1. Most part of the first batch of HUDWAY Drive devices is assembled. We're now waiting for the certification lab in China to issue an FCC certificate (a mandatory procedure for the products containing radioelectronic components).

But they're already closing for Chinese New Year holidays and it is unlikely that we get the certificate before the holidays are over.

That's why, all pending orders for Indiegogo customers, and most orders placed on HUDWAY Store (up until February 13, 2020) will be fulfilled within March.

2. We've begun working on the new PCBs with a trusted partner who we know from other projects. At the moment, it's too early to share any timeline, but we greatly hope to resume shipping in summer.

3. Chinese New Year holidays are starting next week in China.
Practically everything shuts down as the employees from various industries travel home to reunite with their families.
By our previous experience, we know that this period spans all over February — so there'll be little production-related news before March.

1. We are finishing the manufacturing of the first batch of HUDWAY Drive devices. At the very end of January we will start shipping it. All pending orders for Indiegogo customers, and most orders placed on HUDWAY Store (up until February 13, 2020) will be fulfilled.

2. For all other pending orders, we have no exact ETA at the moment. And here's why.

One of our key production partners, a Korean company called Kivic, Inc. seems to have gone out of business. They owe us a batch of 4,000 PCB units and TFT displays for HUDWAY Drive, which we paid for. This was our second order with them, and the first one was delivered timely, with great customer service and support.

Earlier in 2020, they confirmed that the second order was manufactured and will be delivered to our assembly partner facility by the beginning of delivery.

In October, their CEO warned us that he won't be available for a few weeks because of heart surgery he had to undergo. Ever since, our continued efforts to reach out to them either by phone, email, visiting their office, or through their ex-employees failed.

We have received a few insights that the company has accumulated large debts and has failed to fulfill their responsibilities with a number of other customers, too. And that Kivic employees have not been receiving their salary for a few months. Which, to some extent, explains why no one answered us.

We're now initiating a legal pursuit. However, we would still be open for a peaceful resolution with Kivic and find a way to receive the components if they were manufactured, as it may take us up to a few months to reproduce them from scratch.

This is why we cannot tell when we will ship all the remaining orders.

We're sure that HUDWAY Drive is a great product, and those our partners to whom we have shown the samples, confirm it.

And with Kivic components or not, we're moving forward. We have initiated these components reproduction already, and we will keep you updated on its progress — and on our investigation about Kivic.

If you have any information about Kivic, please email us at support@hudway.co. Any bit may help.

Thank you!

1. We've completed combiners milling and sent the batch of finished combiners to quality control.

Every combiner in the batch has been manually checked twice — first, to make sure there are no defects in the lens and the coating. The samples having even minor issues were removed. And second — against image distortions.

2. Next week the combiners will arrive at the assembly facility.

The first week at the assembly unit will be a sort of set-up week. The assembly line personnel will learn to actually assemble and pack the product — this happens with every new product at every assembling facility. By the beginning of the second week, they will work out a steady optimised process — and this is when we plan to get the first meaningful output of HUDWAY Drive devices.

3. Next week we will be sending out a survey to you to confirm the shipping details with the customers in the first batch of orders.

4. We plan to start shipping in January.

1. The mass production of combiners is in progress — and we're sending the batches of ready samples to the coating factory.

At the coating factory, the combiners will undergo ultrasonic cleaning to remove the grease or dust on their surface. Each lens is taken through 8 cleaning baths.

Then the combiners will be coated using the vacuum metalizing process, and then milled — to remove the handlers, the runners and refine the lens edges. After that goes QA, and the samples that pass it are sent to the assembly facility.

2. On the software side, we added new widgets to be visuaised when you receive your car data using OBD-II scanner.

We have finally received the samples of the combiners and coating that are just perfect. It's very transparent, has very slight tint, no image doubling, no ghost images, no distortions. We will be using it for mass production — it is confirmed.

It took us two months to finally get the quality of combiners we were seeking for. Since July, when we found image doubling issues, we've been working with the lens manufacturer and two coating factories to fix it.

And here's how updated schedule looks.

1. Now through the last week of October — we make combiners.

2. Last week of October through mid November — we apply coating to the combiners, do the milling and send them for assembly.

3. Mid November through mid December — assembly, packing, and shipping.

1. The quality control unit reported that they detected a number of cases of image doubling in the lenses.

This has been the issue that the lens manufacturer was struggling to resolve at the beginning of June. The test samples received at that time were good and the factory launched the mass production.

