18 June update
Eudaimonia Helios will be shipping this Thursday and Friday! Do keep an eye on your inbox as we'll be emailing you the tracking number as soon as we get it (about a day or two after we mail it). Thank you for being so patient with us!
9 June update
Apologies, since the last update, we realized we were still short a few crowns, so that pushed back production by a little. We are in the final phases of testing now though, and Eudaimonia Helios will be ready to ship next week.29 May update
We are in the midst of quality control and testing now. If all goes well, Eudaimonia Helios should be ready to ship late next week.
A small piece of bad news, I'm afraid. During assembly, we found out that we needed to send back some of the crowns we received to be replated. This pushes back final assembly by one week, so we hope to have the watches assembled by late next week.
22 May update
Eudaimonia Helios should finish assembly within the next few days, and then it'll be another week for quality control and tests before we will be ready to ship.
17 May update
Sorry for the delayed update, production was slower than usual after re-opening post-quarantine. Everything was backed up due to the shutdown so there are long lines for each process. We did finally get our Eudaimonia Helios discs though, and we have started final assembly.
6 May update
5 April update
Great news! The printing staff for our kinetic art discs are out of quarantine as of last week (the last few workers who had been quarantined), so they are working on finalizing the discs now. Once they are done, they'll ship the discs over to our main manufacturer, who can begin final assembly.11 March update
We've been in constant contact with our suppliers during the past weeks. About 70% of the workers are back to work since last week. However, some of them (those who came from more affected provinces like Hubei), are still under quarantine. Nonetheless, we have slowly resumed production, doing the bits that can be done without these workers. We'll keep working with our suppliers to make sure they are on track. 19 February update
I was just chatting with our discs and watch manufacturers, and they said that while the workers have just returned to the city that their factory is in, they are all under mandatory quarantine. They aren't sure for long exactly, as they are waiting for more news from the government. For now, they estimate 14 days, so they can only start production again in March, so shipping will be pushed to April at this rate. She sent me a video, where every single door on the street has been sealed with barricades by the government to prevent the workers from leaving. It's really insane right now, the draconian measures they are taking. Sorry about further delay, this few weeks have been crazy.9 February update
For those of you who ordered Eudaimonia Helios, take note that there will be further delays due to the coronavirus crisis. Sorry for the very long wait, I'll let you know once more details emerge.
24 January update:
All tracking numbers (except those who had ordered Eudaimonia Helios) have just been sent out! Do check your promotion tab / spam if you don't see it in your email inbox. 16 January update:
Dasein Helios, Kato, and Rhizome are all en route to our fulfillment warehouse, where they'll be shipped one by one to you, starting early next week! Free standard shipping should take between 8-14 working days -- we'll email you your tracking number a few days after shipment. As mentioned, unfortunately, Eudaimonia Helios has further delays. 9 January update:
We've just spent the last two days looking over all the watches one by one. After one more final round of QC, and packaging, most of our designs should be ready to ship. The one piece of bad news is the discs for Eudaimonia Helios weren't up to our specifications, so we are having them redone.
I'm hesitant to give a concrete shipping date again, but if I have to, for Kato, Rhizome, Dasein Helios, I would estimate around late next week or early the week after. For Eudaimonia Helios, unfortunately, shipping will have to be pushed to February. I'm really sorry about this! If you want to switch to a Dasein instead, and get your watch more quickly, just drop me a mail at hello@humism.com, and we'll switch you over.27 December update:
We've received the discs and have started assembly! Still missing a few Kato discs but they should arrive in time. I'll be personally conducting a visual quality check of every single watch around the 6th of January, before boxing them up.25 December update email:
I'm David, the founder and designer behind Humism, and I'm just sending you an long-overdue update on your pre-order of our Kinetic Art watches. I'm sorry that it took us so long to send this, and I hope this email gives you some clarity. Unfortunately, there had been several delays beyond the one that I mentioned in my previous email (to those of you who pre-ordered before December), and while the major issue has been solved, we are still waiting on the delivery of our discs from our supplier.
As I mentioned in my previous update, all our materials have been prepared and ready to go (since October!), but we have been bottle-necked by our kinetic art discs. Our discs supplier switched their own etching factory to a more environmentally-friendly one, which is great, but this created teething issues as the new factory struggled to adapt to our discs supplier's processes. The main issue they had was with the center pipes of the discs, which attaches the discs to the watch itself. In their first attempt, the etching factory made the pipes too big, so the discs were too loose to be installed.
When the supplier first told us of this issue, they asked for two weeks to rectify it, and promised delivery around the end of November. Unfortunately, this deadline came and went, as their second attempt at the center pipes also failed, with the pipes too small this time.
The good news is this problem is now largely resolved, as two weeks ago, they delivered a small test batch of discs which performed great on our quality control tests. The bad news is we are still waiting on the main shipment of discs to be delivered, with our supplier extending their delivery date several times. We have received the bulk of the seconds discs last week, which did well on our quality tests again. Our supplier just shipped out the hours and minutes discs today, and we'll hopefully receive them tomorrow. After the receipt of all the discs, assembly and quality control will take about two weeks (as I said, everything is already prepared).
As production is always uncertain -- I am hesitant to give you an shipping estimate, and then have to delay it again. Instead, I'll be updating this page with new information as soon as I get it, so do check it for updates.
Overall, these delays have really been unprecedented, as this is our third production run with this same discs supplier, with the first two finishing up smoothly. The switch of their own etching factory have created a really frustrating series of problems. Nevertheless, they have been producing these ultralight discs for 5 years now, since inventing them in 2014, so we're confident in their processes, once they solve these teething pains with the new sub-supplier. We also don't want to hurry them too much (even though we are communicating with them almost every day), as we want to focus on quality instead of speed.
On our part, I want to apologize about the lack of communication in the past few weeks -- I have been posting updates on our Kickstarter page, but haven't sent a second general update to people who pre-ordered after the campaign on our webstore (Raymond and I have mainly been chatting with you one-on-one instead).
I must also apologize for not setting expectations properly on our website regarding pre-orders. It is easier on a platform like Kickstarter, where backers are used to projects being delayed (some 70-90% of projects are delayed) -- but this possibility was not properly communicated on our website. The problem this delay caused has also been compounded by the holiday session -- some of you probably intended the watch as a Christmas present, which has obviously almost passed by now. I know these delays has been frustrating and disappointing for you, as you are looking forward to your new watch, and I'm sincerely sorry.
I hope that this update has made things a little clearer. Do check this page for further updates, and do drop us an email if you have any further questions. We hope to have good news for you soon.
Best,
David Sze
Designer & Founder
humism | TURNING TIME INTO ART