Dev Kit deliveries
The Dev Kits have been shipped to backers. There were a small handful of addresses that the delivery company could not validate so we are reaching out to those backers to find a resolution.
If you were one of the lucky recipients, please let us know how they are going. If you spot a bug you can report that here. Otherwise you can also join us in the Mark II channel on Mycroft Chat, or the Community Forums.
There’s been a range of feedback so far including plenty of feature requests and bug reports. We are working our way through those and pushing out new updates regularly. While we tick these off, the Dev team have also shifted some focus back to improving the experience of our core Skills like Alarms, Timers and the Weather. So you can expect some nice improvements coming to those shortly.
There are also some bigger improvements taking place…
Hey Mycroft, take a selfie
Camera support was added to the Mark II software and the Camera Skill now ships by default. There are currently two modes – taking single shot photographs; and using the camera app.
Keep an eye on our blog for a more detailed overview of this.
3D Print files for the Dev Kit are now available
Got your new Dev Kit but need to keep prying little fingers off your PCB? We’ve released all the files required to print your own enclosure on our Github.
To build a Mark II Dev Kit 3D printed enclosure you will need to first print 15 distinct parts on a FFF/FDM printer.
Mark II Dev Kit with 3D printed enclosure parts
Once you have your Dev Kit, and your 3D printed enclosure parts you’re ready to start assembling. We’ve put together a new step-by-step guide on Instructables to walk you through the process.
Additional Dev Kits
We produced a few more developer kits than had been pre-ordered, so we put some of them up for sale and they were snapped up immediately. We also decided to produce a small additional run of Dev Kits, and those also sold out quickly. So, if you haven’t ordered one already, you’ll likely have to wait for a production unit. But the good news is that we’ve hired someone (say “Hi” Duane) who is focused on mass production manufacturing.
On the horizon: Mark II production
As many of you are already aware, a global silicon shortage is impacting all electronics supply lines. The pain of its effects on our production timeline and roll out has led us to Duane.
Duane has a background working with global partners and supply chain management. He has been extremely tenacious and creative in sourcing the parts required to support Mark II production and has made excellent strides in stoking a contract manufacturing partnership. When asked what Duane’s biggest strength is, he replied, “I make it happen.”
Until we have a firm understanding of when you can expect a unit to arrive on your doorstep, we don’t want to make any promises on the production timeline. However, we can say that our goal is to still manufacture and ship the Mark II production units in 2021.
An accomplished serial entrepreneur and open source enthusiast, Michael mastered hardware development at his first startup, Stellar Semiconductor, before founding Cryptic Studios and launching the legendary City of Heroes MMORPG. Michael and his family live in Venice, California.