Development Update #1
This is our first development update since we finished the campaign and we’ve a lot of fantastic news to share! Glance Clock’s team is building the 1st clock that combines the nature of traditional wall clocks with digital information around us. We’re carefully managing all processes and development aspects to deliver the most beautiful, valuable and simple clock for your home. We’re really proud of our progress!
Hardware and materials
The properly selected materials and colors make Glance Clock feel nice in your hands and look great on your wall.
- Cold metal frame, button and hands. These three parts come from a metal manufacturer and require very precise tooling and manufacturing processes. We’ve checked at least ten suppliers and secured the best one who is going to manufacture these parts for Glance Clock.
- Soft-touch back cover. This part of the clock is made of ABS plastic and to make it soft touch we are using technology called Double Shot Injection Molding. The technology requires special injection machines and specific tooling. The process have two steps. At first, the machine makes ABS base and the next process overmolds it with soft TPE material. This technology makes plastic part durable and nice.
- Fabric face. This is the crucial part of the outside look. We tried many different materials and found the right one. The key requirements were cozy look and natural feeling. But, the real magic is the display behind the fabric. Thanks to the special optic design the lights look smooth. Actually, Glance Clock looks like a regular clock until the lights on the display shows up. To achieve this visual expression we carefully selected a fabric supplier and a manufacturer that has experience in stretching fabric on top of any hard materials.
- PCBA. This stands for “Printed Circuit Board Assembly” and it’s the key part of Glance Clock. This board has all needed electronic components and does all functions that you’re expecting from Glance Clock. We’ve talked a lot about this part in our previous posts and done our components verification just recently. We found a reliable manufacturer who can deliver the highest quality. The next step is components purchasing and assembly.
- Clock movement. If the processor on PCBA is the brain of Glance Clock, clock movement is its heart. Our standards for time accuracy are very high, and our high-quality clock movement is already in the process of manufacturing. We will soon have 5000 pcs of “fresh” movements for the clock in our hands.
- Sound. Many of you asked us if Glance Clock plays music. Unfortunately, it can’t. However, Glance Clock has a notification speaker that plays clear sounds. It was a real challenge to design an acoustic chamber that fits inside the small available space and produce clear sound with enough volume.
Software and Firmware
What makes Glance Clock really valuable and enchanted is the invisible part — software. Here we mean firmware, backend software, and a mobile app together to deliver the right experience.
- OTA feature. We’ve done OTA (Over the Air Update) for Glance Clock. This required to redesign the entire process to make it reliable and provide you privacy and security. In addition to the firmware upgrade we improved the entire structure of communication language and protocol for Glance Clock system. The protocol and communication become shorter and utilise encryption, so the messages from your cloud account go faster and securely to the clock .
- API. We expanded the clock’s API functionality so independent developers can use pre-installed animations and create custom visualisations. MS Outlook Calendar and road traffic service from Google expanded the list of available integrations. These new features in combination with existing Google Calendar and Weather Channel integrations will be useful for you.
- Languages. Glance Clock became multilingual! It supports all European languages right now what makes the clock valuable for all our non-English speaking backers.
- System Architecture for WiFi. The WiFi+Bluetooth combo requires a redesign of the clock’s system architecture. The reason behind this is, that WiFi uses different sort of messages and communication protocol between the clock and cloud. We improved the whole system a lot to be ready to switch to WiFi communication. The main advantage of WiFi integration is to give you a way to centrally control multiple Glance Clocks what is especially valuable for enterprise use cases. You may be wondering why are we even keeping Bluetooth? Bluetooth is very important as it provides a way to deliver personal information to you.
These days, we’re finalising design and moving manufacturing process forward. I guess, this is enough of news for today :) We will share more information on January 11th, when we will be closer to mass production!
P.S. If you have any question about the clock please write a comment on our Indiegogo page, contact us on Facebook or team@glanceclock.com.
Don’t forget; you can still pre-order Glance Clock. If you purchased just one, please consider that with more Glance Clocks you and your family can have even more effective and organised days. With $149 you can still save $50 compared to the retail price next year and the family pack of 3x Glance Clock is just $297.
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