January 2025
We hope you all had a wonderful start to the new year!
Mobile App Updates
First, let's talk about the mobile app. We've released an update that resolves (hopefully for everyone):
- Ability to change your email (editable in your user profile)
- Ability to change your phone number (editable in your user profile)
- Ability to change your date of birth (DOB) (editable in your user profile)
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Selecting the correct DOB during signup (at times selecting the correct DOB would display an incorrect DOB after selected)
If you're still experiencing issues with any of the above, please let us know. Although you may not receive updates on the app through the app store, the team is still constantly making app changes and updates.
Safe Progress & Challenges (8)
As mentioned in our last update, our team took a two-week break for the holidays, so this month’s update is a bit lighter. However, we've made significant progress on our first PCBA revision with the Ukrainian team. Along the way, we've uncovered more issues than we were previously aware of. Here are some of the major hurdles we've uncovered.
1) Power Limitation Issue with PCBA - Big Issue
Months ago, we explained that the Chinese PCBA limited power intake to the PCBA to only 5 watts, even though the safe was using a 20 watt charger and they had told us the system would use 8 watts. There was clearly no common sense there 🤷🏻♂️. This restriction caused system failures, and for us these were some of the worst failures:
- The speaker would not work at full volume. If the alarm would go off, the battery would drain since the safe would not pull more than 5 watts from the wall.
- The lights could not function in "Always On" mode. If the lights were set to default 45 seconds, it would be fine as long as nothing else was happening. The battery would have slight drain, but then would charge once the lights were off.
- If both the lights and the sound were on at the same time, all havoc would break lose. In the event you left your door open, the alarm, and the lights would both stay on which would eventually drain the battery and crash the system. Even if just the alarm was left on, the battery would still drain.
- If the safe crashed because of the above, then the safe would not be able to turn back. The reason is once the safe would turn back on, the lights and the sound would start up again, and because the battery was completely drained, it would not allow for system startup.
To compensate, we implemented several temporary firmware and software fixes, but these were just band-aid solutions. Some of these solutions included; if the battery was less than 30%, then do not turn on the lights or sound. As we continued to test the system, we found that it would work sometimes and not all the time. We've been putting extra time into fixing and resolving this, but overall, these band-aid solutions, are not what we want to have in our system for a bad PCBA or to be focusing on.
Originally, the Chinese team claimed the system would only use 7-8 watts, and we purchased 20-watt chargers for the trial production units based on that spec. With our new PCBA redesign, power intake will increase to 40 watts and will require a 65 watt charger — which is more than enough to power the entire system. As you can see, having the same peripherals and electronics, the Chinese PCBA was really bad and did not take into consideration almost any of the electronics. Worse of all, their PCBA design only allowed 5 watts in, which was completely insane and poorly setup since the system required more just to be on. The good news is our new PCBA should be a game-changer for the system.
2) Interior USB Charging – Major Upgrade
The two interior USB ports near the camera (USB-A and USB-C) were designed to charge devices inside the safe. However, the Chinese team's PCBA designs limited charging to only 0.5 watts for the USB-A port and closer to 0 watts for the USB-C port — which is basically useless for "charging ports". To give you an idea, at that wattage, charging a phone would take around 25 hours, and an iPad 4 days if you used the USB-A port, as the USB-C port wouldn't work. The iPad probably wouldn't even begin to charge with such a slow current.
Upon further investigation, we found that the USB hub was incapable of supporting higher currents passed the 0.5 watts, so we had to completely rework the main PCBA and the hub to accommodate a stronger charge. Again, we are not sure why the Chinese would develop such a pointless port, especially since we had asked them many times to make sure it would charge devices stored inside the safe that are plugged into the USB port at faster speeds. Anyways, the fixes included:
(A) Charging speeds increased from 0.5 watts to 15 watts shared for both ports (most fast chargers today are between 15-18W), so this is a huge increase. (Charging your phone in <1 hour and an iPad in < 3 hours). For a charger inside a safe, this is fantastic!
(B) Added a limit switch to ensure safe and efficient power delivery.
