

WakeMate: The Home Stretch - itsandrew
http://blog.wakemate.com/2010/07/20/the-home-stretch/

======
drewcrawford
A brief history of ship dates:

January 22, 2010: "We've tentatively planned for the first batch of WakeMates
to be shipped as early as next month."

March 11, 2010: "the first run of units will go out on March!"

March 31, 2010: "This is the last day of Q1 and we will be shipping out the
first units today." (Maybe they did ship out a few? but I was a very early
pre-order and didn't get one...)

April 1, 2010: "The next batch of units will ship no later [sic] July 30,
2010. Based on your pre-order date, you should expect your WakeMate no later
than 07/30/2010, but probably significantly sooner. This is a conservative
estimate; we want to provide you with a firm date. We are confident we can
deliver many orders sooner and will continue working night and day to ship
yours as soon as possible."

July 20, 2010: "We may not hit the July 31st date at this point, but we’ll
come close. We’ll post an updated ship date (measured in days or weeks at
worst, not months) when we have a better idea of when it will be"

~~~
subwindow
I believe they did ship a few dozen units out in Q1. I don't believe they lied
in any of those quotes- at worst it looks like they'll miss their July 30 ship
date by a week or so. That's not all that bad.

~~~
drewcrawford
Being even a week late is not my idea of a "conservative estimate" or a "firm
date".

I realize we're not talking about a mission-critical product here. But when
you choose to use language like that, live up to it.

~~~
rstocker99
I haven't ordered a wakemate. I'm not the target market but I'm always amazed
at the level of vitriol that follows their posts here on HN.

There is no doubt that their overall communication strategy is a bit "rough".

I'm always surprised and bit disappointed at the beating people give these
guys here. This is a community of tech entrepreneurs who know how unbelievably
difficult it is to ship product and a run a start up. I'm not suggesting
everyone should get a free pass. I'm all for pointed thoughtful criticism but
the verbal beatings seem unwarranted.

~~~
mcritz
With friends like these, right?

It seems the HN community is all too eager to shoot their wounded.

~~~
ekanes
I agree that the community could be gentler with WakeMate, but my guess is the
frustration comes because the pattern isn't changing. This community seems
very forgiving of mistakes, but also expects you to learn from 'em.

------
hop
Wakemate: I could design you a silicone bracelet and have renderings today, a
rapid prototype tmrw, a prototype silicone part made off a cast of the RP in a
few days, make changes as desired, then get them tooled and start shipping
parts by next month. Just, you know, if your into that sort of thing :)

~~~
c1sc0
What kind of silicon bracelet are you talking about? Something like the
LiveStrong? Just curious, what's the cost of these things?

~~~
hop
Yep, 50-70 durometer silicone, any color. Cost varies widely depending on how
many you want to make, how complicated the tooling is, the number of parts per
tool, cycle time, how much material the parts use, how detailed your
logo/features are, mold finish... From $1500-$75,000 for tooling and $.05-$1
pp.

~~~
zackattack
Ah, I am building a different product but would like to chat. What's your
email?

------
covercash
Sometimes I'll forget to turn the A/C on in the summer and I'll wake up
drenched in sweat. The new wristband looks like it will soak up an awful lot
of sweat and probably start to smell rather funky after a while. Is it
washable?

If not, is the monitoring device removable so I can fasten it to my own
elastic wristband? I'm thinking along the lines of a FitBit style component
that I can clip to my LiveStrong bracelet?

~~~
jordyhoyt
I am very, very curious about this as well. It is something I hadn't thought
about until you mentioned this, so I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they
haven't though of it either. At the very least, giving early adopters a free
upgrade to the washable version when it is available would be good.

Luckily, there probably won't be a significant amount of summer left once we
get the thing.

~~~
spydertennis
The electronics are removable and the wristband is definitely washable.

How hot the wristband gets was initially one of my main concerns. I haven't
had any issues with heat or sweating while wearing mine.

~~~
jordyhoyt
Thanks for the reply! Glad you guys are more prescient than I. Very excited to
get in bed with your product.

------
redorb
<http://wakemate.com/tour/>

which is still on their site..Is nothing like the final shipping product

[http://blog.wakemate.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/07/wristban...](http://blog.wakemate.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/07/wristband31.jpg)

I would say its a multiple of degrees less 'designed' or 'professional' ...

I still want my pre-order as long as it will ship working with android.

p.s. You need to use your current iteration on your homepage photo; cause the
one you have on there now and your current iteration have very very low
correlation imho.

~~~
gnemeth
Original wristband: too big, too heavy, not something I want to wear to bed
and the electronics bulge out too far. New wristband:much smaller, much
lighter, made of "pillowy" material and hides the electronics.

Overall it is a much more comfortable wristband and a much better user
experience.

