This isn’t unique to the Omate TrueSmart watch, however there were some issues that popped up after the Kickstarter period came to an end. The folks at Omate have made some unpopular announcements in the weeks since the funding has come to a close, notably, about how the watch would not include the Play Store. On the positive side though, despite seeing delays, Omate does seem to be keeping those backers informed of what is going on.
To that point, they have recently offered another update on the shipping. This one comes as a bit of good news and bad news though. First, the good. Omate has said the Developer Edition watches are now shipping. This means those who backed as a developer should be receiving their watch within the next two weeks time. There are about a 1,000 in that group and the watch had 512MB RAM and 4GB storage with 2100MHz network support.
Shifting over to the not so good and it looks like the team is still trying to get all watches out before the end of December. Well, specifically, out before Christmas. We have seen a shipping schedule in the past, and as many will remember, they will be going out based on the specs of the watch — and not necessarily by whether you were an early bird backer. Assuming they are able to keep this schedule, all TrueSmart watches should be in the backer hands within a few weeks time.
As a recap, here is the current schedule;
- 512MB+4GB (2100MHz EU 3G): End of Nov
- 512MB+4GB (1900MHz US 3G): Mid of Dec
- 1GB+4GB (1900MHz US & 2100MHz EU 3G): Mid of Dec
- 1GB+8GB (1900MHz US & 2100MHz EU 3G): End of Dec
Otherwise, there was some talk of CNC issues. Details here point towards a “high failure rate of the curved touch panel” during the Pilot Runs. This meant the team had to rework the casing to make it fit properly. To fix this they hired a pair of quality engineers to better monitor the process. There was also mention of how the wristband tooling was modified to a more robust design and they qualified a better water-resistant loudspeaker supplier.
But development issues aside, it now seems the biggest hurdle is going to get the orders packaged and sent. If you remember back, the Omate Kickstarter offered quite a few options as add-ons and this appears to be causing issues — making sure everyone gets those extras (such as t-shirts) that may have been added on. That said, here is to hoping Omate will be able to keep to the delivery timeframe without any further issues.
SOURCE: Kickstarter
As a (dev version) backer, I am extremely disappointed in both Omate and Kickstarter. Omate have failed to keep us properly informed with their issues, and Kickstarter has not gotten involved either. We sponsored a project to make it a success, and there is nothing we can do if they do not do their part or effectively spell out why they can’t. At the moment, it seems like they are living the high life with our money, which was intended to get production lines rolling.
Like every other Kickstarter project does not have the same comments…
same here, I ordered a truesmart on 10-11-2013, and havent seen anything. seems response (by email) from omate is taking more time than before too.
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Thank you for placing your order with Omate!
This email is to confirm your order on 10/11/2013.
same here, I ordered a truesmart on 10-11-2013, and havent seen anything. seems response (by email) from omate is taking more time than before too.
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Thank you for placing your order with Omate!
This email is to confirm your order on 10/11/2013.