Totem Tuesday: July 23rd, 2024
Hey there!
Today,
I welcome you
to a vast, beautiful world
One that has only been glimpsed
by a select few human beings
in the entire universe
This world is a place where
love reigns with absolute power
and beauty cascades across the landscape
as far as the eye can see.
Welcome, friend
to the land of
Totemia
although you may know it by its colloquial pseudonym...
🙌 TOTEM TUESDAY 🙌
Alright Tribe—let’s vibe.
Some of our team just got back from Tomorrowland,
and we've got a bunch to catch you up on!
Three quick announcements before we get started:
1)
If you missed a Totem Tuesday over the past few weeks,
here's where we are in the process:
We're still conducting QA testing, which is the final phase before rollout (keep reading for exciting Testing updates).
We expect that it will be at least another 5 weeks before we start shipping.
We are taking our time to conduct thorough testing all around the world, to guarantee a product that will knock your socks off.
Good things come to those who wait, we promise 🫶
2)
We have a new blog post!
Click here to read all about the SOS Mode on the Totem Compass—a super important feature designed to make people feel safer and more free in crowded places.
3)
Welcome to our newest investors!
Bentley, Jim, and Anton—we are so grateful that you have joined us for this beautiful journey.
OK! Enough housekeeping.
Let’s get into it.
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 we learned,
1 thing coming up
Let’s go, Tribe!
(P.S. — if this is your first Totem Tuesday, welcome to the Tribe!
We are so grateful that you found your way here. 🫶 😘)
3 things we accomplished
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1) Tomorrowland Testing
Wow.
Just... wow.
Tomorrowland is MASSIVE 😳
(and so unbelievably beautiful—photos & videos simply cannot do it justice)
Last weekend, some members of the Totem Team went to Weekend One of Tomorrowland to test the Totem Compass at one of the biggest, most crowded, and most famous festivals in the entire world.
Tomorrowland has a jaw-dropping 16 stages and hosts over 450,000 attendees every single year. 😱
The perfect testing ground for us.
⬇️ Here are some successes from Tomorrowland Totem Testing ⬇️
- despite the massive crowds, the Totems had no issues with communication or navigation
- final 10M of navigation was consistently reliable—the tweaks we described in last week's Totem Tuesday worked great 😁
- SOS, bonding, and all interactions with the Touch Crystal performed excellently—even during the rain
- high-precision satellite connection all over the festival, even at covered areas and tent stages
⬇️ A few areas for improvement were also identified ⬇️
Vibe Mode worked beautifully until the music levels surpassed 90 decibels. That's really loud! We are now tweaking the software to make sure it will work perfectly at massive festivals like this, with stages that are bigger than most of us will ever experience in our lives (sadly).
The only place where the Totems couldn't get a satellite connection (and thus couldn't navigate to each other) was in Tomorrowland's famous Rave Cave. There's not much we can do about that—so please don't rely on your Totem Compass on spelunking adventures 😂
Tomorrowland Testing also helped us identify what was causing the need for re-calibration (mentioned in last week's Totem Tuesday). We are now making changes to the code to correct this issue, which we're excited to validate at Hard Summer next week!
🙌
One last note: we also had a great meeting with the Tomorrowland Tech Team, where we were able to demo the Totems for them in-person. Hopefully a beautiful partnership can grow for the future 🫶
Next stop in the Totem Testing Tour: Hard Summer!!!!
2) Totem Compass Accessories
This has been SUCH a long time coming...
For months, so many of you have asked about alternative accessories and attachments for the Totem Compass.
The default choice is the Totem Lanyard—but sometimes you may want to strap the Totem onto your wrist when you're about to get extremely feral, or clip it onto a waistband or pocket.
We are very excited to give you the world's first-ever glimpse at our concepts for these new accessories!
We have been working closely with our friends at Brand Labs on this project—the same people responsible for producing super stylish merchandise for A$AP Rocky, American Airlines, and the Wonka movie.
What do you think???
We'll be running polls about them on our Instagram stories over the next couple of weeks... be sure to let us know!
3) Social Media Growth (and what this means for you)
The last 10 days have been BIG on social media. Particularly Instagram.
Recent posts have received over 10M+ views in the last 10 days, which has led to a bunch of new people coming into the Totem Tribe.
If you know about the Unity Mesh Network, then you know this is a great thing for everyone in the Tribe!
As the Tribe grows, more and more people will have Totems at every festival you go to.
When more people have a Totem at your festival, they expand the Unity Mesh Network and extend your range even further!
We all help each other in the Totem Tribe—that's the meaning of Unity and Love.
We go together,
we grow together,
we love together.
🫶🏼
2 things we learned
1) Worldwide Shipping
We get so many questions from curious customers all around the world, every single week
(keep 'em comin!) 💗
Here's one common question we've gotten recently, as so many new people have come into the Totem Tribe...
"Do you ship to _____?"
Here's something about Totem—we have Tribe members all over the world. Seriously. Every single continent.
(other than Antarctica of course, but let's be real... penguins don't even have fingers to press the power button on a Totem Compass)
We also ship to the majority of countries across the world.
Peep the image below to see a list of everywhere we ship!
2) Satellite Precison
Ever wonder how the Totem Compass can get such high-precision satellite positioning, when other GPS products can only get down to ~30M?
One of the reasons is something called SBAS (Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems).
Most satellites revolve around the world. Sometimes you can even see them passing through the night sky above your head on a clear night.
But some satellites work very hard to NOT move across the sky.
Those satellites stay in a fixed position above specific regions of the Earth, and revolve at the exact same pace as the Earth.
These satellites are called geostationary satellites.
Those satellites exist to augment the GNSS signal from traditional satellites to help us get amazing precision, even when there are wacky things happening in the atmosphere.
If you want to learn more, check out this article!
1 thing to look forward to
Next week is the next stop on the Totem Testing Tour, and we're headed back to California for...
Hard Summer, one of Insomniac's biggest music festivals!
Over 180,000 people descend on Hard Summer over a single weekend—and the crowds will be wild.
This is super exciting because we expect Hard Summer to be one of the final QA Testing trips before product rollout.
We're getting so close now. The wait will be worth it.
When you get your Totem, you'll be getting a product that has been tested across the world.
At different festivals, with different genres, in different settings, and different conditions.
We've been working incredibly hard to get to this point.
Hard Summer will be one of the final stops on the (incredibly successful) Totem QA Testing Tour.
So. Excited.
Thank you to our friends at Insomniac for hooking us up with free Guest Passes! Your support through this entire QA Testing Process has been so incredible.
We are very, very grateful. 🫶🏼
The Final Leg
Hey there 😊👋
You made it!
The last month has been pretty wild here at Totem.
So much travel.
So much testing.
So much PROGRESS.
We've been to...
Chicago for Rose on the River
Los Angeles for Lost in Dreams
and
Belgium for Tomorrowland
But now,
the Totem Testing Tour
is approaching its final leg.
And when we're done...
You already know what comes next 😉
Thank you so much for your love, patience, and support these past few months.
It means the world.
Totem Team, out.
✌️
