November 30, 2015Update #14 - Happy Thanksgiving! Hey everyone! Happy Thanksgiving! We hope that you had a great time with family and loved ones this Thanksgiving holiday :) Update part 1 - Remote We’ve been doing more work on the remote based on the feedback we received, and so we want to circle back on that with some updates! Thank you so much for all the feedback that so many of you provided! Your feedback is very helpful and we read through every single comment, feedback, and idea. A couple of recurring themes that we heard from the last update on the remote: On the plus side, people liked: The easy access of having the buttons separated The modularity of the remote and being able to take it with you at the end of your ride On the down side, people felt that: The wires are a little inelegant, and look vulnerable to fraying and/or snagging The new remote module looks a little too bulky and could be tough to mount for people with handlebars that are already crowded with existing gear Our takeaway from the feedback in the survey and in comments was that more work and more testing should be done on the remote. So we took a hard look at the original remote design again and made some tweaks to mitigate some of the limitations that we had observed. Here is a little peek: Features: Handlebar mount kind of like a watch strap to make it easy to fit across bars of various diameters. Remote module easily removable from the mount, or you can just unstrap the mount as well and take the whole thing with you. We also made some changes to make the remote slimmer and more low profile. We’re still working on this design, so this is not finalized yet, and also neither are we abandoning the design from the previous update. Plan moving forward: We’ve got about 70 people in our beta testing program. We are on track to ship the beta units to them in December next month (will definitely be providing more detail on that next month FYI) and our plan is to ship both versions of the remote to them to test. Their experience using the product in the real world will yield a ton of insight, and we look forward to sharing it with you guys! Update part 2 - Revised sticker designs + DRIVER SUPPORTER reward level shipped! It's not a helmet, but it IS a reward level! For those who may have missed it, this was the reward level for our driver supporters and allies who may not cycle but nonetheless wanted to contribute to the cause. You may remember the sticker designs we shared with you from a few updates ago. Thanks to a ton of awesome feedback, we updated some of the designs slightly: One idea/suggestion we received was the phrase "I GIVE A METER." This idea we ended up REALLY liking for several reasons. Its specific. Meter/3 feet passing laws are gaining momentum and are getting passed in more and more states and countries. Awareness raising of this law is an important and current issue. Rather than telling other people what to do, it focuses on yourself as a good example for others to follow. As a play on “I give a s**t” it’s playful, quirky, tongue-in-cheek, yet apt. You give a shit and you give a meter passing distance because that’s someone’s life out there. Some pictures packing these DRIVER SUPPORTER rewards: Thanks to the success of the campaign we decided to go the extra mile and make extra swag to include in the reward! Bonus points if you can identify where the quote comes from! Would you like us to include these stickers in our helmet deliveries as well? Let us know here: http://goo.gl/forms/xKuEboS6o6 Lastly - Things we're thankful for In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we wanted to take a second to share with you some of the things we’re thankful for. Our family and friends. We started working on Lumos for over a full year before the Kickstarter campaign even launched. Close friends and family mentored us, provided useful advice, emotional support, and put themselves on the line chipping in the seed capital we needed to get Lumos started. Our Kickstarter backers. It was so rewarding to see how well the campaign went, and we are so grateful. We’re making Lumos a reality thanks to you! Our manufacturing partners. There is so much that happens behind the scenes that you have no idea about. Our manufacturing partners have been incredible throughout this entire journey and they have our tremendous gratitude and appreciation for doing an amazing job. Happy Thanksgiving everyone, more mega updates coming up very soon, so stay tuned! Jeff and Eu-wen