Mon Oct 25 '21 Announcement
over 2 years ago
– Mon, Oct 25, 2021 at 08:08:27 PM
Dear Just Simple community,
Great news! All 1400 units of power banks in 37 boxes, have been shipped out from Shenzhen, China via ocean freight to California port. They will then be picked up by UPS to deliver to our place for fulfillment.
Here are the pictures sent by the factory and local logistics team in Shenzhen.
Our shipping company gives us a month's estimation for delivery. However, we’d like to lower our expectations and expect that there could be delays due to the current peak season and the California port congestion. We expect to start packing your rewards and ship them out no later than late December.
Meanwhile, we’ll keep you posted on how this shipping and fulfillment process goes.
Shipping address change:
We understand due to the long delay, some of you may have moved to a new home address. If you’d like to change your shipping address or double-check your address, please go to your survey and check your shipping info there.
https://justsimplepb.backerkit.com/
If you are unsure how to change the address, please use this guide. https://help.backerkit.com/article/638-how-do-i-update-my-shipping-address
Fri Oct 8 '21 Announcement
over 2 years ago
– Fri, Oct 08, 2021 at 08:30:54 AM
Dear Just Simple community,
Earlier this April, a small portion of the backers received the first batch of the products. Our team would like to announce the great news that’s long overdue - we are finally finished producing all of 2000 units of our Just Simple Power Bank. We also hired a trusted third party to inspect the final productions at the factory floors. Here’re the pictures and videos in the Google folder.
The products are scheduled to be shipped to the US to be fulfilled to all of our backers. First, it’ll be shipped over the ocean from China to California port, from there, it’ll be delivered to our home. We’ll then pack everything, send it out to everyone via USPS.
This has been a two-year journey. We are sorry for the long wait we put you through. We understand many of you have lost patience and felt disappointed by the delay. We hope to complete our final step of fulfilling and deliver you the product we promised.
Our team had taken the time to reflect on the project. There are lessons we have learned.
- We underestimated the time it takes between having a functional prototype and mass production. As you could see in our earlier updates, we had added quite a few more iterations after the campaign ended to make sure the product details meet all our expectations. Additionally, the prototype was produced in methods different from those used in mass production. Therefore, we needed to do several sample runs to tweak different production processes for the product as well as for the packaging.
- We didn’t anticipate so many external factors would affect our production, such as factories shut-down due to the pandemic and supply chain interruption due to the trade war that has affected the whole electronic production market in China (we spent several months looking for the battery and chips required for our power bank).
We promised we would never give up on the project and we are glad the production has finally been completed with great quality. We will take our lessons learned and spend the next months with product fulfillment. Thank you for being with us all this time. We will see you in our next update!
Best,
Just Simple Team
Sat Feb 13 '21 Announcement
about 3 years ago
– Sat, Feb 13, 2021 at 04:08:21 PM
Dear Just Simple community,
Thank you for waiting patiently. I have some good news today. In the update below, we would like to communicate the following
- Results from the last survey.
- Our decision to accommodate both backers who prefer to keep the MIcro-USB built-in cable and backers who prefer to not have it.
- We are taking volunteers to receive the first batch of the fully functional products (without Micro-USB built-in cable and with USB-C and Apple Lightning Only). The first volunteers will help to test products.
1. Survey Results
Thank you for participating in the survey. Almost 400 backers informed us of their needs and preferences. We’d like to share with you the survey results
a) Do you still use devices that are charged via Micro-USB (choose only one)
b) If you answered "yes" to the above question, please let us know what Micro-USB devices you use (you could enter as many devices as you'd like)
The most frequent answers were headphones and tablets such as Kindle.
c) What do you think about Just Simple Power Bank's Micro-USB built-in cable (choose only one)?
We also read every single piece of feedback in the survey and agree that many of you made really good points.
We realized that there is a good mix of backers who still need the Micro-USB built-in cables and those who prefer not to have them.
Around 60% of backers still use micro-USB devices and 30% prefer to have the Micro-USB built-in cable. The main feedback is that the power bank is meant to replace all the cords and therefore having a Micro-USB built-in cable is essential. Around ⅓ of backers don’t own any micro-USB devices and therefore prefer to get the product sooner without the micro-USB.
2. Our efforts to accommodate backers’ different needs based on the survey result
After negotiating with the factory, we decided that we will try to accommodate people who prefer the version without the micro-USB and then still accommodate backers who do need the micro-USB. People getting the version without the Micro-USB may receive the product slightly sooner.
Please note the following as it is very important.
If you’d like to stick to the Micro-USB, Lightning, and USB-C built-in cable, you don’t need to do anything and could ignore the following survey. We will assume you still choose to receive the version as the original design. However, if you prefer to have the version without the Micro-USB built-in-cable, please fill out the survey here.
