Good news first: we’ve made very real progress on the order backlog.
SKU-3 (Turnkey Appliance) is fully caught up as of today, every outstanding order is in the shipping process.
SKU-1 (MicroSD Card) is nearly clear too, just a handful of orders left, and those are going out this week. About 35 shipped yesterday and 85 last week. Now all Helioclock microSd cards are custom branded, ad they are faster too!
SKU-2 (Live USB Stick) still has a bit over 200 orders remaining, but we expect to clear that backlog entirely by next week. New stock is on the way and it is way cooler than what we have been sending. More compact, higher speed, and custom branded.
Look for a follow up post on the new SKU1 and SKU2 designs.
If you’re still waiting on an order, thank you, genuinely, for your patience. We know it’s been a long wait for some of you.
Why shipping has been part of the problem
We want to be straight with you about something: shipping itself has been a real source of delay and frustration, separate from the order volume itself.
SD cards have been going out via USPS First-Class Mail, which doesn’t include tracking. On top of that, these cards need to ship in a “Non-Machinable” package, meaning post offices are supposed to hand-sort/hand-cancel them rather than run them through automated equipment. The reason for that was to ensure they don’t get mangled by sorting machinery, and to keep the cost down for you.
20/20 Hindsight. In practice, that decision added real delay, and lots of customer frustrations. I’ve found that some post offices handle this smoothly, others clearly don’t do it often and the mail sits longer than it should. We’ve also had at least one package go missing in transit entirely, with no tracking number to fall back on to even confirm where it went. Some customers have been reporting TWO WEEK DELIVERY TIMES from USPS on first class mail. Apparently this is a nationwide problem related to restructuring and cost-cutting.
None of that is acceptable for something you paid for and are waiting on.
What we’re changing
Starting today, new orders for both SKU-1 and SKU-2 ship via USPS Ground Advantage, a “light” version of Priority Mail with real tracking included, at a simplified price of $49.99, shipping included.
This does a few things:
- You get a real tracking number, sent directly from USPS, so you can actually see your order moving instead of just waiting and hoping.
- No more Non-Machinable hand-stamping for SD cards, which was a real source of delay depending on which post office handled it.
- One consistent shipping process for every product we sell, which means fewer places for something to fall through the cracks.
- SD cards now have a hard jewel case shipping container. This ensures no damage during transit.
We know a flat $49.99 is a bit more than some of you paid during the launch pricing, but the added shipping speed, tracking, and delivery reliability is worth it, and frankly, so is our own sanity managing this by hand at this volume. It means less frustration and email exchanges for all of us. If you think I’m doing this to somehow get more profit, this actually causes me about a 12% profit loss on the SKU2 and SKU1, but removing the frustrations and emails asking “Where is it?” is totally worth it.
News on the “Why no Download Version?” question.
Finally, the most common question I get from customers and potential customers is why we don’t offer a download…. and while I have mentioned that in the forum as well as the help files I think you need to know upfront here again why.
Few people out of our community are what I would call Linux experts, and because a download would require running a Linux script in a terminal either on the desktop or over SSH from another computer it requires expert level familiarity with that process. For those that don’t have that, this could create a potential support nightmare that I don’t dare tempt – it would open a Pandora’s box of trouble calls and would overwhelm my ability to be able to sell this product and support it. Also, done incorrectly, it could brick a system. Linux is unforgiving of even the simplest of mistakes.
So the next best thing is what Raspberry Pi did and that is to come up with a Windows based OS installer that creates either a ready-to-boot SD card or USB stick. The idea would be that you would plug the installer into your Windows PC and then plug in the SD card or USB stick and run the program it would automatically image the SD card slash USB stick and install everything needed – no Linux skills required, and then you’re up and running.
Plug and play was my design philosophy from the get-go, this will continue that design.
This will also help us be able to sell internationally where customs and everything else becomes a managerial train wreck that I don’t want to go through plus the extra cost. So once everything gets settled down and I’m caught up with the backlog you’ll see another announcement when that’s available.
Thank you again for your patience and for supporting Helioclock through what’s been a genuinely overwhelming couple of months with over 1000 orders. We’re getting there.
73,
Anthony Watts KA9NWM