Update#30 A Sincere Apology
over 7 years ago
– Fri, Dec 07, 2018 at 10:54:32 PM
Dear Vinci 2.0 Backers
We started this campaign over one year ago in Nov. 2017, with an ambitious plan to deliver a standalone smart wearable device that provides smart control to your music and other daily needs. We had developed Vinci 1.5 with significant success. Thereby we believed we were in a good position to move Vinci product to the next stage: make new generation more elegant, smaller and, overall, better.
Vinci 2.0 inherits most of its UX functions from 1.5. But all the components inside are different. ICs will be updated. Android system will be updated and optmized for battery life. (Playback is projected to be more than 26 hours, standby will be 9 days) Moreover, we will add hardware voice wakeup IC and bone-conduct microphone to provide excellent performance in all kinds of usage scenarios.
However, although we have run our design three times over, there’re still a bunch of unfinished tasks: cracks will reveal while wearing on strong necks, AMOLED screen doesn't pass fall-over test, etc. Overall, the final result is that we’ve spent all raised money yet the project is only half-done, maybe even less counting the quality requirements for mass production. We’ve tried our best to push the project forward, been contacting VCs since the beginning of this year. But no one is interested in funding the completion of this project, so development is pretty much stagnant. We are still trying to secure fundings for this project and if we do, we’ll definitely come back and post an update here. However, at this time we think it's our responsibility to admit our failure and inform you of the project status as well.
There have been discussions, arguments, colleagues left the company with disappointment. Eventually, I’m the one of the only 12 left to post this and I can assure, no one is the winner, no one takes all, at least that’s what I know. It’s hard to face failure, especially those created by yourself, and I’m not going to be pretentious and tell you that you’ll learn from your failure so this might be a good lesson. No, this is not, this is a bad experience, for people who believed in others without knowing their names, who believed that they might change the world a little bit, who believed that things could be done.
Thank you so much for believing in us. We sincerely apologize for this ending.
Best Regards & Merry Christmas,
Vinci Team
Update #29 Product development progress.
almost 8 years ago
– Thu, Jun 21, 2018 at 02:03:33 AM
Dear backers!
Thank you for your patience and waiting! We can not do this without the support from all of you.
We understand you have been waiting patiently and we very much appreciate that. Meanwhile, our team has been working very hard to enable all the parts, hardware and software, that will make Vinci 2.0 a successful product and also meet our quality standards. To do this, we know we must be very honest about our progress and our backers deserve to know all the work that has been put into this.
Hardware - mechanical:
Hardware design is still our main challenge towards mass production. As we mentioned last time, we have incorporated new OLED structural design, the joint design at each corner of the pentagon, and the new tooling designs. Still, we are unhappy with the results. We do not want to ship a product that does not meet our quality standards.
The major challenge comes from the hybrid design that incorporates a stainless steel body and the silicon rubber encapsulation. Working with these two materials has proved to be much more challenging than we had planned. A new silicon rubber design has been completed to deal with incomplete encapsulation and cracking over the reliability tests (temperature cycling).
With all these changes, we had to overhaul the assembly procedure. All parts are now attached securely onto the backbone supported stainless steel frame, followed by the final encapsulation of silicon rubber.
Hardware - electronics:
We have been battling with the power consumption associated with voice wakeup. Our team decided to add a new voice wakeup chip dedicated for wakeup function. This work has been completed.
Old: voice wakeup is software simulated. Doing so requires the OS to be actively listening to user voice command.
New: voice wakeup is now supported by dedicated hardware. Improved power consumption by 20%.
A new gesture sensor is introduced. The old one will interfere with the audio signals and introduces background noises that compromise user experience.
We also re-designed a new set of PCB routing and introduced new metal shielding to prevent electromagnetic interference.
-Improved GPS sensor location accuracy.
Software:
Google Assistant Google Assistant has been integrated and been an integral part of Vinci 2.0’s voice interaction. Users will experience a seamless transition between Vinci’s AI assistant and Google assistant. Features included so far:
- Integrated Spotify
- Math
- Date and Time
- Schedule - Search
- Entertainment
- Travel
- Easter eggs
(the prototype is tested in our hardware lab in China office with VPN on, so Google Assistant's responses are a bit slow, but in normal conditions, it works much faster)
You will experience Spotify Music and Many of the GA features within one login (Spotify login required). For Amazon Alexa, you will need a separate login to enable the Alexa feature (Alexa login required).