We have to recall the batch, get the issue fixed with the lens manufacturer, and have the results confirmed on a larger batch of samples. Until then, the assembly line will not be started.

2. We did some tests with a HUDWAY Drive sample (a pre-mass production one), to confirn it will withstand high temperatures (like when left at the parking lot on a hot day).

We heated it at 195° F (90° C) while switched on. It kept working for half an hour, then switched off. We then let it cooled down and tried switching it on — it kept working.

3. Due to the double image issue in the combiners, the shipping is unlikely to start before September.

1. We've resolved the logistics issues that hindered prototype assessment and confirmed that plastic parts are good for mass production.

2. The lens manufacturer takes another week to fix the milling issues and make sure that we get no double image issues in the mass production.

3. The TFT displays and PCBs are arriving timely.

4. We're planning to start shipping in July.

5. HUDWAY Drive app for Android is ready for use. We're making final touches on the UI and performance — and will release it on Google Play shortly.

1. We're launching the first plastic injections for the body parts, and after this final round of tests we will know when exactly we will launch the mass production and assembly.

2. There still may be delays on the way, since some components are yet to be delivered from the manufacturers and these may lag because of quarantine and complicated logistics.

For example, the TFT displays and PCBs are made in Korea, and the factory is quarantined till March 27.

3. Our suppliers give a vote of confidence that the first batch shall be ready by June.

1. Our Chinese contractors are resuming operations this week, although not all their personnel has returned to work. China is getting back to life.

2. Our contractors are taking this week to do an audit of their responsibilities and available workforce and will then update us on the production schedule.

After almost 1.5 months of inactivity, we'll be moving forward with the production.

3. We uploaded the first version of HUDWAY Drive app for iOS to the App Store.

4. We submitted the Android version for Google Play review and successfully passed its privacy review — which means that the Android app will, too, display the contact name when you're receiving an incoming call or message.
It's noteworthy that Google's restrictions on that are more severe than Apple's ones.

I've spent the month in China meeting with our production partners and personally supervising the testing and assembly of the first samples of the confirmed design for manufacturing. These are still prototypes, but their approval by all the parties means we will change nothing more.

2. Everything works fine, and his week we launched the tooling for the mass production of HUDWAY Drive bodyshells.

3. The factory confirmed they'll produce a test batch of mass production samples at the beginning of January.

4. The PCB manufacturer has uploaded the firmware, assembled the PCBs, tested them, and shipped to our main assembly hub. We've already received them as well as the LCD displays, and all other electronic components.

5. We're unable to produce the whole batch of devices before Chinese New Year holidays. Our contractors confirm that starting the middle of January they will be closed to almost end of February.

6. This means that we will only receive any meaningful output of HUDWAY Drive devices to ship in mid-March.

1. We're done with the corrections to the design of plastic parts is over.
The factory have sent us the updated assembly plan, and our industrial engineer and product architect have both confirmed there are no more corrections required.

2. The factory takes a week to update tooling DFM according top the agreed assembly due to the lots of small corrections to the manufacturing design.

The previous version of tooling DFM the factory gave in mid October (the one mentioned in the October update) had some injection gates, ejection pins and parting lines issues which we agrred would be fixed in final DFM.

3. We will then produce and assemble a small batch of samples — these will be made from the same materials we'll use in production and feature all the original electronics.

The factory reports that these will be ready by the second week of December. We will then test them, and provided that everything's fine, give a go to the mass production.

4. The firmware is ready and our devs are sending it to the PCB manufacturer to have it written to the PCBs.

Over the air firmware updates have already been tested — and when you receive your HUDWAY Drive, you will be able to update it to the latest firmware version using HUDWAY Drive app.

The night vision cameras are on their way to the warehouse, and we'll start dispatching them next week.

1. We're done with the tests of the last HUDWAY Drive prototype and now need to confirm its design for manufacturing.

For that, we send all the materials and models for the tested prototype to the manufacturer and wait about a week until they analyze them and confirm that our design is good for mass production.

2. The modifications in the body design required that we also modify the design of the lens (the part of it attaching to the device body).

This has been finished and tested against vibration issues and image distortions when fixed firmly, and the needed adjustments to the tooling have been made. We've also produced the final lense samples, and after the holidays they'll be polished and sent to the coating factory.

