A purpose-built minimal productivity timer, the first of its kind.
The project log is a comprehensive record, meticulously documenting each action and modification throughout the project’s lifecycle. It serves as an invaluable resource, offering clear insights into our decision-making process and the evolution of the project from concept to final product.
Hey Everyone,
Here’s an update after getting our first prototype samples back!
Spoiler: the software needs a lotttt of work. We’re using the next few weeks to code out the full user experience in a digital app (which we’ll send to you to try out the functionality of and send feedback – it will also work as a free pomodoro app :))
This likely means a delay in launching the actual kickstarter, as there’s a lot to change before we’re confident enough to launch it to the public.
Delivery dates (April 2025) are expected to be impacted at this stage, but we’ll keep you updated.
Factory Overview: Last week, I visited the Metal Supplier. They specialize in CNC machining and die casting with molds, and have been in operation since 1996. They export to countries like Germany, Italy, and Australia, have applied for over 300 patents, and hold ISO certifications—so we’re confident in their capabilities and quality focus.
CNC Prototype Samples: 🔥Images Below! Here are our first prototype samples! These were CNC machined (a process that uses lasers to cut metal). The production batch will be die-cast, meaning we’ll need to create a mold once the prototype is tested and approved. We may need to make some adjustments to the design after testing the CNC prototype, ensuring everything is optimized before moving forward with mold creation for die casting.
What’s Next: I’ve attached a couple of photos/videos from the visit! If you understand Chinese, feel free to listen in on the discussion. For those who don’t, we mainly talked about potential design tweaks before finalizing the mold. The mold creation process is expected to start around early November.
Also, you’ll notice the metal samples aren’t painted in Charcoal Grey or Frost White yet. We almost had a little hiccup with that, but luckily I was at the factory to catch it just in time!
The video below gives a quick summary for social media, but I’ll go into more detail here: The metal samples are being made at a different factory than our main Timer Factory.
Visiting the raw material supplier isn’t something that happens often, but since I was in town and it wasn’t far, I managed to swing by—super lucky timing!
There was a bit of confusion with the Colour, Materials, and Finish (CMF). The supplier initially thought Charcoal Grey was black (which is also on us for not clarifying). The official color is actually called “Black 50% C,” and the image we put on the sheet didn’t show the grey very well, so they assumed it was black.
Thankfully, we’re still in the sample phase, so it’s not a big deal. But I’m relieved we caught it before our five sample units were painted—it would have cost us a bit of time and money! CNCing definitely isn’t cheap
Visited our chosen manufacturer in Shenzhen, China! They are an award-winning timer manufacturer (with multiple Red Dot and iF Design awards) and have produced 15,000 units of our previous timer. We’ve toured their factory twice before, and we’re really confident with their abilities!
The meeting focused on confirming production timelines and strengthening our partnership.
Manufacturing Timeline Remaining steps:
With these in mind, we estimate delivery in April 2025. The Kickstarter is planned for late November.
Metal Alloy Sample Review
We reviewed samples from the metal alloy supplier. While these weren’t Flow Timer samples, they looked and felt great, with excellent tolerances and finish. I’ll return to Shenzhen next week to inspect actual Flow Timer samples if ready.
Quality Assurance Testing
This was the most fun part of the trip! The factory uses various machines to ensure quality:
Design Awards
Since the manufacturer has won multiple awards, we asked for advice on the application process. We love the Flow Timer’s design and hope to submit it for recognition, which would be a significant boost for our Kickstarter campaign.
We weren’t too happy with the icons that we used in our original design as we felt it was too big and the line weight was a bit thick. We had our graphics designer, Doori, redesign all our icons and centered the focus around the “infinity” symbol.
We felt like the infinity symbol matched the theme of the “flow” timer where the end-user could go from focus to rest to focus and achieve a flow state that will allow them to be their most productive self.