3. First Batch/Product Testers
We now have the first batch of black units (without Micro-USB) ready to be shipped and tested. Although we have thoroughly tested the product ourselves, we invite the first receivers to test the product with us. Because we are a small operation, failing to identify issues before mass distribution and resulting in high numbers of returns would crush a small business like ours. We would like the first receivers to provide us feedback before we continue to ship products in the future.
For people who choose to receive the version without a Micro-USB cable, we allow you to indicate your interest in the survey to become volunteers to receive the first batch of products. Please only indicate your interest in volunteering if you are happy to provide product feedback. We will send you a survey after you receive and test out the product. Please also understand that since we have limited numbers in the first batch, we may not be able to accept every volunteer.
Again, if you prefer to have the Micro-USB built-in cord, please ignore this survey as everybody who doesn’t respond to the survey will default to a preference for the original design. We will send you an email when we are ready to ship to you.
Going forward, we are most likely going to ship out products by batches as products become ready. Please keep following our updates.
Best Regards,
Just Simple Team
Sat Jan 23 '21 Announcement
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Jan 23, 2021 at 09:19:25 AM
Dear Backers,
Hope your 2021 is off to a good start. This is our first update of the year.
In mid-December, we sent a representative to the factory to pick up our first batch of products, but we noticed there were quite a few things that didn’t meet our standards. To confirm whether we need to reject or accept this batch, we requested to have the final units sent to us via air freight so we could do our thorough quality check ourselves. Hence it took a while since our last update. We apologize for the delay and we really want to communicate our progress and get your input.
Products Sent To Us For Quality Check
Just Simple Power Bank final unit
Instead of making the decision ourselves, we’d like to ask our backers to make a decision together. We would like to get your input for the following:
Micro-USB built-in Cable - keep it or not?
As you know, in the most updated product design, the power bank contains two cords. One cord contains a USB-C chip and the other cord contains a dual Apple Lightning and Micro USB chip (see picture below on the two sides of the dual-chip).
However, the factory made the mistake of using a regular Apple Lightning ship as opposed to a dual lightning & Micro-USB chip. Therefore, the built-in cables don’t have a micro-USB function.
The factory has apologized for the mixed up and promised to replace the single chips with dual-chips at their costs.
However, we have received another piece of information. The vendor of the dual-chip had been receiving feedback from their clients that, unlike the single lightning chip where the front and the back both work the same, a Dual chip with Micro-USB needs to be inserted into the device the right way. But some users would mix up the front and the back of the micro-USB, insert the chip into the device by force and cause potential issues.
As micro-USB has become less and less popular, we’d like to reach out to you and understand if Micro-USB is indeed something the backers need. If most of the backers still need the micro-USB, we will keep it and do extra education to avoid misuse of the micro-USB chip If micro-USB is no longer something that the backers need, we will eliminate this functionality. Please let us know your thoughts on this survey by 8 pm Thursday night on Jan 28 (Eastern US time).
Digital Display
This was an issue that has already been solved. Because the current setting of the Quick Charge icon could be potentially confusing to many users, we decide to only keep the icon for wireless charging, which is the only feature that’s meaningful for the backers anyway. We want to keep things simple and only incorporate things that the backers actually need.
Details - White Button
This is another detail we noticed - the white button doesn’t match the white color of the power bank. We have asked the factory to fix this to the details that meet our standards.
There are other details of the packaging that we weren’t 100% satisfied with but we have communicated with the factory. They are being fixed so we won’t bore you with the details here.
We look forward to your responses to the survey. Please feel free to leave any additional thoughts in the survey.
We also have a thought to have 100 backer volunteers to receive the first 100 units and test it out for other backers. Once we know what to do with the Micro-USB cord, I will reach out to you all about that!
Have a great weekend!
Best,
Just Simple Team
Mon Dec 7 '20 Announcement
over 3 years ago
– Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 12:18:03 AM
We apologize for missing our last weekly update due to my family obligations and the holidays. We are picking it right up from here. We have made some progress, although slow but still worth reporting.
Sample Unit Testing Results Overview
As we mentioned in the previous update, we have sent our unit sample to a third-party testing lab. They informed us that our Just Simple Power Bank meets the FCC, CE, and ROHS requirements. We don’t need to make any product changes.
Production Progress Update
There had been a delay in the arrival of one of the parts for the PCB board mass production that the factory didn’t communicate with us until last week. The parts have a long backorder is due to the high demand in holiday seasons as well as the weakened supply chain during a pandemic.
We were very unhappy about their oversight, but because our priority is to get the production moving forward, we didn’t argue too much with the factory. We want them to focus on the next step. However, we apologize for the delay.
After the parts had arrived, the PCB was assembled and tested with no issues. We also requested to make sure that we test the Fast Charging status icon on our digital display when fast charging is turned on.
We will keep communicating with the factory and make sure that they let us know early when there’s anything causing any delay.
Thank you all for your patience and understanding. We will update you soon.
