Welcome to another Kokoon update. In the last update, we were pleased to report that our first Mass Production run (MP1) was complete and that we had begun the shipping process. This update will be a bit shorter than usual as hardware development is complete and we’re focused on production and fulfilment, but we will go into some detail on how the app is developing.
Shipping Update
We are pleased that the first units have been shipped to some of our very earliest customers. We’re excited to hear your feedback. It’s been a long journey and we can’t thank our community enough for your patience and support for us to get here.
We were not able to start the second Mass Production run (MP2) as planned at the end of September, but have only suffered a minor slip of a couple of weeks. This was due to the investigation of some quality control issues which appeared during inspection of the MP1 units, which we reported on in our last update. Following MP1 production issue resolution, we are proceeding with MP2 production with good confidence. MP2 will be for 1500 units and due for completion on 29th October.
From there, we move onto the MP3 production run of 2500 units, scheduled to complete in November, then MP4 and onwards where we will continue significantly increasing the size of runs.
As the size of manufacturing runs increases, we have to control this carefully to ensure quality is maintained at scale. The team are very much focused on maintaining quality and efficiency on the production line, and we’re encouraged by the good result from MP1.
We stated at the start of September that we hoped everyone would get their units before Christmas. Having suffered a few further set-backs relating to production run scheduling with our manufacturing partner, we now expect to get a substantial proportion of the units to you before Christmas but a proportion of you (later orders/those in later serviced territories) will receive their units after the festive season. We appreciate your understanding and are maintaining focus on minimising slips in the current schedule.
As before, we’ll be in contact with you to confirm your address via email when your product is ready to ship. Now that MP1 has shipped, we’ll be sending the next set of address confirmations in the coming days.
Content library
We briefly updated you on our content in July, which we have been focussing on over the last few months.
We have continued to work on our content, producing more guided sessions including educational content and exercises based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), to help our customers switch off, relax and sleep.
A view of our library
Working with sleep scientists, we have been writing and recording a range of exercises, to help our users find what works best for them. We have 15 guided exercises now live in our mobile app, with plans to double that by the end of the month.
We will be launching a programme called “Good Sleep Foundations”. This programme is designed to bring knowledge out of the sleep clinic and to you, our customers. It includes techniques you can practice to help you sleep and the science behind them, as well as tips for good sleep hygiene and more.
The library also contains a range of soundscapes and relaxing music and we’re still working with several composers to create original pieces.
Some more of our audio
As we gather more feedback from customers, we’ll be able to get a better idea of what exercises and techniques are popular and create more of them. When you begin your Kokoon journey, please get in touch with your feedback on the content, we’d love to hear what you think of our library, and we’ll be looking out for your requests on what else to add.
You’ll find a couple more screenshots below.
The My History view
Now Playing screen
Software development
We have now updated our website, to include information on the current version of the app, which we will be updating with each release. The version information for the app holds information about the Current Features implemented within the product, any Known Issues and also Upcoming Features that we are working on.
We’ll expand here a little bit on the current features and known issues.
Current features:
• Audio library including guided sessions featuring techniques used in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to promote relaxation and sleep: – see Content Library above.
• Sleep Onset scoring for audio tracks when using the app: Depending on how long it takes you to fall asleep whilst listening to the audio you have selected a sleep onset score is given between 0 and 10. This helps our users to track which audio has been most effective for them.
• Audio fade out and pause when we detect you have fallen asleep: When audio fade out is enabled, the user will have the ability to customise their experience by changing the length of time between the point we detect you have fallen asleep and when we fade out your audio. The user can also disable this feature if they would prefer their audio to continue playing throughout their listening session.
• White noise fade in when we detect you have fallen asleep: When audio is faded out, the system can gradually introduce white noise. This feature is there to help our users maintain deep sleep by lowering their audio sensitivity to external disturbances. This feature is also optional, with the user able to set the volume they would like the white noise to play.
• Automatic pausing of audio when we detect you have removed the headphones: To help keep your place in any audio you are listening to we will automatically pause the audio if we detect the headphones are off your head (This feature can also be switched off in the settings menu)
Known Bugs:
• Audio distortion at high volumes when using Bluetooth (issue seen at approx. 70% volume):
As mentioned in our previous update, we have a volume distortion issue with Bluetooth audio. We are currently investigating this and have now deduced that the issue lies within the audio chain external to the Bluetooth module. Once this is resolved, the issue will be fixed by a firmware update rolled out via the app.
• Play/Pause of audio can cause slight audible ‘pops’:
This issue is in our backlog and we hope to focus on it after we have fixed the volume distortion issue above.
• Charging time variance. We are aware that a small number of Headphone units can take longer than 1.5 hours to charge:
We are waiting to roll-out the fix for this issue in our next (OTA over-the-air) firmware update of the headphone.
User Manual Preview
We have uploaded the headphone manual to the website, here.
Until next time!
That’s all for now. The team will be out in the factory soon for MP2 production and we’ll be sharing an update with information on that as soon as possible. While we appreciate the wait for your delivery is frustrating, as it is now so close, the support team won’t be able to give any further information on your shipping date at the moment. Please bear with us, we’re working to ship as quickly as possible and will be in touch with you when we are preparing your shipment.
As always, we love hearing from you either through email or through our social media channels Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Best wishes,
The Kokoon Team
