UPDATE: DELIVERIES IN JANUARY. EXTERNAL REVIEWS. SUPPORT RESOURCES. BATTERY LIFE UPDATE
Our production has been on schedule but unfortunately our packaging supplier in Kiev was affected by the power outages from the constant Russian shelling of the Ukrainian infrastructure. As a result, our expected shipping before Christmas was moved to January.
I am very happy to announce that we have just received the first batch of final products and will start shipping to a significant number of pre-order customers in the beginning of January when the Christmas frenzy is over. The web shop will change from pre-order to in-stock during January.
External reviews
We have had a number of pre-production units delivered to 15 external testers during November and December, and their feedback has been valuable in creating the final release versions of firmware and the smpl Homey app: firmware v1.18, app v2.1.16.
You can already experience several reviews here. And more will follow:
- The Dutch smart home blog Domotica-blog.nl: "With smpl you get a display where you can show data from Homey in a beautiful way” SMPL mini display - Het ultieme scherm? - domotica-blog.nl
- Rec.dk recommends our smpl mini display - Rec.dk is the biggest danish niche site on home electronics and content smpl mini display - Dansk smart display til Homey - recordere.dk
- Review from GeekNetworkDK aka Sepp Malec: “I am crazy with this display, I love it, I truly love it” smpl - E-ink display - YouTube
- Review from RepairGuyDK aka Fille Kirstein: “This is probably one of the most innovative things I’ve ever seen. Never ever seen before” smpl mini Display, det første i verden og så er det en DANSK opfindelse ! - til dit Homey Smarthome - YouTube
Several Community Developers have also been able to test the smpl mini display in relation to their relevant apps. Here a few from Ronny and Robin. And more will follow:
- Ronny Winkler @RonnyW has posted a review based on his OpenWeather app: [App][Pro] OpenWeather - #249 by RonnyW
- Ronny also posted a more comprehensive ‘Hot or Not’ review in German: Hot oder Schrott? - #567 by RonnyW
- Robin Gruijter @Gruijter who is responsible for the popular Power by the Hour app also posted some initial experience: [APP][Pro] Power by the Hour: Insights per hour, day, month and year - #1038 by Gruijter
Support resources
As our official product launch is approaching very fast, we have created a number of support resources. You can check them out here:
- How-To videos: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzTVKBbq6IwiofrCDTNJHTOzqzVCn8F7D&si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE
- Device Manual: Device manual - The smpl mini display
Battery life update
Our hardware team have now had enough data from tests of the power consumption in different configurations to give a more accurate estimate of the battery life:
- For a 2-slot layout with 1 slot updated every minute, power consumption corresponds to 110-115 days of operation = almost 4 months
- For a 4-slot layout with all 4 slots updated every minute (the worst case scenario), power consumption corresponds to 80-85 days of operation = almost 3 months
We are very satisfied with this result.
This does not include re-connecting and frequent use of the back button and thus full screen refresh. On the other hand, this also does not include using the pause/resume flow cards for power saving as well as reducing the update frequency, which will have a significant positive impact.
