Spring has arrived and our products won’t be far behind.   The weather is getting warmer, spring flowers are in full bloom and it’s a fantastic time to be out on the bike!  The season of rebirth and renewals is very fitting as aerosensor’s due date rapidly approaches after a long gestation period.

The moulds for all three products are on schedule for T1 production, which is where the first set of moulded parts is produced for final sign off on fit and finish.  All being well we should then start to receive the first batch of products next month, with a view to shipping in mid June for our indiegogo backers.

Current state of aerobody mould.

Electronics have all been released and the PCBs are in manufacture.  Our local supplier will then fit components to the first panels so we can check everything is working as expected before, again, giving the go-ahead for production quantities.  This is where having a local supplier pays dividends as we can test the boards on the same day that they were produced.  If there are any issues, we can react rapidly.

Over the last month we have been testing functionality with rapid prototyped parts.  Using a type of 3D printing which allows different material properties within the same part, we can test the device buttons which will be overmoulded (rubber moulded onto plastic parts) to ensure good sealing.  Prototyping allows us to do some final checks of rubber stiffness, and button inserts which we still have time to modify if needed.  So far everything is working very well, and we are pleased with the look and feel of the products.  Here are some images of the latest prototypes.  Note surface finish is rougher than in the final plastics.

Latest prototypes (with lego figure for scale!)

Meanwhile we are optimising the assembly and product testing process.  Testing is particularly important since we are using some extremely sensitive sensors in our devices to give you reliable measurements.  Here are some fun facts to put into context the capabilities of these sensors:

• aerosensor’s ambient air pressure sensor, used to measure altitude, has a relative accuracy of +/-1Pa. This is a pressure equivalent to the weight of a single eyelash spread over the palm of your hand.
• aerobody’s distance sensors measure your position to the nearest millimetre by measuring the time it takes a pulse of light to bounce off you. This means it is resolving time to within 7 picoseconds: If you imagine 1 second being equivalent to 4,529 years then 7 picoseconds would be equivalent to 1 second.

Looking forward to shipping final products, we are excited to show you the packaging.  We have a few options to decide on and have been asking our Instagram followers for their feedback – white vs blue, rendered vs drawing.  We’d love to hear from you on which you prefer!

Packaging prototype designs.

Aside from the physical product, the firmware is a huge part of our products: It’s where the magic happens.  As well as rigorous on-road testing we are refining the user experience through continual evolution of our software.  Part of this will be a simple USB update mechanism, where you will be able to plug your device into a computer via a USB-C cable and it will check for the latest firmware and install it if necessary.  This enables us to offer our customers the latest aerosensor experience, so you can have faith that your aerodynamic testing will continue to be the best available!