Hello Dygmates!
It's 7 days before Christmas - can you believe it?
Before giving you the inside scoop, let's just take a moment to recap our first update of the year: Raise deliveries and shipping updates... and happy new year! 🎊
At the beginning of 2020, we had just finished shipping our first mass production batch of Raise keyboards from China. Bit by bit, the world started seeing the first Dygmates.
Fast forward 12 months later.
We've finished our third mass production batch of Dygma Raise keyboards (9000 units have now been manufactured) and we've been shipping them at record speed!
Twenty-twenty has come with many surprises - good and bad. Despite the many difficulties that arose, we were able to endure the struggles, learned from our experiences, and pushed on through 😊
Here is our last development update for the year where we'll talk about the latest tenting updates, Dygma Santa coming to town, and a few things we've updated on our website shop ✨
In-tent-resting Updates
If you haven't read our previous update, we talked about the latest tenting design we were working on. We had already decided that we would work on the "rails" design.
Below is a prototype of our previous design.
After testing the prototype, we realized that the adjustment of the angles wasn't smooth or stable.
Allowing the axle to slide along the rails gave more angle options. However, there were three main issues with this design:
- It was difficult to have all the legs be in the same position. This meant that it was easy for a user to have one leg at 30º and the other at 33.5º. This made the tenting unstable.
- Sliding the axle on rails meant that if enough pressure was applied onto the keyboard, the axle could slide out of position or bend the metal leg. To ensure that it didn't slide, we would need to create a mechanism to lock it in place.
- The sliding motion meant that the metal parts would be rubbing against each other. This would make the paint peel off after some time and overall shorten the lifespan of the product.
We had to create an adjustable system that was sturdy and easy to set up. This is our latest design:
Instead of having a metallic sliding mechanism, now we have a plastic angle selector with four possible angles: 10º, 20º, 30º, and 40º.
The trade-off we've accepted is to not have infinite positions between 0º and 40º. But on the other hand, we've solved all the problems the previous design had.
- Now, having the same position in all legs is really easy.
- Users can no longer accidentally change the angle of the tenting by applying pressure to the keyboard.
- The tenting is durable even when a lot of pressure is applied.
We feel that this new design is not only more reliable but also has a better user-experience when it comes to adjusting the angles.
The current design is still a prototype, although some of us in the office have already been using it and enjoying it 🙂
The tenting itself consists of a plate made of galvanized steel that would be powder-coated into either black matte or white matte.
(Some of the next images below show a grey tenting kit with white silicone legs. This was one of the prototypes we've discarded because we didn't like the finishing.) 😉
The tenting plate will have 5 screws that users can attach to their Raise keyboards. The tenting kit will be compatible with all Raise keyboards 👍
Since the Raise is not straight on its sides, we had to put two legs (or stabilizers) on each side as the base for the tenting movement. They provide a cohesive look and a stable contact surface.
To make sure that the stabilizers can withstand pressure onto it, we made them part of the metal plate. Silicone is then wrapped around it.
Throughout our design process, we realized that having metal legs made the tenting kit look too 'sharp'. We wanted the tenting kit to look 'friendlier'. So we redesigned the legs to have it wrapped in silicone, which was also a big aesthetic improvement on the product.
Not only does the silicone make it look more user-friendly but also prevents the device from sliding on any surface.
Apart from wanting a very stable tenting kit, we also wanted it to have as little impact as possible to the overall design of the keyboard. We wanted to make the keyboard as flat as possible even with the tenting device attached to it.
This was a challenge for us but we were able to solve this by making the angle selector narrow enough so it can fit inside the leg when closed. The axle is then placed at the top of the angle selector.
At this position, the tenting is at 0º and the keyboard's height from the desk is 10mm.
Initially, we decided to have 300 tenting kits manufactured here in Europe. But after sending out the Raise Tenting Waiting List, to our surprise we've seen that there were way more people interested in this add-on 😅
If you haven't signed up on our waiting list, sign up now.
We've decided to have 500-600 units of the tenting kit made. And they will be manufactured in China.
Currently, we are still in the process of choosing the right suppliers to manufacture each component of the kit. We hope to finalize the industrial design by the end of January 2021, before the Chinese New Year.
We expect that we will have multiple iterations and adjustments to the kit once we have a production sample. But this is really just part of the process of creating products. All in all, we are very excited to have this component ready for order.
It's beginning to look a lot like Dygmas 🤩
Ho ho ho!
We had a special guest at our office the other day.
Dygma Santa received some messages from kids asking for a Dygma Raise. They talked about how the features of the Raise could really benefit them and Santa ended up with no choice...
Watch the full video here: https://youtu.be/r6MaQShQbjE
What does Santa do? Well, she makes dreams come true! 😁
Webshop updates
New Silent switches and Raise Enhancement Kit are now available.
You can now purchase the Dygma Raise with Kailh Silent switches: Silent Pink and Silent Brown. You can also purchase a set separately from our Add-ons section.
New 50cm USB-C to C cable is now available.
The new 50cm USB-C to C cable can now be used to connect the Neuron to the computer and not only to connect the Neuron to the Raise.
The Japanese keycaps are no longer available.
Unfortunately, we had to discontinue the Japanese keycaps. There was not much demand for it so we decided that it would be best to not offer them anymore 😕
We've discontinued the Silver Black option.
We've also removed the Silver Black option from the shop.
That option was only intended to be available for the Black Friday Sale. It was also an experiment to see if there would be many people interested in the combination.
Would you have wanted us to continue having the Silver Black option? 🙂 Or maybe another kind of combo?
Don't worry, we will probably have that option again in the next sale. And maybe something more 😉
Happy Holidays, Dygmates! ✨
With the year coming to an end, we just want to give a big big thanks to all of you awesome Dygmates out there who have made this crappy year into a happy year.
Thank you for all your feedback, stellar support, and positive vibes! 🖤
We definitely wouldn't be Dygma without our Dygmates.
It's been on hell of a ride and we look forward to seeing you all again next year!
Peace out! ✌️
The Dygma Team
L-R: Chris (Customer Support), Jairo (Business Op & Logistics) Manel (Product Manager), Luis (CEO), Alex (Full-stack Developer), Jose (Product Designer), Dominique (Head of Communications).
