Hi backers,
Sorry for the late update, we just came back from the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, where we’ve been very happy to meet some of our backers.
We’re not going to be able to ship the 1st batch of Lilys this week. The original plan was to assemble 100 Lilys this week and ship them out. But we’ve just received an update from our factory telling us that they’re having a problem with our latest electrical board (PCBA) which is behaving erratically as you see in the video below:
The previous version of our PCBA was working fine. They have to make more tests to find out what’s failing in with this PCBA but it’s the Chinese New Year and the engineers already went back home.
Without knowing the severity of the problem, we can’t publish a new shipping time. We’ll publish a shipping update after the Chinese New Year when we know what’s wrong and how much time we need to solve the problem.
Shipping a Version 0 of Lily.
Once the PCBA problem is resolved and the hardware is ready, we will accelerate the shipping schedule by shipping a version 0 of Lily with minimum features that we’ll upgrade through software updates. This version 0 of Lily should have:
- the final hardware with the final components & high sound quality
- the wake word for hands-free activation
- translation & pinyin
- a few lessons for beginners with stripped functionalities
- a few skills like asking the time or the weather…
Lily’s curriculum will be incomplete at first but we’ll improve/add more lessons regularly through software updates.
Entering the production stage.
We’re officially switching to “Production Stage” on our Indiegogo page, locking the funds, closing the campaign (effective within 3 days) and entering production. Production starts with purchasing the raw materials for Lily: we’ve already ordered and pre-paid loudspeakers, chips and microphones for up to 3000 Lilys. Those spare parts are sent from our suppliers to our manufacturer which will assemble close to 10000 Lilys during the next 6 months.
A new wake word.
Instead of using “Hey Lily”, we’ll be using “Nihao Lily”. We’ve decided to change our wake word because “Nihao Lily” makes more sense for a Chinese teacher and it works better. We made some tests: “Nihao Lily” has a higher accuracy than “Hey Lily” (Lily recognizes the wake word more often) and have less false wake ups (Lily wakes up less often when you haven’t called her).
We’re currently recording this wake word at scale but we still don’t have enough data. Could you help us by recording “Nihao Lily” with your phone? This would be a huge help and it only takes 2 minutes. Here’s a quick video to show you the simplest way to do it:
PS: for backers whose name is “Lily” or have somebody called “Lily” at home, you’ll be able to use “Nihao Maybe” as backup wake word.
Creating content for our app.
Through Lily’s companion app, you’ll be able to see your training program, choose your lessons, see the Chinese characters and the pinyin, learn vocabulary that should be visually learned (colors for example), and more.
But nobody wants to open an app with only text, we’re currently creating visual content for this app: lesson covers, illustrations for our voice games, etc… We draw everything in-house, take a look:
About our team.
Most of you have been incredibly supportive and we are grateful every day. However, since we have delays, there are some rumors that the company went bankrupt or that we ran away to some tropical islands.
Come on, we’re not a scam, we’re just a startup trying to bring a product to life. We’re not slacking, we’re struggling. We’re not misleading you with a false timeline, we’re just taking lots of moonshots and some moonshots don’t make it in time. Please remember that you haven’t bought a product on Amazon, you have invested in a crowdfunding project on Indiegogo. We’re not making money on your back, Lily’s retail price will be $399, you got it around $200, this price doesn’t even cover the cost of the product + IGG fees + digital ads + shipping fees. For some of our backers, the real shipping fees are $80 and we charged $35. This doesn’t include the molding fees, certification fees, voice data fees, various NREs and the paychecks.
We’re very sorry for being late. There’s much more work behind the scenes than what you see and we’ll keep fighting.
Thanks for your understanding. The whole Maybe team wishes you a happy Chinese New Year with this audio message:
Jie and the Maybe team.