UI optimization:
Strava:
Strava support has been completed and tested. You can now sync your activity data from headphone to your Strava account (login required).
System Optimization: Power consumption Improve data synchronization performance (Both for Android SPP and iPhone BLE)
Audio: updates on Adaptive Noise Filtering We have achieved another milestone in Adaptive Noise Filtering.
We have:
- [Competed] basic research about noise-pattern-recognition with Neural Network in 5 different noise-scenario;
- [Completed] initial offline prototype demo
- [Completed] the V1.0 released
- [On-going] integration and relevant validation of V2.0 Release on Vinci Headphone’s OS
- [Planned] fine tune and improvement of release for best ASR performance on final Vinci 2.0 device
The above figure shows our adaptive noise filtering results.
As a start-up company in a very crowded audio industry, we consider it paramount to aim for the supreme quality product, which we believe all our backers deserve. Therefore, we have decided to continue polishing our hardware and toolings until it meets our quality standards. For this reason, we will need to postpone headphones release date until December 2018. We will do all our best to make sure you receive your products before the Christmas Holiday. We understand this news could be frustrating for some of our backers, but we do appreciate your understanding and patience.
Best,
Vinci Team.
Hardware and Software Progress Update
almost 8 years ago
– Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 01:38:43 AM
Dear Backers,
Thank you for your continuous patience and support! We are working on the redesign of some parts of the hardware, and we’d also like to update you on our progress for the software side.
As we mentioned last time, we have been redesigning some of the critical parts of Vinci 2.0:
1. The parts that connect the OLED screen with the main body. This part is optimized so that the OLED screen is an integral part of the whole body.
2. The joint part that provides flexibility for better ergonomics and wearing comfort. This part is done to optimize the contact pressure on the neck. We modified the design of the Head-frame from one part to three parts at the corner that deforms.
3. The tooling design.
On the software side, we’d like to let you know that we have completed most of the major functions and are also actively testing the features.
Features completed:
1. Redesign with a new UI
2. Importing songs
3. Spotify song queries with voice command (need Spotify account)
4. Most Alexa features (need Amazon account)
5. SoundCloud queries with voice command
6. Weather, Wiki, and Reminders with voice command
7. Companion App version 1.0 for iOS and Android
Please see below for a short video showing the new UI design.
To be completed:
1. Integration of Strava
2. Advanced features for sports, including milestone achievements, reminders, etc.
3. More advanced features for the Companion App.
Thank you all for your patience and support! More updates to come!
Best,
Vinci Team
Bone Conduction Mic Update
almost 8 years ago
– Wed, Apr 04, 2018 at 11:45:08 PM
Dear Backers,
We truly appreciate your continuous support and patience! The Vinci Team is working very hard to deliver your products to you as soon as possible without sacrificing any quality. We're happy and proud to provide an update on the smooth progress of Vinci 2.0 Super's bone conduction mic development. Please check out the bone conduction mic test below.
Experiment conditions:
The speech (audio file below) was recorded with the speaker wearing a bone conduction microphone on a Vinci 2.0 prototype, simultaneously with traditional air conduction (MEMS type) microphone. The bone conduction mic was recorded in the L (left) channel of the audio file and air conduction mic was recorded in the R (right) channel. External noise, a background music playing “Hotel California”, was introduced during the experiment.
https://goo.gl/3uy6x4
How to Listen to the Audio File?
Because the sound was recorded using both a bone conduction mic and a air conduction mic simultaneously for best comparison, you will need to be able to switch to Left-only channel or Right-only channel to hear the noise cancelling effect of the bone conduction mic.
If you use Mac, go to System Preferences —> Sound —> Switch sound to Left-only or Right-only.
If you use Windows, go to Control Panel —> Audio and Sound Settings —> Switch sound to Left-Only or Right-only
Steps
1. Listen to the audio file with the balance setting in the middle (with both L and R on for stereo sound). You will hear a person speaking with the background music.
2. Switch to L channel only and listen to the audio file again. Now, you will only hear the sound recorded by the bone conduction mic, as it blocks out the ambient noise.
3. Switch to R channel only, and you will hear both the speaker and the ambient music noise, as the air conduction mic records everything.
Conclusion:
The bone conduction mic successfully blocked out external noise and only recorded the speaker’s voice. This application will not only be helpful for the AI voice commands but also for taking phone calls in noisy and crowded areas.
More updates to come!
Best,
Vinci Team
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– Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 02:15:29 AM
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