Totem Tuesday: August 6th, 2024
Hey fam—
It’s THAT DAY again..
The day
that goes by
one name
known across the world
🌎
We’re talkin’ about none other than
🎉 TOTEM TUESDAY 🎉
everyone's favorite inbox party
(est. October 2023)
Alright Tribe—let’s vibe.
We just got back from our QA Testing Trip to HARD SUMMER, and we’ve got a lot to catch you up on!
But first...
Two quick announcements before we get started:
1)
Here's where we are RIGHT NOW in the process:
We're still conducting QA Testing, which is the final phase before rollout (keep reading for exciting Testing updates from Hard Summer).
QA Testing is going very well, and we're still on track to ship this Fall.
If you are going to a festival before Fall begins, please plan accordingly.
Over the next month, we'll be able to get much more specific on the exact rollout window—but we're getting very close.
Good things come to those who wait 🫶
2)
Shopify was experiencing some technical difficulties over the weekend, and we heard from some of you that the checkout was malfunctioning on our website.
Everything has now been resolved and the Shopify checkout is up & running once again. Head over to our store and see for yourself!
Thank you for your patience. 😊
---
OK! That is quite enough housekeeping, thank you very much.
You ready to 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. — we have so many new people joining the Tribe this month! If this is your first Totem Tuesday, welcome 🤗
We are so grateful that you found your way here.)
3 things we accomplished
1) HARD Durability Testing
We tested a new element of the Totem Compass at HARD Summer—and we recruited tribe members across the festival to help us.
DURABILITY TESTING 💪😤✊
We recruited over 20+ people to STOMP on a Totem as hard as they could throughout the weekend to test out its real-world durability in a festival setting.
We didn't want people to sugarcoat their efforts either, so Carter offered $100 (out of his own pocket) to anyone who could break the Totem with a stomp.
People stomped it on concrete.
They stomped it on asphalt.
They stomped it in the pit.
They stomped it in VIP.
They stomped it as hard as they could.
People jumped on it. Some people even shuffled on it.
No one was able to break it.
Our CTO, Chase, even took the Stomping Totem apart this morning to make sure that everything was still working perfectly on the inside. And it was IMMACULATE.
Safe to say, durability testing was a massive success.
But now, we want to push it to its threshold... We want to find out what it actually takes to break this thing! Stay tuned on Totem Instagram for increasingly intense stress tests over the next month as we gear up for rollout.
Check out the Stomping Totem in the image below... still looks pretty good, eh?
P.S. — anyone have an F-350 truck we can borrow? 😉
2) GNSS Improvements
We also made some massive improvements to the Totem's GNSS capabilities this weekend at Hard Summer.
In case you didn't know, this past weekend featured one of the most intense solar storms in years.
(more info on this in the 2 Things To Learn section below)
This meant that satellite signals from around the world were impaired by the Solar Weather. You may have noticed it yourself on your Maps app or ride share apps, particularly on Saturday and Sunday.
In some ways, this was a great testing opportunity for a true worst case scenario with GNSS conditions.
As a response, we made massive improvements to the Totem's location precision capabilities.
Without going wayyyy too into the technical weeds, here are a few big milestones we accomplished as a result:
1) Established a "Satellite Almanac" that is stored in the Totem's memory chip. This allows the Totem to predict which satellites will be visible to you at any point time, regardless of where you are in the world.
The new Totem Satellite Almanac makes it way faster to connect with satellites any time, anywhere—by up to 50%.
2) Implemented "Hot Locking" software features, which can cut the time needed to get a great satellite connection down to 1 second in certain situations. This allows you to get an accurate location super quickly, even after fully rebooting your Totem.
3) Made massive improvements to our GNSS chip allowing us to get 10X as many location updates per second than was previously possible. More updates = better location accuracy.
By the end of the weekend, we were able to find people in the dense HARD SUMMER crowds even despite the raging Solar Storm.
This perfectly encapsulates why intensive field testing is so important. If we hadn't conducted such thorough testing on those two specific days, we wouldn't be so prepared for Solar Storms in the future.
See that blinking light in the gif of the Crystal below? That's how we check the satellite connection in the field! Blinks = good satellite connection.
We were getting blinks constantly by the end of the weekend, thanks to this awesome progress by our engineering team. 🥰
3) New Friends, Big Ideas
One last big update from HARD SUMMER...
