Production Update: Slow and Sure

Production has started. After months of samples, testing, and revisions, we're now building the real thing. Delivery window is November, and every pre-order customer gets their exact ship week confirmed by 15 October.

The plan changed quite a bit along the way.

Why we slowed down

When we started Code One, we ran it the way most new keyboard projects run: rapid prototyping, quick iterations, get it made, get it out. Somewhere along the way we realised that if we followed that path to the end, we'd ship something much like every other board out there.

So we changed the approach: slow and sure. We don't want to build for planned obsolescence. We want a board that lasts because of its quality, and that we can support long after the sale. That meant going back over earlier calls: we revisited manufacturing decisions and reworked parts of the design and firmware so that parts can be replaced, and so we can offer proper support when you need it.

That cost us a few months. We think it was the right trade-off if it means we can support the board properly for years.

Earlier this year we emailed target dates and then missed them. We handle dates differently now: you get the month, and we only confirm an exact week when we can keep it. November is the window, and we'll email your exact ship week by 15 October. Pre-orders ship first, straight from the production line to your door by tracked courier, ahead of general stock.

The walnut wrist rest

Every pre-order now includes our walnut wood wrist rest, free, and that covers everyone who has already ordered. They were the first thing we finished, they came off the line in August, and they're waiting to ship with your board.

Packaging

The packaging design is done. It's one of my favourite parts of the project. Two things we cared about: the unboxing should feel special, and there should be as little plastic inside the box as we could manage. Both took longer than a stock brown box would have.

We have good photos of it, so I'll write it up properly in a separate post.

The battery

If you've spent time around laptops or old phones you may know the term "spicy pillow": a lithium battery that's swollen because something went wrong with its charging or its cells. It's the failure mode I care about most in this whole product, because a keyboard sits on your desk, plugged in, for years.

So we took our time here. The 4,000 mAh pack (about 14.8 Wh, well inside every consumer transport limit) goes through UN 38.3 transport testing, the certification required before a lithium battery is allowed on a plane or a container ship. We're also locking battery protection into the production spec: the pack carries a temperature sensor, and charging stops once the battery is full while you're using it wired, instead of trickling forever.

I'll write this one up separately too, including what slowed us down.

Compliance

A keyboard with a radio and a lithium battery needs several certifications before it can be sold in the US, and they have to be in place before the boards are built:

FCC certification. The Bluetooth radio needs FCC authorization, and Code One holds its own certification in our name, rather than reusing another company's paperwork. The application is in and being processed now, in parallel with production.

California's Proposition 65. Packaging carries the warning California requires when a product can expose people to certain listed chemicals. Standard for electronics, but it has to be printed before the boxes are, so it's locked into the artwork now.

Where things stand

We'll post the next update in two weeks.

Thanks for backing this early.

Kish