Saw a few questions about Librem 5 shipping schedules and thought I’d chime in so everyone knows what to expect.
First off: We know how excited everyone is. We are too. We get it.
Shipping of the Aspen batch of phones will continue through the second half of October (with the Birch batch shipping from the end of October into November). If you haven’t received a follow-up email from us verifying which modem you would like (and verifying your address), never fear, We send those emails out as we prepare each phone for shipping. Which means you may still be in the Aspen batch even if you haven’t yet received the modem selection email.
I should also take this moment to note: If you have not yet replied with your batch preference, now would be a good time to do that to help us schedule your shipment properly.
In the meantime, those who haven’t seen it yet, here is the very first backer of the Librem 5 (and the Purism chairperson of the board) walking through the initial setup and taking a quick tour of his phone:
my question to you guys is how do you respond to the batch confirmation emails. individually ? i think not …
is it possible that some replys don’t reach us because we postponed for evergreen ? in that case i expect the modem selections to happen at a later date (possibly q1 > q2 2020) ? is that accurate ?
Thank you very much for posting this! It is exciting and reassuring to hear updates from Purism regarding shipping.
If you could share how many phones have shipped so far, or any estimates on the total size of the Aspen batch, these are two things many people are very curious to know.
Sounds to me like the mail is sent shortly before shipment, not long in advance. Which makes sense, as Chestnut owners might change their mind after Aspen users report on their modem experience. And address changes of course.
And it sounds like a very manual process.
Kudos to the staffers processing thousands of emails for us
Right now, yes. We’re processing a lot of things by hand to make sure it’s all done properly.
That is absolutely right. We’re sending out those address verification (and modem selection) emails as close to each one being shipped as possible. If we do it too far in advance, folks could move resulting in shipping delays and whatnot.
Our support and operations crew are absolutely amazing. Huge kudos to them for getting everything processed.
Hey Bryan! It’s great seeing you. I was wondering if you could answer a few quick questions that some of us had while you are here. Any insight you can offer would be most appreciated! Love you and your show!
What is the projected size of Aspen? How many units have been produced in the last week? How many of those units have been shipped to external backers / customers? How many of those units have been shipped to influencers / reviewers? How many to employees and family members of employees?
What is the status of the required regulatory hurdles? Has the phone been FCC certified yet? If not, is it even legal to ship / use it yet?
Are the suppliers for the non-hand milled case close to producing a finalized version of that case and will they be ready to start delivering them in en masse by late October when Birch production is scheduled to start?
Are suppliers for all of the other components ready to go when Birch production is scheduled to start in late October?
If phones are shipping, when can we expect an up to date wiki with basic instructions for reflashing the unit with a fresh firmware image in the event any of us run into issues? How about basic assembly and disassembly instructions? Oh and maybe some basic specs so that some of us could start working on figuring out what to do about accessories like screen protectors and fitted cases?
What is the expected lead time between receiving an email asking what modem we’d prefer and when a unit will be shipped to us in regards to Aspen assuming the backer / customer responds right away?
I don’t think they answer you right now.
Question number 1 has been asked by Bo1 in this thread before and in other threads many times.
They may not yet confirm it until L5s are assembled and verified.
I know that your Q was addressed for Bryan, but I couldn’t help
OEMs send their phones to reviewers no longer than weeks prior to official release. That device has 100% completed & polished hardware and software is around 99% , with a very few things to be ironed out (usually camera app,etc)
Aspen batch (as described by Purism) would match proto-prototype by today’s standards in smartphone industry.
Absolutely no reason, to have it sent to any of these folks.
Good to know we’ll get the email shortly before it is shipped. If I don’t receive my phone before the end of the year* then I’ll need to get it shipped to Brazil, Portugal, or the UK.
Just a rough estimate of when would be great, but as you’re doing it manually then you could have the Telsa problem of trying to ramp up production and seeing how many you can fit in a batch.
@eagle I think the general expectation is no they can’t reasonably do that as it would limit the sizes of B,C,D and by not committing to sizes for those they can adapt and produce more if things are going smoother or fewer if they encounter a major delay. Where I think this likely has the biggest pacts are C and D as things may end up ahead is schedule enough that D and E are essentially the same and in turn they produce 2-3x the number of D originally planned. Conversely C may end up with something unexpectedly difficult about it resulting in fewer units.
As much as I would like to see improved setting of expectations so that they can then be met I think leaving this fluid is quite reasonable and the expectations on this piece were set at “here are the shipping windows for a,b,c,d,e oh and v2(f) is planned with a CPU die shrink at this time as well” and “address confirmation with baseband selection will be an email when it is almost your turn so that it will be current when we are actually shipping your device”.
While they may not be the most precise expectations they allow for acceleration/deceleration as needed without constantly publishing updates and/or missing expectations.
The problem with that logic is it prevents flexibility.
Let’s say to appease you they make the batch sizes:
A 25
B 50
C 100
D 100
E the rest
Yay now you know the batch you’re in and they can almost certainly meet their expectations.
But what if during the deployment they find things are going well and they can ramp up to:
A 25
B 100
C 1000
D 2000
E the rest
Well now you have a few thousand people you are putting in earlier batches that weren’t expecting it and may have changed their minds from when they responded with their preference so there’s a whole bunch of extra communication required which then results in what actually goes out being
A 25
B 75
C 500
D 750
E the rest
Now there’s a bunch of unused hardware and they haven’t met the revised expectations so now you’re unhappy again.
In the name of openness if everyone had been given a sequential order number then they could publish the current shipping order number and that might be a middle ground and you could know how far away from your order number they are and roughly how many are shipping per day. Even with this I don’t think committing to specific batch sizes does anything other than impose arbitrary hard limits that greatly reduces flexibility.
Not sure why people are so impatient. Others and I have been waiting 2 years for this, I’m not too concerned whether I get in a month or a few months. Just glad to see they’re bringing it to market after years of hard work and I will happily wait until they tell me when I fit into their timeline.
