TL;DR –
- Figma Creator Micros are completed and enroute to Canada (ETA late April)
- Wrk Together keyset are still in production
- Nomad E molds are completed – fine tuning color/finishing of samples now
- Nomad E production firmware will be finished April 5
- Nomad E PCB and molded parts set to be produced in April
- Nomad E final packaging in development
- KNOB1 launches April 4th @ 1pm EST
- Preset website is back up! worklouder.xyz
Hello everyone👋
Lots of progress incoming, hold on to your hats!
Figma Creator Micro ⚙️
I’m very happy to announce that the first batch of Figma Creator Micros have been completed. Meaning if you have been waiting for your order, a unit with your name on it is currently on a boat, on it’s way to Vancouver, Canada, which will then be taken by train to be fulfilled from our Montreal, Canada fulfillment centre. We are looking to start fulfilling the orders in the order we got them in around the end of April.
Technically the wrk Together keysets are still in production, but we will have them shipped by air instead of boat to keep everything on time. If you are wondering why we aren’t shipping the Micros by air as well, it’s due to their volume and weight the shipping cost is huge when you are shipping 8 pallets of product by plane – it’s USD$22,000 more expensive than shipping by boat to be exact💸
Below you can see some shots from the manufacturing floor. Seeing these roll down the production line was really something. You guys are going to love the finished product, it’s super nice if I may say so myself!
Oh and for those of you with a stock Creator Micro, and who wanted to get the preset that is being shipped preloaded on the Figma Creator Micro, can find it here: worklouder.xyz
Nomad [E] ⚙️
At this point in the development we are in the final sampling phase of the PCBs, keycaps, and molded parts. Once we can confirm all the colors are good, we can put all those components into production, but as you can see below we are pretty much there!
We didn’t get the Pantone color quite right with the Chalk colorway, so this is an example where we need to go back to dial in the color so it matches the renders (see middle top shell above).
A new addition, which the enthusiast will appreciate, are the 2 layers of additional foam sound dampeners we are adding in the lower layers of the board. This will improved the acoustics of the board and make the keyboard sound more “thocky” instead of “clacky”. The middle dampener is 1mm thick and will sit between the plate and PCB, while the bottom layer is 3mm thick and will sit between the PCB and the bottom shell.
Keycaps
This past week, we were testing the reverse dyesub process and look on our keycaps. Dye sublimated keycaps will have legends that will last longer than laser etched, or printed/sticker legends. In this process a film is vacuum sealed overtop of the keycap staining the base plastic whichever color the film is – in this case black. It’s called reverse dyesub since the actual letters in the film are transparent to allow whatever color the base plastic is to show through; this is how we can get a crisp white legend on a black keycap that also won’t fade or wear off.
Firmware⚡
We’ve completely redone the entirety of the V1 firmware, which resulted in it being wayyy more optimized/responsive. We’ve also added more animations, and quality of life features like widget titles, setting overlays, ability to adjust the sensitivity of the dials and much more! I mean I think the videos below speak for themselves:
Software (Input) 🎛️
Due to the change in firmware we need to redo do some of the backend aspects of Input, but that’s ok because while the physical parts are in production we can continue polishing the software. We’ll have more to show on this during the next update.
Extras ⌨️
We have received many requests for our top shell/keycaps/dials for the Nomad E to be sold separately, as well as an actual carry case! We heard you, and have been prototyping the carry case you see below. Honestly I can see people using this case as an everyday carry, I mean it’s surprisingly versatile. The photos you see below are still a prototype, but we’ll be refining it over this month, more to come soon!
KNOB1 ⚙️
Last, but certainly not least, in January we announced our new accelerator program, Wrk.Shop, which help creators bring their viral products from social to life. The inaugural project we selected, the KNOB1 keyboard, will be going up for preorder April 4th @ 1pm EST. For more details checkout https://knob.design/ .
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That’s it for now!
– Mike
Co-Founder @ work louder inc.
