Oktober 2022 Update

October 2022 Update

With the Christmas holidays coming up soon, we are burning the midnight oil in our new production facility, working 7 days per week to manufacture Heatles as quickly as possible. We have fully moved into our new site and have already seen a massive increase in production yield. Simply having the adequate space, tools and lighting required to produce in a more organised manner is what we have been striving for.


Our production facility (late shift)

With quality and service to our customers being of utmost priority to us, we continue to produce Heatles to a very high standard and only accept the very best of standards before packing and shipping. We continue to optimise processes and work closely with our partners to continually improve the production efficiency.  We still see a lot more potential to further speed up production with every passing week. 

Making good use of our production facilities

In October, we still had our working students we were talking about in September. The ambitious people helped us move, set up the production hall and go through a lot of assembly steps to prepare for the next batch. We thank them for their hard work and dedication. We think that they learnt a lot about product development and production first hand. Some have shown an interest in continuing employment with us after their studies.

The first step was to set up tables and create working stations and assembly steps. Then we moved hundreds of boxes full of components, parts, housings, cables etc. into the production hall and started executing on the assembly process.

It was a big change for us to finally use a large space instead of our previous, tiny rooms in the co-working area. Those of you who visited us know exactly how much of an improvement this is.

Our working students took on a lot of difficult and delicate tasks, like using our metal workshop to clean and finish the metal parts, such as heat sinks as seen in the photo, to prepare them for further assembly.

Even with the shelving and facilities being built up around us, we started production in the new space, trying to maximise our efficiency and reduce any down time.

By the end of the month, we finished the setup with production line tables, storage shelves, testing areas and the corresponding equipment.

Ramping up production

We continue to hire talented people to join our team and rotate through several stations in production, from assembly to quality assurance to testing and packaging. The process is still being optimised with advice from industry experts. We are making great progress in streamlining every process.

Our team starts early and does the sensitive work first, such as soldering or programming. A batch of Heatles is then produced and lined out for the next shift to continue with the mechanical steps, such as final assembly and testing.

And here is a video from the coil manufacturer to give you a feel for the huge amount of heatles we are now producing:

 

Since our boards are manufactured here in Berlin, we need to deliver big batches of components to our EMS supplier - stock of important chips and other parts we hold in stock which took almost 2 years to accumulate. For every PCB batch it’s a transporter full of boxes.

A large amount of top assemblies have been produced, waiting for said PCBs to arrive and for the next shift to finish assembling to move on to the next steps.

Before the Heatles receive their high-quality glass top, they are thoroughly stress-tested. Only after every test has passed, the glass top is affixed which finalises the device. Every tested Heatle receives an individual note and database entry, with test results which are paired with your individual device ID for future reference.

Shipments and customer deliveries

Whilst we are preparing to outsource our logistics to a fulfilment centre in Berlin, we continue to send out deliveries by ourselves in smaller batches to keep track and personal contact to our customers.

Our Heatles are being shipped by DHL nationally and internationally. Due to the growing amount of packages we organise regular pick-ups from our production facility.

We continue to ask our customers to send us pictures of their Heatles at home. Knowing it’s a highly personal matter, we appreciate the effort and would like to share some of the photos we were generously allowed to distribute.


Get well soon, Alex! Our team was also hit by a new wave of Covid in October...


From Franziska


From Heiko


From Tanja


Anonymous


From Zeeshan


From Annabell


From Martin


From Giannis


From Tugce


Black Week Sale

As you may have seen, we have already started preparing for the next sale for our second batch for spring 2023. This will take place during Black Week.

This new batch will not affect the delivery times of your Heatle if you have already ordered. The second batch of this Black Week sale will be limited to a small quantity to use the leftover components and chips we ordered last year. This way, we won't have any idle time when we have finished the batch from the first pre-sale and are not yet ready for the batch after that. Due to the extremely slow supply chains and logistics issues, we also have to do this pre-sale relatively early.

Free accessories for your referrals - and you

We'll send you more detailed information in the next few days, but if you recommend this promotion to your friends and family, we'll give you a voucher for the Heatle Shop that you can use right now or in the future to buy great new accessories or an additional Heatle and save money.

Delivery forecast

When it comes to promising delivery dates, due to many external factors that determine our productivity and speed, such as incoming deliveries from our suppliers and delays in logistics, we are not yet able to give you all exact dates. However, we will do our best to inform those who are next in line as soon as their Heatle is in production.

All Heatles already ordered are guaranteed to ship before the Black Week batch goes into production.

However, due to numerous requests from you and based on our current delivery situation, we would like to provide you with a preliminary, non-binding estimate of the expected delivery dates. Due to external factors, there will be some variation, but we are doing our best to expedite the process.

The order numbers below are for Heatle orders only. Your separate accessory orders will be shipped with your Heatle, and your Heatle's order will determine when it is allocated.

Which two figures do you see here?

  • 31 or less
    • Have already been delivered or are scheduled to be delivered in 15 smaller batches before Christmas 2022.
  • 32-38
    • Will be delivered in 30 smaller batches by the end of March 2023.

 

Thank you for your support!

As always, our little Heatle family would like to thank you for your continued support, patience and kind words of encouragement for our extraordinarily difficult, yet groundbreaking and important work. You can be sure that we will continue to do our best every day to deliver your Heatles as quickly as possible, if we have not already done so.