We’re happy to announce we’ve completed the design of our newest NFC reader, one we call FloBLE. It has the scanning and low power abilities of the FloJack but uses BLE instead of the audio jack to talk to the host device. We’ve been working on FloBLE for months but we agreed to wait until we had something to show you before revealing much about it. Granted, we like keeping our customers and friends updated along the way but it was important to us to have a working example before publishing anything official. Not to worry, we documented a lot of the effort and put together a video to catch you up on everything:

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This post is going to be a lengthy one, so grab your favorite beverage. iOS 7 really did a number to the FloJack. The issues we’re seeing are bigger than just a few tweaks here and there. NFC Actions is broken and, after buckling down for the last few weeks, we’ve had to come to grips with the realization that fixing it is not optimal. It’s been well documented that the iOS 7’s audio subsystem has radically changed and it’s likely it will happen again. The following video highlights some of the compatibility issues we’re seeing:

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As KickStarter orders continue to ship, it’s important to get a message out to everyone who may be experiencing communication difficulties between the FloJacks and the version of NFC Actions currently available. The message is simple: we moved too soon. Since shipping out the first FloJacks, we’ve found and fixed issues with the FloJack firmware and apparently broke the latest NFC Actions app on the App store. To make matters worse, iOS 7 changed the way applications interface with the audio jack. We’re ironing out these bugs and we hope to have a fully functional version of NFC Actions available soon.

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I’d like to begin this post by thanking our KickStarter supporters and those who were able to get in on the first FloJack preorder. We’ve had some issues with quality control and our yield hasn’t been quite where it should be, this was out of our control. Some of the FloJack boards arrived partially assembled and others had broken connections — we’ve been working day and night to make the necessary repairs to the hardware to get it all up to snuff. Some boards were beyond saving and those have been set aside. It’s been a rough road, but we’re trudging on.

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We wanted to get another update out to stem the number of emails we keep getting. At the moment we’ve shipped close to 100 FloJacks. Our fulfillment team worked hard to make sure each package was done right. Customers are starting to use them and are sending us tons of feedback. We’re working on adding more support content to our site so customers can get the answers they need fastest. As of today, however, we are out of FloJack cases. Our supplier has run into issues and we’re looking at all possible alternatives.

   

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Sup people, last Friday while shipping a batch of FloJacks we started seeing some unusual behavior and a few dead batteries. Our quality control procedure is to test out each FloJack with a standard set of 8 tags (all different shapes, sizes, and types) before boxing them up.  Some FloJacks failed with the larger tags but a couple just had dead batteries.  The dead batteries were very troubling since we have been using production FloJacks ourselves for over two weeks without issues. We spent the weekend taking apart FloJacks and studying their behavior. We found that a simple compiler flag change from last week was causing the FloJack to constantly reset.

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I wanted to send out a quick update to our earliest supporters.  We’ve overcome the most critical roadblocks and are finally shipping FloJacks.  We were hung up with a high current drain issue that was killing our battery life as well as an enclosure defect that wasn’t securing the battery door in place.  Also, support for the newest iOS devices (ones with lightning connector) was giving us trouble since this hardware is substantially different than previous models. We were able to fix a lot of these issues and are happy enough with the performance of the FloJack to start shipping them to the most eager 100 customers.

    

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Hey Kickstarter,

Here’s the TL;DR summer production update:

• We have 400 populated boards ready for final assembly
• We’ve also received fifty 3-D printed cases and 100 injection molded cases
• But we’re working through a few final issues:
  • Fixing software bugs that are sapping battery life
  • Increasing the precision of our injection molding process for better case fit
  • Ironing out an assembly + QC process to ensure every FloJack we ship is top quality

We’re pushing hard and should be shipping in no time. If you’re interested in the full update read-on:

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Google adopted the use of NFC technology with the release of the then flagship device Nexus S. NFC has been there from quite some time, however we have not seen wide spread adoption. There are several reasons to that. I am going to talk about one of the factors in this post. However, we at Flomio believe that seamless adoption of NFC will make your life easy. We welcome you to join our NFC party!

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Hey FloJack fans,

We have lots to to report from Flomio HQ. First for some good news:

NFC Actions for iOS

The NFC Actions app has been APPROVED for distribution in the Apple App Store! You can download it for free later this month.

This is a major milestone for our Kickstarter campaign. One of our principal goals was to design and ship the first Near Field Communication app for iOS… ever. That’s right Kickstarter, our campaign just made history!

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