We considered boosting the wattage even further, but the options to-do-so would have added a month of delays and significant costs, so we've passed on those options. This 15W upgrade is a huge improvement and ensures quick charging inside the safe without unnecessary delays. Below is how we will resolve it;
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3) Motion & Light Sensor Swap - Big Issue
During testing, we found that some units had malfunctioning motion sensors and light sensors. It took some time to diagnose, but we discovered that the Chinese PCBA swapped the sensor wiring between the 2 PCBAs, making them completely unreadable. Basically, the light sensor information was passing to the motion sensor and the motion sensor information was passing to the light sensor. How it was reading on our end - motion was showing 0 information and the light sensor was showing detected. A real disaster from the Chinese. We weren't sure what the issue was and we were afraid that perhaps we had malfunctioning PIRs and sensors, or perhaps the drivers were coded wrong. After deep diving we found the issue.
To fix this:
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All of the trail production units will have to be rewired. The wires have to be removed from their connectors and manually swap all the wires from A-->Z now they will be Z--> A for the sensor connections to properly function correctly.
- For our future production, we've rearranged the PCBA data ports for proper alignment on the PCBAs.
Why did it take so long to figure out? Several of the units were working without any issues, and several devices weren't working. We believe that before the Chinese shipped some units to us, they tested those units and noticed the issue and manually changed them. For the other units that did not work, we are pretty sure that they did not test them and shipped them 'as is'. Thankfully their incompetence, and not checking all the units, helped us find that there was an issue to begin with.
In case you were wondering what it is for? The motion sensor is what would tell the cameras to start recording in case there was someone coming within 15 feet of the safe. The light sensor function is to (A) assist the display to change brightness level and (B) if the light in the room is dark and the camera starts, the IR LEDs would turn on. The LEDs would make sure the image from the video footage recording wouldn't be black. This was an inexcusable design flaw - clearly they did not check any of their work. The good news is we’ll have fully corrected it for the future production. You can see here a basic example of what was happening.
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4) Why We Didn’t Just Mass Produce Last Year
It’s no surprise that every few weeks we uncover another “surprise” issue from the Chinese team. As we continue in-depth testing, we remain committed to delivering a high-quality product — which is exactly why we chose to redesign the PCBA instead of rushing into mass production last year.
For those who previously pushed for us to skip the redesign and go straight to manufacturing, we hope you now understand the severity of these issues and agree that redesigning was the right and only decision. By our next monthly update, we expect to have the PCBA redesign fully completed.
5) The Ukrainian Issue
Ukraine remains at war, which has complicated shipping logistics. Currently, our team can only receive shipments via DHL, which only ships once a week. Other carriers are either unreliable and packages never arrive, or the other carriers don't offer their services in Ukraine.
Due to this, once we place an order for the new PCBA batch from China, it will take 4-5 weeks for the Ukrainian team to receive them. After that, they’ll be tested before mass production begins. Yes we are aware it's a long time, but unfortunately unless someone here wants to hand deliver the boards for us, it's our only option. So please be patient.
Why are we ordering from China after all the problems we've had? Unfortunately, because the chipset we are using is Chinese. If we wanted to start using another Chipset (which we do want to), then we would require 18-24 months to completely rebuild the firmware and the PCBAs, and none of us want that. So we are taking the road of least resistance.
6) Trial Production PCBA Issues
While waiting for the new PCBAs, we’ve been evaluating whether the original Chinese PCBAs can be used at all. Unfortunately, early signs suggest that they are so flawed that they may not be worth keeping. If we do decide that these units require replacing their PCBAs, then it would probably be cheaper to abandon the trail production units completely than reworking, rewiring, replacing PCBAs, etc. By doing this, we ensure that these trial production units will not have issues when they're in the field.
This is not ideal, but we will see once we get the new PCBAs and see what the cost differences would be. Don't forget, for us to take these units, we would have to manually test each one and someone from our team would have to be there to ensure they're fully working. That large cost is considered in the final decision.
7) From 7 PCBA Files → to 8 PCBA Files → to now 9 PCBA Files
Last month, we mentioned that the Chinese team only gave us 7 out of 8 PCBA files. While those 7 were incomplete and required redesigns, at least they gave us a starting point. Without it we would have required at least 1 year of development.
However, we’ve now discovered a missing 9th PCBA. The exterior camera was assumed to be a pre-built module from the camera factory, but it turns out that the camera’s PCBA was never actually designed by the camera factory — meaning we now have to build it from scratch. This is expected to take at least 1 month since we have no files from the Chinese.