3. Things get busy in China, and it's probable that we will not get the mass output before December.

4. On the software side, the devs confirm that they're almost done with the development and when you get the device it will be able to:

• Display notifications from the messengers you select
• Display who's calling or what track you've switched to
• Receive, process and visualize vehicle data from OBD-II scanner
• Display simplified directions (arrow-styled) and give voice hints
• Score your driving behavior and ride history and keep track of it in the app
• Work with video feed brought from cameras
• Mirror any other app to your HUDWAY Drive screen

5. This wek, we're preparing to shipping out the cameras (back&sideview sets as well as night vision sets).

1. All the cameras (night vision or side view +back up set) will ship within a month from Riga where they are now traveling from China to be QA checked and repacked.

2. We did lots of tests experimenting with the mounting systems of a night vision camera for different vehicle models — and made a durable braket with three strong magnets covered with soft pads not to damage the cabin surface.

It's a portable mounting solution which won't involve drilling or cutting out pieces of the radiator grill.

3. At the beginning of August we've received the production samples of the TFT displays from the vendor where the mounting configuration had been different from the one planned.

We had to make a few more corrections to the design of the front panel innards to compensate for this. This didn't took much time but shifted the new stage of prototyping for a week later, and on the whole was quite an unpleasant discovery.

4. The spring plungers we ordered at the end of July have arrived.

5. We have received all the components for the prototype (pre-final version), as well as the samples of the new PCB board.

We're now starting the new round of tests to confirm the requirements for the mass production. It will take us a week to do all the tests and then we will confirm the schedule with the factory.

6. We're getting into the very busy period of production in China. During our recent discussions, the factory warned us that the production may take up to two months — and a delay till December is possible.

1. We've produced a new batch of samples and tested them.

To make sure the design withstands various driving conditions, we tested the samples using the vibration test rig in addition to real-life tests.

2. The tests have shown a few weaknesses in the current design that ask for additional improvements.

The most crucial issue is that even though the slide-in lock securely fixes device on the mount, there still occur situations when the two disconnect and the power supply to the device is lost. In practice, this may lead to inferior performance when driving a bumpy road.

3. Because of this, we had to take a step back and modify the lock construction by adding spring plungers.

These are small fixture elements with flexible body design that compensate the potential device movements and keeps it precisely in place. They also make the lock more reliable and prevent the situations where you could fracture it by unintentionally applying excessive efforts while mounting the device.

4. Further, the tests have shown that existing configuration of the contact pads may incidentally lead to the unwanted contacts between nearby pins and pads.

While there's low chance of any critical impact on the performance, it is best that we exclude any such contacts in the mass-produced devices.

5. We've revised the configuration of the PCB — it will receive more space for cooling the chip, and as a result, allows for better and trouble proof performance.

Additionally, we've changed how it's affixed to the body shell — in order to maintain its resilience to mechanical shock and vibration.

We positively know that all the modifications we make will make the product better. We did our best to minimize the production schedule shift, but we predict a delay in shipping and the most pessimistic forecast puts us in receiving the ready batch in October.

1. We have finally received the tooling for all the main components of HUDWAY Drive: the body, the lens, and the mount.

Now, we can start the production of body components as well as major works on the lens. First, there will be rounds of injection tests, and once we approve the sample, it will require a couple of precision iterations.

By the middle of July, we plan to have produced the batch of lenses and send them to the coating factory.

2. By now, we have already produced and received all the small components for the device, like the cigarette lighter adaptor, the cables, and the cable clips.

3. We have also selected the adhesive layer for the HUDWAY Drive mount. For that, we tested a range of solutions based on jelly glue and foam.

The final HUDWAY Drive mount will have a one-time use foam adhesive, since it performs best on various types of surfaces, including very curvy ones. Supplementary mounts are already available for purchase on store.hudway.co.

4. We've improved the side view cameras: they will receive Sony IMX225 image sensor.

These sensors were developed by Sony for use in industrial applications, and are used, for example, by Ximea, the innovator of small size and high speed cameras. They feature great sensitivity characteristics and allow to produce color images with high picture quality even under dark conditions.

5. On the software side of things, we've finished the development of basic app modules, like visualising calls, notifications, messages, and music on HUD over Bluetooth and are now working on the firmware and OBD-II data processing and visualisation.

1. We're working on the lens for HUDWAY Drive and designing the tooling for it.

2. Our devs are now finalising the first demo version of the HUDWAY Drive app for iOS and Android.

We've already implemented processing of notifications (incoming calls, messages and music), and almost finished working on the OBD-II data, on how it's received and visualised on the device.

3. We're working on a customised edition of HUDWAY Drive for Ford F-150 — a built-in one. This means that to install it you will need to cut out a part of the dash — but a reward for such an intervention will be a HUD that looks integral to the vehicle interior.