Update 4: Kickstarter Live and Thanksgiving
almost 8 years ago – Wed, Dec 07, 2016 at 09:22:44 PM

Kickstarter Live

We had a nice time chatting with you during our last Live session.  Thanks, everyone! We talked about the installation of the A10, A15 and A30 lights, some of the different prototypes we had available, how the lights will fit on different-sized wheels, light sensors, and our doorbell.  We also did a demo of the light sensor, talked about the history of the company and got some nice ideas for what we can do after the campaign is over.  Thanks again for watching and chatting with us!

We'd originally scheduled another one for this Friday, but then realized it was the day after Thanksgiving here in the States.  We figure that many people will be wanting to spend the day with their family (or for some, shopping), so we decided to reschedule the next one to Tuesday, November 29th, at 12:30pm PST.

The Campaign

We're in the home stretch of our campaign.  We are a little behind where we'd like to be and are putting many more resources into increasing awareness of our campaign so that we can hopefully meet our goal.

Are you a Kickstarter creator too?

Our updates are also a nice chance to take a break from the nuts and bolts of our own campaign.  We got a message from a creator who owns a set of our lights that are already on the market (our M210).

 

Tim deSilva had a neat idea that any vinyl collector can appreciate. Record Props are a simple yet versatile way to display your records on a wall or table-top. Chloe, our resident record nerd here at Monkeylectric, personally backed this project so she can use Record Props to proudly show off what she is listening to.

The Tern Vektron

Phil had a chance to see this bike in person at Interbike, and Dale, from Tern is one of our backers for this project.  Thanks, Dale!

 

The Tern Vektron is the only folding bike out there with a Bosch motor, and it looks really slick.  Like their other bikes, it folds up easily for a train ride, car trunk, or under a desk. You may have noticed that Phil's personal (non-electric) Tern bike was part of our Kickstarter video. The Vektron also has 20" wheels, which will fit all of the A10, A15, and A30 lights in our Kickstarter campaign.

 

Other cool stuff:

This Odin2 smart projector is an Android tablet with a projector for a screen.  It looks like it's a great way to watch shows and movies with others, as well as have family video chats.

And this is a smart little idea.  When it's cold, instead of taking your glove off to use your phone or wearing special conductive-fingertip gloves, you can just use this little sticker.  Such a neat, small, and simple idea.  Luckily, here in California, we haven't had the need for cold-weather gloves yet.

 

Are you a creator too? We'd love to hear about your project as well.  Just message us, and Phil or Chloe will look forward to reading it!

In closing

 

On a routine stop to the grocery store for lunch last week (just after our Live session!) Phil saw this bike, and a bunch of other people doing the same thing he was about to do - taking pictures of it with their phone.  If you look to the left, you can see his bike wheel with an older A10 and A15 prototype..

Until next time, happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the States, and thank you to everyone for being a part of our project.

The MonkeyLectric team

Update 1: One week in
almost 8 years ago – Wed, Dec 07, 2016 at 09:21:21 PM

Thank you

Thank you for all of your support so far!  As of this moment, we are at $74k in our campaign, with $146k left to go.

After a short pause to absorb the election, we're ready to get back to work.  It was really exciting news this morning to see that we've been featured as the Kickstarter project of the day!

All 6 of us at MonkeyLectric work here because we want to make cycling safer and more fun, and we hope you share our vision.  We'd like to ask another favor: not for more funds, but to help spread the word about our project in whichever way you can.  We know we can reach our goal, but we also know that it'll require a large collective effort.

You can help by tweeting, sharing the link on Facebook, or by email your friends and local bike groups.  Please let anyone know who you think would benefit from being more visible on their bike.

Answers to your questions

We’ve added a lot of answers to questions in our FAQ. 

Some of the more popular questions have been: 

• I want to combine different rewards together. How do I do that? 
• It's a little messy because of shipping charges, but we recommend that you back the highest-value reward level that you want, and then add an additional amount for for the other reward that you want. If there's a big difference in the shipping charges, we can work that out via PayPal after the campaign (hopefully) funds. Please send us a quick message (or comment) to let us know that you did this, so we can keep track. 
• Are the new USB-rechargeable batteries backwards-compatible with your older lights? 
• Yes, we will make sure they are backwards-compatible and that they use the same power connector. Can I power multiple lights with the same battery pack? We will include 2 power connectors for each battery so that you can connect 2 lights to a single battery. Keep in mind that battery runtime will be lower. 
• How big is the A30? Will it fit on my wheel? 
• Our current prototype is about 165mm (6.5") long. We'll be iterating this prototype a bit to try to maximize fit on different wheels, but the length most likely won't change too much. 

Other interesting projects

We’ve been browsing a lot of Kickstarter projects during our campaign. We came across this Dash wallet:

 

We especially like the quickdraw feature of this Dash wallet.  It's a neat way to access a credit card or ID. 

It’s super slim, which an area where Phil's DIY wallet could improve: 

We also saw this mobile bike washing station: 

 

I makes me a little sad to admit that my bike is sort of dirty almost all of the time. 

What do you want to talk about?

Is there any more information you’d like to know from us? Any other FAQs, or updates you’d like to see? Behind-the-scenes questions? We’re listening, and want this to be a two-way conversation. In the meantime, we’ll be doing our best to make this campaign successful so we can continue work on the lights. Once again, please help spread the word, we appreciate your support so much.

- the MonkeyLectric team