The good news is that once completed, it will be the final PCBA redesign needed, and we've double checked and no other PCBAs are missing after that.
8) OTA & Serial Number Issues
Previously we mentioned that OTA (over-the-air updates) were bricking 30% of safes. We now believe that the Chinese team intentionally sabotaged our files, inserting extra code to create problems. Here is where we are with the OTA:
(A) ✅ We’ve now fixed the serial number reset issue. Previoulsy, whenever an OTA occurred, the serial numbers were resetting after an OTA was successful. Now, after an OTA completes, the serial numbers are staying fixed.
(B) 🚧 However, OTA updates remain unreliable — some devices detect an update, but won’t download them, and others still download and brick 30% of the time.
We discovered that leftover Chinese code made the system believe two firmware versions were installed on the safes, causing failures. With the help of an expert we brought in to analyze the code, we are in the process of deep diving the code and trying to pinpoint the issue. Once this is fixed, OTA updates should work as intended. We're hoping for good news soon.
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What’s Next?
- Complete the PCBA redesign & perform testing
- Fix the OTA update system and resolve the bricking issue
- We have to decide whether the trial production PCBAs need replacement or ship them with the defective PCBAs
- If we proceed with the trial production as is, we will have to travel to China to personally collect trial production units and test each device before taking them
- If we decide the units will require new PCBAs, we will most likely abandon all of the units, and perhaps collect them on a next trip to China to minimize expenses
- We’ll provide an update on this in April.
Mass Production Timeline
Until PCBA development is complete, we cannot begin mass production.
The earliest possible first mass production run would be July. We will keep you updated as the progress moves along. We still get over 100 emails a month from people telling us they haven't received their safe yet - we are well ware, please read the updates.
CES 2025!
We showcased The Space Safe at CES 2025! Even though no one noticed, we were still using the old (flawed) PCBA. While you may not be able to tell the difference, we assure you, it was nearly impossible to properly showcase the product with the bad PCBA. You can check out images and videos of the safe in action below:
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We’re working hard to get there guys. As you know the Chinese put us through hell with all these issues over the last 2 1/2+ years, and it was really only until recently that we were able to get our files from them. Even though ALL of the files received were incomplete, it was better to get that than nothing. We still ask you to please give us your continuous support and patience as we get closer to the finish line.
We kindly request your cooperation in refraining from sending emails requesting delivery dates and any negative messages, as we no longer plan to respond to those individual inquiries. Rest assured, we're actively working to expedite the process and will provide updates as soon as they become available. Your understanding and patience during this time is greatly appreciated.
Sorry for the delay. Thank you for your unwavering support, your understanding and patience during this time are greatly appreciated.
TLDR - SUMMARY
- The Chinese PCBA limited power intake to only 5 watts, causing parts of the system to fail. So you are aware, the system requires 40 watts. Therefore, the new PCBA will fix this 5w limit placed by Chinese. We also will be providing a 65watt charger instead of a 20watt charger. Resolving these power issues and crashes.
- Interior USB ports shared only charging at 0.5 watts (too slow) and would only charge the USB-A and not the USB-C port. The redesign will enable 15W shared charging for quick and efficient use, and both ports will work.
- We found an issue with the Chinese’s PCBA – with data/address lines mismatching, on eMMC.
- We found a major issue, the Chinese pcba swapped the motion and light sensors, causing the sensors to never properly read. Read above for why it's important.
- Serial Numbers over OTA issue resolved and no longer formatting after successful OTA.
- While we fixed the serial number reset issue after a successful OTA installation, the overall OTA system remains unreliable, with some devices unable to properly download and/or install updates. We found leftover Chinese code causing the confusion, but further fixes are required. (this is a firmware issue, not an issue with the OTA provider). We are trying to resolve it, read above for more information.
- PCBA redesign is almost complete. Once the new boards are ordered, it will take 4-5 weeks for delivery and testing by the Ukrainian team.
- If the original PCBA can’t be used, a reproduction of the trial production’s PCBA boards may be necessary, we may also hold off on shipping any trail production units due to it being costly and time-consuming for such a few amount of units.
- The Space Safe showcased at CES, you can see images above.
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Mass production won’t start to ship before July 2025.
Thanks for your support!