#revault

Thank you kindly, Joe.

Disparition de Patrick Revault à l’âge de 70 ans

Par le biais des réseaux sociaux, nous apprenons avec une grande tristesse le départ vers d’autres cieux de Patrick Revault.

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The folks over at revault.io have taken a new approach to the smart watch crowd of tech. They bring to the table a digital watch that includes a wifi and bluetooth radio as well as 32 or 128 GB of flash memory onboard; add in a little special sauce of iOS/Android apps, APIs and public cloud syncing integration; sprinkle customizable watch faces on top; and garnish with mobile notifications and Qi wireless charging.

Admittedly I first thought it was a pretty awesome idea, but after reading through the BackerClub.co project page (private club, referral link below) and watching the IndieGoGo launch this campaign seems to be one of those infamous projects where everyone kind of missed the details. I asked some specific questions and didn’t get much in the way of actual answers, but the answers I got lead to even more missing details, questions, and signs that the design/development isn’t even close to completed yet.

Take a read of what I’ve asked and then you can find my list of “Backer Red Flags” down at the bottom of this post. Now, don’t get me wrong: I wish these guys the best of success with this campaign and their product. I’m interested to follow it through their completion and if it ever gets to market and isn’t a flop, I’ll probably buy one (I love the idea) -- I’m just very much unconvinced on their ability to follow through at the current time.

IndieGoGo Project page: http://igg.me/at/revault/x/10839843

Join BackerClub.co: (for backers) https://backerclub.co/join-start.php?inviter=1818-ef9fb47976b8151e45bdc83de4573681

(for project creators) https://backerclub.co/begin-submit.php?inviter=1818-ef9fb47976b8151e45bdc83de4573681

From the comments section on BackerClub.co:

Chris Holt  (I asked)

You say up to 3 days battery life. Does that mean 3 days of the screen, wifi and bluetooth radios turned off? What is the functional amount of data transfer (in and out) that the battery can sustain? What is the battery composition and capacity?

I really like the idea you've got here, but at the same time the reason I haven't bought a wearable or smart watch is simply because there is such a variety of capabilities out there, and almost all of them are potentially very useful, yet I don't want to have to buy and wear 3+ devices. Why have you not decided to include a Gyroscope/Accelerometer to perform step/activity tracking? or a heart rate monitor, or any of the other common wearable tech?

I don't see anything that mentions what you are using the Accelerometer for. Is your Notifications system going to be out-of-the-box compatible with receiving all iOS and Android notifications? Your page says there will be a developer Custom API for building watch faces, but how will that content be distributed? in-app via some "skin" configuration download?

The blog post you linked has a good use case, but I feel that there are a lot of details that are missing. Many devs or 'hackers' always ask the question of battery composition and capacity which is not answered. I'd also be interested in knowing the Qi throughput. The Qi spec provides the transport mechanism, but not the amperage of receipt of power. Will you support up to the 1100mAh maximum from bases/chargers that I've seen on Amazon? or a lower charging rate?

Elia Mörling (they responded)

The Accelerometer is currently not being used, but it's there for future applications. Yes, notifications will support IOS as well as Android notifications. Regarding the delivery mechanism for watch faces, I know for certain that it will be in-app, but other options are currently being investigated (such as 3rd party apps) together with 3rd party developers we're working with. I will have to get back to you on the Qi throughput, after I run it by the hardware team.

One really important thing to understand is that our product has been shaped by crowdsourced feedback from our 2K community, and will continue in the same spirit. So, many of your questions are still open to input from our backers.

I have collected information from the dev team. The accelerometer is currently used for power saving functions, related to the screen. Like most smart watches the screen goes into sleep mode to preserve battery, and is awakened with movement. There are obviously many other uses for the accelerometer, but they depend on the API and how devs utilize those opportunities.

The API itself is something which is still being discussed within our team, and with the community. Exactly what it contains and how it works is still being decided upon. If you join us, you will be able to impact these items.

Regarding your question on the Qi I got this response from the hardware team. "For a 150mAH cell, the charging rate should be between 75mA and 300mA. If a charger capable of 1100mA is considered useful, we can feed that in to the system design."

As you can see our backers and community can continue to have an impact on the actual product. That doesn't imply that we can implement everything, but we do listen and take our time to make informed decisions.

Chris Holt (just to close the loop)

Thank you for addressing my questions to the best of your ability. I think it's great that you are using the backer community to design and develop your product and I love the idea of the extended storage device functioning as a smart watch. However, based on your responses here, I do not feel that your company has completed enough of the development on this product to warrant my support at this time. Good luck to you and your campaign.

“Backer Red Flags” from this project campaign:

Listing Qi charging, but not able to identify the amperage

No listing for the battery capacity

”case study” about battery performance/usage has the least possible amount of details

The project page is violating 2 of 4 rules for BackClub hosted projects

This product does not have a company behind it, there is only a single reference at the very bottom of the IGG page that suggests it exists elsewhere on the internet (revault.io) which just copies the IGG product page and has a blog where they post some memos from the dev cycle

No mention of opening up hardware or source code for public review (not expected, but often a very trustworthy gesture)

They put an Accelerometer in the device, but there’s no mention on the project page of what it is used for

No mention of what APIs or native integration the notifications tech works with

No images of the Notifications functioning

No clear understanding or presentation of how watch faces/customization will be accomplished

Using Qi charging in the design but the design team doesn’t seem to understand the power transfer engineering principles

Many references to “take that into design consideration” when they are also trying to tell us that the product is ready to go to production. Which is it? are you still designing, or is it ready for production?