You may not have heard from us for a while, but that’s for a good reason. We were busy running and completing our successful Kickstarter campaign, and are now hard at work making sure our software and hardware are ready for our May shipping period.
But, don’t worry. We’re back and will sharing content with you more often in the coming months!
In case you didn’t get a chance to visit our Kickstarter page, here’s what the team have been up to in the last couple of months:
Software
The entire month of November was focused on developing infrastructure and updating our code base.
We’re locking the software by January, so that no new modules will be added until after February. While we have a couple cool things in the works for future updates in Q2 - Q4 2020, we’re dedicated to delivering the software capabilities that were promised in the campaign first.
A milestone we hit in December was creating an automated staging server for our team to test out different modules before they go into the production copy. Having set this up helps speed up the reiteration and development process by a few fold compared to before.
Some people have asked about the safety of their data on the cloud, and we’re happy to share that we’ve built a solution that will store almost no PII.
To this end, we designed a new client and server architecture with user data privacy as the focus. The new architecture allows us to avoid the storage of user or network information on the cloud. All connections are further encrypted to provide more security for our users.
This has us excited because it enables us to build new features that will not require user data – and possible a local access structure to the device in the future.
We’ve managed to hit our target goal in completing the infrastructure and are now working on porting the iOS and android apps over to the new architecture.
We’re getting closer to our goal of locking the software by the end of January. These modules are working just fine after additional testing in multiple countries:
- Ad blocking
- Malware / phishing protection
- Bandwidth controls
- Anti-buffer bloat
- Parental controls
The app team is also currently working on version 2.0 of the Pangolin app. With all of the functions working, we’re now laboring towards making the app easier on the eye, and simpler to understand.
Hardware
We’re working with logistics partners to be certain that proper processes are followed to ensure your Pangolin is delivered by May 2020.
Our engineers continue to improve the mechanical design in order to ensure that some issues we’ve discovered during our testing phases are fixed. During testing we found that in extremely heavy network workloads the overall device temperature got warmer than we were comfortable with. Our solution was to use a larger heat sink in order to dissipate the heat better.
Here’s what the new and improved mechanical design looks like:
We’re carrying the thermal testing on the improved design and so far, so good.
Additionally, we’re making a couple more changes to the outer shell:
- Moving the placement of the power socket so that it’s easier to use.
- Widening the device’s reset button so that it’s easier to press for people with larger fingers (like our founder, Miko).
Our team members are also hard at work finalizing the details with our manufacturing partner. We plan to start mass production by March and have the units arrive at our Kickstarter backers’ doorsteps in May.
Don’t worry if you missed our Kickstarter campaign, though. We’ve still got units available for pre-order.
