Totem Tuesday: August 27th, 2024
Hey fam 👋
Do you feel that?
Something is in the air.
Something is coming.
It's big.
It's provocative.
It gets the people GOING.
It's...
🙌 TOTEM TUESDAY 🙌
(everyone's favorite weekly inbox party, since November 2023)
Alright Tribe—it's time to get our Vibe on.
We’ve got a metric ton of updates to catch you up on.
But first...
⬇️ TIMELINE UPDATE ⬇️
QA Testing is nearly complete, which is the final phase before rollout. That means we're still 100% on track to ship this Fall.
We're getting very close now... In fact, we will announce a more specific rollout window in next week's Totem Tuesday.
For everyone going to Lost Lands: the final day of Lost Lands (9/22) is the first day of Fall. We won't be shipping before the Fall, so hang in there if you get lost at Lost Lands one last time.
Thank you so much for your patience these last few months.
The wait will be worth it, I promise.
🫶
--
OK! That's all the housekeeping for this week.
Let’s do this thang.
This is our weekly progress report to all our favorite people.
Welcome to the Totem Tuesday 3-2-1.
3 things we accomplished,
2 things to learn about,
1 thing coming up
Let’s go, Tribe!
P.S.
If this is your first Totem Tuesday, we are so grateful that you found your way here. Welcome to the Tribe 🤗
3 things we accomplished
1) Final Range Testing
Yesterday we took the Totems out to do some final range testing.
We've done plenty in the past, but this was our first time doing so with the new V3.1 PCB—the final version for all consumer Totems this Fall!
The results... were...
amazing. 🥳
During our testing yesterday, we recorded a 700+ meter range between standalone devices. That's without even using the mesh network!
(for all our fellow Americans, that's around 1/2 mile or 6.5 football fields)
That range is long enough to span the entire area of Lost In Dreams, an Insomniac festival that we tested at in July. For reference, Lost In Dreams has two full-size stages and hosts over 30,000 people across 2 days.
700 meters is also much further than line of sight. We couldn't see each other AT ALL at that distance. 😳
Of course, our Unity Mesh Network will extend your range much further if there are other Totem Tribe members at your event. But even without the mesh network, you can expect some pretty stellar peer-to-peer range this Fall.
Peep the photos below to see the waypoints from our testing trip.
P.S. — what do you think about that transparent Totem? 😉
2) Final Housing Complete
Another big one this week: we officially completed the final housing design!
Based on your feedback and other testing observations, we made a couple of small aesthetic tweaks to the Totem housing.
1)
No more "T" in the crystal — now the edges are simply framed, exactly like the crystal in our logo.
2)
Small nubs added to the back of the Totem housing (around the screw holes) to prevent scratching.
3)
Lil embossed logo added to the backside of the Totem housing. Good for branding, but even better for giving you something to rub your finger over when feeling fidgety 😁
Small tweaks, but glad we've made them. The housing is READY TO GO!
Final Hardware = complete
Final Housing = complete
Final Software = very close...
3) Auto Calibration
During our QA Testing, we found that some Totems occasionally needed a re-calibration to have an accurate heading for North. This is because of the varying magnetic fields we encounter in our day-to-day life. 🧲 🧭
(we talked about this a few weeks ago in Totem Tuesday)
As a result, we implemented a way for our Testers to trigger a re-calibration on the Totem whenever it was needed.
They would tap the Touch Crystal 4 times to trigger a calibration, then spin in a circle until the Totem was re-calibrated. This was a great interim solution (and it also provided some funny moments of silliness and dizziness).
But now we've implemented a new software feature called AUTO-CALIBRATE. So now you'll never need to do a manual calibration like our Testers had to (see gif below) 😂
Here's how it works ⬇️
The Totem collects data in the background and whenever you naturally complete a full 360 degree turn, it automatically updates its calibration.
Now it will calibrate itself at regular intervals while you move & groove around the festival. Pretty cool, huh?
By the way — did you know that the Totem Compass also works as a real compass?
Whenever you aren't bonded to a friend, your Totem will display a white LED that points North. 🫶🏼
2 things to learn
1) BTS: QA Testing
QA Testing—even for a fun product like this—isn't all fun & games...
Festivals are designed to be wildly stimulating and super distracting. Makes them a great environment to have fun, but poses a unique challenge for tech testing. 😵💫
(especially when, nearly every 5-10 minutes, someone recognizes the Totem, gets super excited, and wants to talk—which we love!)
You only see the highlights on social media, but there is so much hard technical work happening behind the scenes.
things like...
- debugging Totems in a 110 degree RV in the middle of Bonnaroo's heatwave
- waking up early every morning to do hours of prep work each day before leaving the hotel
- constantly recording data, notes, and observations in the middle of massive crowds
Testing made it completely impossible to be fully present and enjoy the experience at the festivals. But that's totally ok! Because we weren't there to have fun. We were there to help our engineering team. Of course, we had some fun too. But we were at the festival to work (which is a very strange phrase that I hope you never have to say).
Here are some peeks at the BTS stuff you don't see on the outside. 👇🏼
(that first photo shows us debugging Totems at Bonnaroo, inside a car draped with insulation to give us a bit of shade, after our RV's AC broke during 100+ degree temps)
2) Screen-Free Design
Two things you should know about Totem:
- We are totally screen-free and app-free
- Our core values are Love, Beauty, Simplicity, and Unity
We love being screen-free and app-free. It creates a liberating experience for festival lovers where you can be truly present for all the beautiful moments.
But designing a screen-free electronic product also presents some interesting challenges.
Because we're screen-free and app-free, we can't rely on language or text to help the device communicate with the user.
Instead of text, our language is a language of lights, color and movement.
And it has to feel intuitive and simple. Thus, all our uses of color and animation are so vitally important.
QA Testing has been extremely helpful to us, as we've been able to observe how people interact with the Totem to see what's helpful and what's confusing.
The UX is nearly finalized. Just a couple more tweaks and we'll be ready!
The Philosophy of Beauty
Today, I want to close Totem Tuesday by talking about Beauty.
Beauty isn’t just a superficial nice-to-have.
Beauty is what makes life worth living—
don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
We all deserve to have beauty in our lives.
We all deserve to feel like our lives are beautiful.
It’s so important to have beauty in your life. It helps fill your in-between-moments with joy and gratitude. Those in-between-moments make up a larger swath of our lives than we often realize.
But beauty isn’t solely about how something looks.
It’s also how something feels. What it does. How it changes your life.
Beauty is something that arises internally from an honest, intimate place.
When we say “everything we do at Totem is beautiful”, it’s not just about our product, our design, or the hearts of our people. True beauty is about how we approach our work. How we make others feel from the inside.
Beautiful things spark joy.
Life is too short to be filled with things that don’t spark joy.
The only guaranteed way to make the world a better place is to make it a more beautiful place.
That's what we believe. That's what we are doing.
Totem Team, out.
✌️
(P.S. — if this is your first Totem Tuesday, we hiiighly recommend that you go back and check out the Totem Tuesday archives. Every single decision we’ve made with the product is detailed extensively in past editions. Have fun 😘)