We also had to design a stand-alone logo for this project since we wanted it to have a bit of uniqueness as it’s our first flag ship kickstarter project. We wanted to include the infinity symbol into the design as well to make it meaningful.
To ensure the feel of using the device matches our expectation, we 3D printed the design again to validate the size of it.
It felt good to use, the screen was big enough to view from different angles and the kickstand made the device very versatile.
We were very satisfied with the design and proceeded forward with producing the final CMF (color, materials and finish) specifications for the manufacturers.
After going back and forth with the manufacturer, we settled on this final design of the back – we weren’t able to center the speaker grills due to the battery taking up a lot of the space. It’s a compromise but we can definitely make use of the empty space on the right to balance the design.
The survey helped us lock in the front face design that we wanted and now its time to start on adding in components for the back of the new timer. We needed to make sure there were speaker grills, a kickstand and an USB Type-c port. We had already confirmed the location of these with our supplier as they are helping us with the electronic components of our project.
The new design was ready and Damien dropped a reel to present to everyone what we had done. Have a quick watch ->
The moment we got home, we got to work with validating our design and making sure people liked it. We sent off a survey through our instagram and email list to anyone would owned our existing pomodoro timer.
We received an overwhelming number of responses. 413 responses in 48 hours. We couldn’t have been more thankful. However, that also meant we had a mountain of feedback to combthrough. So Damien, Kenny and I got to work and went through each piece of feedback and categorising them into similar themes.
The gist of feedback was everyone liked the designs, but the settings switches were a bit confusing. There were too many switches to control the brightness, volume and tone. In addition, people felt that it wouldn’t be very egonomic to use as you wouldnt be able to operate it with one hand.
With this feedback, we had something to improve on.
The project was put on hold as we conducted our yearly visits to our suppliers in China. We had our focus around a supplier in Shen Zhen that was actually the key to this project. Since we had worked with them to improve the firmware of the first pomodoro timer, we were sure that they could help on this project.
We were right. As we brought up this project and several of our initial 3D printed prototypes, they were very interested in becoming our manufacturer for this product.
They gave us some tips on how to optimise the design for the electronics so that it would fit better. We told them that we would work on the design a bit more before sending it to them to see if they any advice for design for manufacturing (DFM).
Picture 1 – Button Press Testing Machine – Used for testing max button press before failure
Picture 2 – Long Term Testing Room – Used for testing devices for 6 month to 1 year ensuring long term performance
Picture 3 – Assembly Line
Kenny came back to use with several concepts and we choose some that looked good and we 3D printed the designs just to get a feeling of scale and hand feel. Here they are.
Design 1 – The verticle design was an interesting idea, but using it was a bit difficult as setting the time you would need to pick it up
Design 2 – It was going in the right direction but it seemed a bit messy with the amount of buttons and switches there were.
Design 3 – It looked too much like a chess timer, which wasn’t a bad thing – but just did not fit the aesthetic
Design 4 – It looked too similiar to our original timer. We wanted something a bit different
We came up with a few new ideas on how to improve the design
We started the project by reviewing the feedback on our pomodoro timer version 1. It seemed like there were numerous diffiencies, namely, poor material quality and lack of functionality. People liked the design, but it lacked a variety of qualities to make it a true flag ship product.
We put together a massive excel file and grouped the feedback together into 4 themes. Design, functionality, experience and quality.
From here, we began brainstorming solutions that addressing the feedback from the reviews we were given. We wrote down a few key criterion and sent Kenny off to come up with a few preliminary concepts. The focus centered around:
1/ Easier to use
2/ Better functionality
3/ Rechargeable
4/ Better user experience (better tones and customisability and less complexity in the functions)
The discussion of functionality determined that we would make the ‘pomodoro mode’, the core mode in the new timer as it is the core function that people were using,
The price of this product for early bird supporters is estimated to be 49 USD.
We’re looking to launch the kickstarter in november and it will last for 30 days.
If all goes well, it will start shipping mid-Q1 and hopefully arrive at your doorstep near the end of Q1.
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