EtcherPro progress updates

[konmouz]

Hi @redpomidor,

Which email did you use for your order? You can email me at konstantinos@balena.io. I just want to check where about you are in the queue. We still haven’t received the FCC certification, but we are considering sending beta devices to customers from the US until we get the FCC. Production is pretty slow at the moment due to the component shortages but we follow a first come first serve approach.

[konmouz]

EtcherPro is shipping

We just shipped the first EtcherPro device to a real customer It only took us about 4 years hitting countless walls but we learned a ton, we shaped a great internal hardware team, we developed a product we are proud of and we even ended up designing our own assembly line!

Next steps

• We are still facing shortages on one particular component that could block production
• The team has a promising alternative we are testing and we should have news soon
• We plan to fulfill all Special Edition orders plus a few more in the next 1-2 months
• Just a note that despite we are shipping EtcherPro, ‘daisy-chaining’ feature is not available yet and we’ll be released soon, possibly before the end of the year
• We have started the FCC certification process, which will take around 1-2 months

[nmaas87]

Congrats - has been a long road, but you did it !

[rgstech]

We ordered one of the special edition EtcherPro units, but have not yet received any notice that our unit has shipped yet. That said, we are based in the US. Are devices to be shipped to US-based customers being held pending FCC certification? Is there any way for us to check the estimated ship date for the EtcherPro we ordered?

[konmouz]

@rgstech we can’t officially send devices to US before getting FCC approved. For the moment, we are only sending some beta devices. Can you please email me your order number at konstantinos@balena.io? Thanks

[shawaj]

Received the special edition Etcher Pro and just wanted to drop in and say thanks! It looks and functions amazingly. Look forward to replacing our entire group of SD programmers with EPs

Great work by the whole team and sorry I left before it started shipping

[nmaas87]

So… every Etcher Pro gets delivered with a balena Team member? Do I get that right?

(Sorry <3)

[dragon788]

My Etcher Pro didn’t come with a team member, but it did include some sweet stickers and a nice T-shirt, and the power cord situation is a clever solution to avoiding extra throwaway cables if you end up needing multiple units AND handling the variety of power plugs around the world.

[konmouz]

Hi everyone,

We have some updates:

• We have already sent a small batch of devices to the first customers and we are getting in touch to gather feedback
• We are still going very slow in the production line since apart from assembling the devices we are also working on the actual assembly line trying to improve our processes and deliver higher quality devices faster. Quality control proved to be a challenge, especially these days that shortages put a lot of stress to manufacturers.
• Unfortunately, we are still struggling to source the ethernet switch which is our current production bottleneck. After some consideration, we decided to remove the ethernet ports entirely. This sounds a bit brutal but we actually believe it will improve the product. Our thinking is that if we do daisy-chaining over WiFi mesh instead of ethernet it will unlock the production (since we won’t need the ethernet switches anymore) and it’ll improve the user experience. Imagine that instead of having to plug cables from one device to another, users will only need to connect their devices to the same network and EtcherPro will take care of the rest. In the rare case that someone desperately needs to use ethernet to avoid radio waves, they could sacrifice a USB slot and use a USB to ethernet adapter to get around this.
• We also stuck on the FCC side as the ethernet switch produces some unwanted emissions, so getting rid of this components will help here too
• Finally, we are planning to release soon a walkthrough of our assembly line where we share a lot of insight about our process and challenges

[Markus.Kohn.GWA]

Hi @konmouz is there a new status update comming soon?

[konmouz]

Hi @Markus.Kohn.GWA yes, we have passed the FCC testing and we are waiting for the official report this week. When we have it I’ll make an update.

[konmouz]

We have some amazing news:

• EtcherPro is officially FCC certified. This is very exciting news for us as we fought with emissions for several months causing a lot of delays.
• We have shipped 27 devices to customers so far and we are expect to ship gradually accelerate shipping as more components come available and our pipeline gets optimised
• As we announced previously, we will remove the ethernet ports as they produced emissions that stopped us from passing FCC and caused complications in production. We believe we can achive a better UX for daisychaing over wifi so we are doubling down on this. We’ll still have a few devices with ethernet in production that we’ll be shipped to customers. We’ll get in touch with customers that have already placed pre-orders and will receive devices that support only WiFi to check if they are happy to proceed.
• We are receiving valuable feedback from customers already and we are making improvements to the software. We have also developed a diagnostics app to use in our assembly line for device self testing and we are planning to release it to EtcherPro users soon.

[Markus.Kohn.GWA]

Hey can you estimate when the EtcherPro will be shipped to customers in germany?

[konmouz]

Hi @Markus.Kohn.GWA, it depends on your order reference as we ship by first come, first served order. Can you send your order reference to store@balena.io? Thanks.

[Markus.Kohn.GWA]

Hi @konmouz, thank you for your help I send a mail today.

[suporte]

Hi,

Can you tell me what is the current delivery deadline if I would order the etcher Pro today?

Best regards

[konmouz]

Hi @suporte, the lead time is still 4-6 months from day of purchase.

[konmouz]

Hey, long time no updates, hope everyone is fine

We have some important news to share:

• All pre-ordered devices have been shipped to customers that completed the final payment. Thank you very much for your patience all these months, we were doing our best but the components shortages made shipping hardware very hard on top of dealing the production hell!

• The current lead time is less than two weeks, as we managed to create a small stock. We are still in production, which means that the lead time will keep fluctuating until we reach an input/ output equilibrium.

• Unfortunately, we had to make some price adjustments in order to survive the ever-increasing prices due to covid and the war. Our aim for EtcherPro remains to provide an affordable product to customers that removes friction and helps them scale.

• Last week some customers experienced a booting issue when they received their devices. The issue is now resolved, you can read more here

Here’s a picture of several EtcherPros after passing QA testing, ready to be packed:

[konmouz]

Hello everone!

We have some exciting updates:

• We have released a new OS and application version to address the following issues:
  • We have fixed the fan issue! It works fine now without making weird noises. It took a while but we wanted to fix it in a way that other people could use these drivers so we added it to balenaHub as a block.
  • From now on EtcherPro will automatically get the latest Etcher version every time we make a new release. To avoid software issues and accelerate the process, we are implementing a beta version of our automated hardware testing to automatically test every release before sending it to the customers’ devices.
  • Finally, we exposed a unique ID (UUID) in the settings modal to help with device identification and improve the remote support experience.

Important: To keep your device up to date, make sure it is powered on and connected to the internet. If you still face issues please send an email to store@balena.io, ideally including the device UUID found in the settings modal.

In the meantime, EtcherPro production is running smoothly and we are about to produce another batch of devices.

[konmouz]

Hey hey,

• EtcherPro’s production is finally at a great state and with the current pace we can ship devices on the same day! Get yours from our store
• We are now live on amazon US and we’ll be on amazon UK, DE, IT very soon.

Enjoy some footage from our assembly line in Athens.