwavering demand for quality by ChefSteps any modification causes a cascading effect to design specifications. Trust me from what I saw and experienced last Friday at ChefSteps your wait will be totally be worth it. I too am wanting to just get using my Joule too, but I am willing to wait for a the quality product that I know they want to give us.

Matt_207680

My question is specific. I did see the FCC portion of the email. After reading previous threads I saw answers to how long the FCC can take and how little control CS has over that. The email poses two problems, and this post is about the other issue...

According to the Apr21 release, "What’s the holdup? There are a few things: First, during our initial manufacturing run, we found some engineering problems we need to fix. Our hardware team is working alongside our manufacturing partner to solve these issues. Also, because Joule uses both WiFi..."

After posing this question in email directly, I was asked to post so that everyone can benefit from answers. Does anyone from the hardware team or someone with first hand knowledge/ specifics about the engineering problems have any updates?

fisher23

If I recall correctly, it was more of a fit and finish issue not meeting ChefSteps quality requirements when going from hand made prototypes to mass production. I do not believe anything broke.

pgcath

Seconding what @John_Fisher_218893 said. I don't think anything broke. It's a question of ensuring consistency in manufacturing. As was mentioned before, the Joule is a seriously integrated piece of design. There are only two screws in the entire device. The mount that sits between the thick film heating element is satisfying something like six to ten different engineering needs, including that of a heat sink. That demands a high level of precision and consistency. One issue that they highlighted was that they were vetting and purchasing a robot to ensure that a glued joint was completed to their satisfaction, rather than relying on manual glue up. I got the impression that these were scaling issues, not breaking issues.

Matt_207680

Thank you both. I've been looking for that kind of info. I wish now that they have done your special tour/dinner that they'd follow up with some sort of info share so that everyone could experience the same kind of transparency and customer care. Do either of you have a contact with whom you could share this idea? Maybe some sort of weekly, bi-weekly mass email or blog to speak to incremental progress or even to say, 'nothing new to announce today, but keep holding on, and thanks.'

pgcath

As I understand it, they are putting together something very like that as we speak, and getting the device in the hands of the community is a start. When I last spoke with @Amy_Hatch_146624, she was working on a way to share the visit with the rest of the forums. We may have jumped the gun a bit in our enthusiasm for the product... In the meantime, I think a great avenue for getting information out is on the forums. I'm pretty sure that anyone that was at the visit will be glad to answer questions. I certainly will. I expect that the CS team will have a more formal process in place soon, and I am absolutely sure they will take your suggestions to heart.

fisher23

Matt, I know that they read everything in the forum so I am confident that they have received your suggestion. With as many members as they have there is just no way they can personally respond to everyone who posts here or in the comments of each recipe.

pgcath

Hey Matt! Glad we could assist in answering your questions... I know that the CS crew is checking out this post, so it's good to state your communication preferences loud and clear, so they know what you want.

I also know that they very much want to get all the details of the event out to everyone, but wrapping up all the content has a few things left to be done. I know they're working on it!