Yes, they finished up late last week which is great! Unfortunately, it’s Labor Day over in China, so they won’t be back until later this week when they can dispatch the cargo. From there it’s about a 3 week process depending on how long customs takes.
My best guess at this point is either late may or very early June.
I understand the frustration – trust me, I do. I read these comments all the time and it sucks for both of us. You (and everyone else) in that you wait and wait and wait but it seems like nothing is ever fixed and me in that we try and try and try to fix something but we just can’t get out of the hole of running out of inventory. Its been the thorn in my side as the CEO for going on 3 years now and it is one of those situations where all I can do is acknowledge the issue and try my best to be as transparent as possible about everything. I can’t promise a timeline on the fix as it’s much harder than it appears (it’s not as simple as, “take the profits from your sales and invest them in more inventory” or “take out a loan – that should solve the out of stock issues”).
What we faced from 2020 through present has been the hardest situation I’ve ever dealt with. I’ve never had to deal with logistics issues before, it’s always been as simple as submitting a PO, paying, receiving the product, selling, rinse/repeat.
I’m not sure what all you know about our specific situation, so if you’ve read the updates, then feel free to ignore, but here were the challenges:
- 2020 brought record sales – I’m talking 3.5x what we did in 2019, which was great in the beginning (and honestly what probably allowed us to stay in business the last couple of years)
- 2021 was when things started to fall apart
- Lead Times: lead times went from 16 to 52 weeks overnight. That means anything we ordered would not be seen until a year later, once you’re out of stock, you’re completely screwed unless you have a strong brand following, a solid product, and people trust that you’ll eventually deliver
- Cashflow: When product goes out of stock we see our sales drop by at least 50% per month as people don’t want to wait (understandably) and go elsewhere. Most of the cash that was in excess from 2020 was burned up on overhead to keep the lights on and we had to lay off 1/3 of our staff. Again, we have to wait almost a year for product
- Z-Wave Chip Shortage: Our manufacturer produced the keypads for Ring, which is a much larger company than us and they allocated all their Z-Wave chips to them and gave us the scraps (metaphorically), so even when we had to wait a year, we’d only get enough to cover maybe a month or two of sales before we’d have to wait again. Clearly this wouldn’t work as a business model.
- 2022 was just a disaster in that the Z-Wave manufacturer essentially cut ties because we moved onto a different manufacturer and the new Zigbee manufacturer underestimated the complexity of the switch which delayed us (causing out of stock for 1/2 - 3/4 of the year)
So, in 2021 as you mentioned, we had to accelerate our future plans which were to create a Zigbee equivalent (we’ve always wanted to get into Matter – CHIP at the time). We also wanted to explore a new manufacturer as things were shaky at best with our current one. The new manufacturer had experience in Zigbee so we had to make the tough decision to put Z-Wave on hold (as you mentioned) until either the current manufacturer could give us what we needed or we found a different one who could do it for us.
As with just about everything we do, our timelines seem to be optimistic at best and that’s something I’ve always struggled with. I thought for sure we’d have the 2-1 launched in early 2022 as that’s what I was told.
–
So, what are we doing to fix the “death spiral” as it’s one thing to explain what happened – anyone can explain their decisions away – but it’s another to actually fix them.
Well, I had to take a long, hard look in the mirror and accept the fact that I am just not the guy who can negotiate effectively with China (or any supplier for that matter). We’ve been walked all over by them and because I wasn’t the best, we’re in the position we’re in (although I would argue a lot was out of my control, I still take responsibility for it). So, we’ve partnered up with and brought on a COO who has a ton of experience running his own IoT company as well as negotiating with manufacturers.
Not only that, but he’s the one who will be handling inventory cycling and digging us out of the out of stock mess.
It will take time, but I can honestly say, pending no new pandemic, I think this will be possible with the next purchase of Blue 2-1’s. Our inventory for Red 2-1’s are solid and I’m hoping to be completely caught up by late summer. I’m sure you’ll hold me accountable 
Yes, these simply aren’t coming back. Long story short, there were both communication issues between the switch and canopy that our old manufacturer refused to fix and we don’t work with that manufacturer anymore. Very unfortunate because I loved that product and get at least (not exaggerating) 1-2 comments/emails, etc per day about this.
It is on our list to bring back – I realize I likely got an eye roll there from that comment, but it’s just the best I can offer at this time.
I’m confused at this comment. This project was announced in September 2022. It will be delivered in, at the latest June 2023.
The Blue 2-1 has been shipping since November of last year. We just happen to be out of stock on it again (although we’ve gone through 3 batches since November).
Again, confused about this one. There is a thread, yes, of people asking about orders, but all original pre-orders from last year were fulfilled in November of 2022.
I’m just going to assume you haven’t been following closely in the forums – if you have, I apologize – but I’ve stated that I agree with your sentiment of getting caught up on inventory levels being the number one priority. In fact, in a lot of these threads that are discussing new project ideas, I’ve openly stated I did not want to do pre-orders, did not want to do Indiegogo/Kickstarter, but there is overwhelming support for us to fund it.
I decided to take a risk with Indiegogo this time to see how it panned out and, if you read the page, I stated that if this was not successfully funded, everyone would get a refund. In fact, I went so far so to tell Linus of LTT to make that same announcement.
With every innovation/pre-order, etc we have refunded anyone who’s asked for it.
This is a fair criticism. I agree with you. But I also challenge you to find another company who even releases their anticipated deadlines from the beginning of the project, let alone works with you alongside the project and keeps you updated as to why they are behind.
If you’d prefer me to keep everything internal, never talk about an anticipated release date, etc – then I guess I’d recommend either not paying attention to the project threads, or finding another brand that offers the same features, innovation, etc that suits your needs.
I agree with you and am trying my best to make it better. It sucks for everyone.
I appreciate it
It’s looking like these will be arriving in late May, early June. Production is finished, we’re just waiting for the freight forwarder to pick them up after the Chinese holiday and to clear US customs.