Poetry Camera production update: hardware redesign done
plus Chinese/Japanese/Korean support, international preorders opening soon, and a Susan Kare pin for camera owners
We’ve been busy since we opened up preorders 2 months ago! We’ve got a list of both hardware and software improvements we want to make before we get more Poetry Cameras into people’s hands, but we’ve been focused on the hardware first. After all, we can’t change the physical camera once we ship it out, but we can always add software improvements over time.
We’re still on track to start fulfilling preorders in September. If you haven’t preordered yet, you can do so here:
Last week, we finalized the physical enclosure changes and validated them with 3D-printed prototypes. These hardware changes fall into 3 buckets:
User experience improvements that make the camera easier to use
Electrical improvements that make the camera more robust
Production improvements that make the camera easier to build, while still maintaining our bar for quality
The camera looks the same from the front:
But turn it to the side, and you’ll start to notice some changes…
The new camera strap design already saves us a very annoying ~5 minutes in assembly! The old metal pin was really hard to align across the front & back shells.
Anyway, as with any glowup, the biggest changes are inside:
Clickier button
See that purple board in the new camera above? That’s a placeholder for a much clickier button, which is both more satisfying to press and less prone to accidental button presses in transit. (Thanks to our early customer George for the feedback on that!)
“What mode is this?”
We’ve got a knob on the camera that lets you switch up what the camera prints out. But there’s a problem — it’s hard to know what each setting is! All the modes are customizable, so it’s not like we can label “H” for Haiku, since you might have customized it to “Roast mode” instead.
Our early customer Conrad even taped a list of the camera settings to the back of his camera. Well, let’s figure out a way to make this easier!
We’ve laid the hardware foundation for a new “camera settings” mode on the knob. When you click the shutter button in this mode, you’ll get a printout of the camera settings, and the link to customize it. (Current camera owners will also get this new feature! Just without the label.)
On the assembly side of things, it was also too easy to for us make mistakes when putting the knob cap on. The underlying knob component, marked here in black, looked the same no matter which direction it was pointing:
When putting together a camera, we had to be really careful to make sure the knob’s red line was pointed towards the right label. This can cause mistakes if we’re not paying attention — and a mislabeled knob means you’d never know what is about to print out of the camera, even if you had a camera settings list!
So we found a new knob component with a D-shaft (highlighted in pink), which provides a clear sense of direction on which orientation the knob is in. Now we can design a new knob cap that always fits on in the right direction and saves us 5-10 minutes during camera assembly.
New printer driver with Chinese/Japanese/Korean support
With the major electrical redesign we’ve been doing, we’ve been testing our new boards & components. The biggest change is a new printer driver board, the component that talks to the receipt printer. Among the many improvements it brings, the new printer driver allows us to support printing hundreds of languages — including Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. A lot of folks in East Asia have asked us for CJK support, so we're super excited about this development. More soon as we fully test this and open up international preorders :)
The printer came loaded with some funky fonts, so we spent a couple of cycles fixing it up. Some outtakes from testing:
Along the way of all of this progress, we’ve been getting valuable feedback from friends and advisors like Omar Rizwan (software systems design), Antonio Hernandez (manufacturing and supply chain), and Drew Applegate (industrial design). We’re getting really into the nitty gritty, like “move the receipt paper door out by 0.1mm for a smoother hinge.” Thanks to their input, we’re able to move forward with confidence as we continue development.
What’s next
Now that the new hardware design is locked, we’re ordering parts for our first test batch of ~10 cameras. This includes an exciting new step in Poetry Camera production: switching from 3D-printing to new forms of plastics production (vacuum-casting) that can achieve a smooth, premium finish.
These parts will arrive over the course of the next few weeks. After putting together this first test batch in mid-July, we expect to make a round of adjustments for a second real-deal batch in August.
While we wait for the parts to come in, we’ll be starting the software improvements and designing the packaging. This includes:
making the “settings mode”
adding settings for timezone and custom footer
exploring adding a setting to print the original photo (!!!)
Bonus: a Poetry Camera pin for camera owners, designed by Susan Kare
Susan Kare is the legendary designer behind the original Macintosh icons and graphics — the trash can, the command icon, the smiling computer:
We’re incredibly lucky to count her as one of our earliest customers and supporters. Susan has graciously drawn a Poetry Camera icon for us, which we’ll produce as enamel pins for all camera customers & preorders. More on that soon!
So well done, Love watching this journey!