While the original may have been a little "flashier" we did not want to
sacrifice UX for looks, especially when you are only going to be wearing this
to bed.

As for our homepage - we need to get the final version of the wristband
photographed and then we will be implementing a full design change of our
homepage.

------
michaelfairley
The pictured wristband and the concept drawing are not what I would describe
as "relatively close". Other than that, I'm excited to get my Wakemate.

~~~
spydertennis
Good point, post edited. We've learned during the industrial design process
that concept drawings can be difficult to realize. The wristband is close to
being something we are very happy with.

------
mrduncan
I'm not one of the pre-order customers, but I'm curious if the bracelets are
washable, or how they can be cleaned. It seems like it'd need to be laundered
just like sheets if you're wearing it every night.

------
ryanwaggoner
So, you're reasonably confident that you'll hit your deadline or come close to
it, but your shipping schedule depends entirely on the actions of another
company (Apple) who is known for being slow to approve things like this? How
does that work?

~~~
roel_v
Correct. If it's really true that 75% of the dev time has gone into the Apple
chip (i.e., iPhone compatibility if I understand it correctly), they could've
shipped... what, in March? Screw iPhone then for the first version.

~~~
swolchok
They asked pre-orders what phone they wanted to use the device with, so it's
not out of the question that they knew that "screw iPhone" was out of the
question.

------
donaldc
When WakeMate is finally released, I'd be interested in reading a
retrospective by the founders on what they learned, and on what checks/changes
to their development approach they have made for version 2. As they are
discovering, development with a physical, hardware component can be very
different from pure internet startup development. Hopefully any other YC
startups with a hardware component are taking note.

I'd still like to buy a WakeMate, once it's proven itself, but I'm rather glad
I didn't pre-order.

------
asmithmd1
"As far as we’re aware, no commercial product has made use of Apple’s
authentication 2.0B coprocessor chip over Bluetooth yet so we’re not surprised
by the number of strange issues we’ve encountered."

Is this why there is a dearth of iPhone/iPad accessories? How much can they
talk about their experiences given the fact that the protocol is under an NDA?

~~~
joe_bleau
Yes! I'm interested in developing i* accesories too. There doesn't seem to be
much out there about it. (I have seen the Microchip and Cypress dev kits;
probably going to pick up a few.)

------
chasingsparks
I (and many other HN readers, I'm sure) have had this idea plenty of times. If
you wake up in one of those bad regions, you really are so much less
productive. I'm glad someone is building this. Once it looks like the kinks
are out, I'm ordering one for sure.

~~~
jrockway
A similar product has already existed for years; the Zeo.

~~~
clewiston
not exactly similar. Our product uses Actigraphy
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actigraphy>), which is a different method (and
in our opinion much less obtrusive) for measuring sleep phases than the Zeo
which uses a headband. Also, our unit is wireless and automatically uploads
your data to our web server with very little user input (besides setting the
alarm before going to bed).

~~~
jrockway
Similar in the sense that it's a thing that makes a noise when it's time to
get up, based on your sleep patterns.

------
axiom
Is there some specific reason they worked so hard to make it sync with the
iPhone over bluetooth? as opposed to, say, syncing with your laptop over
bluetooth, or just make the thing log data and then sync to a computer via
USB. Is it purely the sex-appeal of having an iPhone related product?

~~~
clewiston
when iphone users make up the majority of your preorders (and supposedly
market), then yes it does matter. if we had just launched for Blackberry and
Android, we would not be having these delays...

------
gridspy
Congratulations WakeMate on making it this far. I fully understand how very
hard it is to create a hardware product, it takes much longer than you expect
to get to the great quality level that hardware requires.

~~~
mcritz
I'm also really interested in the product and I can't wait to hear what the
early adopters have to report.

I'm also really interested to know what was learned about working with Apple
on a hardware interface.

------
SoftwareMaven
Anybody use one yet (outside the WakeMate guys)? I am VERY interested in this
product, but am not quite willing to be on the bleeding edge. :)

------
pclark
So with WakeMate I'll have to wear a bracelet and keep an app running on my
iPhone whilst I sleep?

~~~
swolchok
Unlike the ship dates, that aspect of the product has been very consistent for
months, yes. (It's not entirely clear whether you have to keep the app
running, but you probably do, and the bracelet is the whole point.)

~~~
swolchok
Hmm, it just occurred to me that my iPod touch battery is not in the greatest
shape, so Wakemate might cause me to have to leave a computer on during the
night to power the iPod, which seems counterproductive to sleeping well. Might
have to buy a wall charger. (got it refurb, so it didn't come with one)

------
mcantor
Plans for an Android version?

~~~
itsandrew
<http://blog.wakemate.com/2010/06/25/wakemate-android-demo/>

------
clistctrl
I definitely would order this if they come out with support for WebOS.

~~~
catch23
Hah! WebOS is dead.

