Production Update : November 26, 2022

Hello Singing Tea Kettle Enthusiasts, Here's another production update. The first week of October all manufacturing drawings and CAD files were reviewed and updated with the hard-fought lessons learned from dozens of iterations of parts.  The plan is for a handful to be assembled at the factory and some domestically to assess parts yield and reliability.  

This is an entirely self-funded project, given these resource constraints we can't move as quickly as we otherwise would with boots-on-the-ground engineers. However, we've had customers and friends step up to the plate to support the engineering effort.

Today we have working prototypes with new patent-pending safety features and have learned the theory of how to make the kettle work (in the future we can play different songs).  One lesson learned is when sourcing manufacturing partners it is important to pick a partner large enough that the manufacturer has the technical capacity to handle our complexity, but is also small enough that our tiny minimum order quantity matters to their bottomline. This balancing act coupled with splitting manufacturing among three different factories to prevent copy-cats means constant hand holding. Nearly everything left open to interpretation is goes awry. Hence our going back to the drawing board and getting very precise on production requirements.  All the meanwhile prices have increased and manufacturers sometimes hold our feet to the fire on each iteration. I'd go to China to expedite however it is about a four month commitment I can't afford at the moment. 

This project is so close, but has to be consumer ready when shipping units. I should have new parts over the next ten days. We are struggling to find a factory to assemble with a pinning technique for the first 300 units but have work arounds should we fail to find one. 

I love this product. Nothing like it exists. It connects us, makes us laugh and is a pleasant surprise. Thank you for your continued support.