Totem met with the Insomniac Partnerships Team to explore ways that we could combine forces to make festivals safer, more beautiful, and more immersive than ever before.
We talked through a lot of big, exciting ideas together.
Ultimately, we are both working toward the same goal. Bringing people together to share meaningful moments and make beautiful memories.
We are really excited to continue brainstorming where this collaboration can go. We have so much love for everything Insomniac does—after all, the Totem Origin Story began at EDC Orlando in 2019! Totem wouldn't exist with them.
2 things to learn
1) Behind the Scenes
If you have ever developed new technology, designed a product, and brought it to market successfully... then you already understand everything that's going on behind the scenes here at Totem.
If not, here's an overview of all the things that you DON'T see (but are happening) even beyond product testing and software improvements.
While you see all the product testing updates and footage from the field, our team is hard at work behind the scenes on things like...
- supply chain logistics and freight controls
- international tariffs and shipping regulations for electronics
- evaluating different manufacturing locations to improve ship times and improve oversight
- customs procedures between 40+ countries
- packaging design and manufacturing
- efficient warehousing strategies
- production logistics for bulk orders around the world
- international commerce agreements
- warranty process development
- customer service flows
and much, much more.
Rolling out a product like this is far more nuanced than simply "make it, put it in a box, and send it out!"
And when you experience the global viral spread we did, especially at such an early stage, you have to tackle all these issues while simultaneously developing a brand new product and creating testing procedures for wild, chaotic field tests at massive festivals.
But here's the good news: every single bullet point listed above is either in-progress or currently completed, thanks to our amazing Operations Team.
We can't wait for this intricate mosaic to come together in the form of a beautiful product shipped to YOU (and everyone else around the world) this Fall.
Good things take time.
Great things take time and a lot of hard, thankless work.
This product will be a GREAT thing that changes the lives of so many. 🫶🏼
2) Solar Storms
As mentioned earlier, this past weekend saw an intense Geomagnetic Solar Storm that caused significant interference to satellites around the world. 🛰️
A Geomagnetic Solar Storm is a temporary disturbance of the Earth's magnetosphere caused by a solar wind shock wave.
On August 3rd and 4th (the exact dates of Hard Summer) the entire world experienced a G3 level solar storm. That's a big one. G4 storms (just one level higher) can knockout entire power grids. 😱
This solar storm impacted navigation systems of all kinds, including those used by your smart phone and even in smart cars.
Solar Storms of this caliber are fairly rare, and only happen a couple of times a year for a few days at a time. Plus, they are projected to happen less and less frequently over the next 12 years.
Regardless, it's something that we are prepared for! As outlined in the GNSS section earlier, we are working on many different methods of mitigating the effects of Space Weather on your Totem.
Additionally, we have plans to notify the Totem Tribe about any anticipated Solar Storms beforehand, so you can prepare accordingly if they take place during your festival weekend.
But one final important note: the impact of Solar Storms decreases massively once the sun starts to set. And that's great news!
Everyone knows that it isn't THAT hard to find your Tribe at a festie during the day. The really hard part is finding them at night. 😅
1 thing to look forward to
We've got something big in the works for 2025...
The Totem Team is currently exploring strategic partnerships with major event companies around the world to create a robust worldwide Totem Distributor Network.
This is a long-term process and will take time. But when it's in place, it will be much easier for people in faraway places to get a Totem of their own.
After all... No one, regardless of where they live, deserves to be lost. 🫶🏼
At some point in the future, we want to add anchor distributors to our network in key places like Brazil, Argentina, Australia, the Middle East, and East Asia. 🌏
Good things take time. But rest assured—we are in this for the long haul. 💪
A Beautiful Community
Hey there 😊👋
It was such an amazing experience to see the HUNDREDS of Tribe Members out at Hard Summer last weekend.
Everyone was so excited to see the Totems in-person and meet the team.
But everyone was ALSO so patient and understanding of the process.
These things take time if you want to get it right.
Sometimes there are setbacks, and that can be frustrating, but ultimately it's the end result that matters most.
And all of you understood that.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for loving.
Thank you for caring.
Thank you for supporting.
Thank you for encouraging.
This is a beautiful community and we are extremely blessed to be part of it.
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 😘)
