Embrace update and schedule: how are we doing?
UPDATE — read the latest post: Embrace manufacturing: progress and new bands
Dear Embrace Supporters,
We received a lot of messages from you from our last update, thanks for your wonderful support and understanding over these intense months.
All the team and our partners in Korea have been working day, night and weekends to push Embrace production forward. We would now like to answer three important questions many of you have asked:
- How far along are we in production?
- When is my Embrace shipping?
- Will I get the app before Embrace arrives?
How far along are we in production?
After we designed and engineered Embrace, iterated many times on the hardware and design, and passed a series of tests in the lab, there is still a huge amount of work to do in manufacturing it to scale.
As illustrated by the infographic below, the process comprises four lengthy “Production Builds”, each one including 4 phases: Production of test units, Testing, Verification and Edits/adjustments.
Testing is paramount in order to build a premium quality device that will pass all the medical certifications.
We produce around 200–300 units for each build and then test them in multiple setups. Each phase requires testing and verification of the mechanical parts (case, band) and the electronics (all the sensors, the chip, the bluetooth antenna), both separately and in combination.
As you can expect, it’s quite hard to achieve perfect results during the first pass: tolerances in the materials, changes to the tooling, production methods need to be adapted. So we work on the modifications to test in the next Production Build. Depending on the modifications required, it might take 2–3 weeks to have new parts manufactured and ready for a new test, which then lasts 1–2 weeks.
This iterative process of production-testing-modification is repeated until every test goes well. This is why there is a series of four builds.
We are happy to inform you that we have completed the first build (5 weeks of iterations) and we are now three weeks into the second build (which lasts 8 weeks). Progress with this build is on schedule.
When is my Embrace shipping?
We are scheduled to start the third build on Sep 14 and complete it (7 weeks). Finally, we are scheduled to start “FB”, the final build (5 weeks), on Nov 2. This would have us shipping quantities of Embrace by the first week of December. The dates could slip if some of the changes require more time, or if there are issues that we don’t anticipate.
We know some of you would have already received Embrace by now, and we feel terribly awful about the delay. Given the purpose of the device, reliability is our first concern. That’s why we’re required to rigorously test every little change.
We promise to do our very best to conclude as soon as possible and we will keep you informed on the progress, by posting an update at the end of each Production Build.
Will I get the app before Embrace arrives?
Yes! Our software team has been finishing additional testing and improvements to the Alert App. Then we need to wait for approval for it on the iTunes Store for iOS and the Play Store for Android.
With this app, you will be able to see how the system works: you can setup your contacts that should receive alerts, and send an alert manually through sms and a phone call. We will roll out the app depending on how soon you had ordered Embrace. We will also collect your feedback so that we can tune the experience to your expectations.
Again, we are sorry for the delay — manufacturing a state-of-the-art high-quality sensor is a lot of work. We are committed to delivering it to you, and we are grateful to you for your patience, understanding, and continued support.
Should you have more questions, please feel free to get in touch by emailing us at support@empatica.com.
The Empatica team
