Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

So this year has passed really quickly! For us, it has been a momentous 12 months as we moved from the middle of our Kickstarter campaign to finally (!) manufacturing our first units and many other developments in between. 2021 has been the most insane year for a hardware startup and, though we wish things would have gone smoother, we just couldn’t solve everything with long nights and hard work. We’ve made our fair share of mistakes too but are overall very proud of the progress and what we have been able to achieve despite the challenges. Once again, we can’t thank you enough for your patience - this is not a platitude but heartfelt from every person here at Bird Buddy.

While we have a couple of updates on our progress and want to share some really exciting news, we mainly wanted to reach out to you wishing you happy and healthy holidays as well as thank you once again for being the best community out there. Thank you!

Tracking website

As we’re still facing a very volatile situation regarding freight options that will be available to us in January when we start shipping units out of China, we’re not yet in a position to lock down fulfillment windows based on your individual backer number. We were hoping to be able to have clear estimates from our freight partners by now and to share this with you but it’s still too unstable to project with confidence. We’ll likely share access to the tracking website in our next update as we get closer to shipping and should have better information available.

Shipping and logistics

We have found an ocean service to bridge the gap between air and ocean. Transit times will be around 22 days and the cost will be a little more than traditional ocean rates. The volumes we can push through this service are limited so we will need to continue to use the other services. As always we will continue to look for solutions to support our transportation needs and shorten overall lead times.

Firmware development

We talked about having some challenges on this front in our previous update and want to report that we’re making good progress. We engaged some outside experts to help us get the confidence we need and we’re now in the final stages of validation that should prevent any surprises once we start shipping.

Gift Cards

Our support team has been all hands on deck to get around 3,000 gift cards sent out in time for Christmas! If you missed the opportunity but would like to send one to your chosen gift recipient, we’ve got the solution: you can download and print your own version directly.

We’ve got a little something for you

What better way to get in the holiday spirit than to uncover the birds behind the lyrics of one of the world’s most popular and enduring Christmas carols?

First mentioned all the way back in 1780, The 12 Days of Christmas was intended as a game, won by the songster who was able to repeat the first and each successive line until all twelve were sung. Any mistake meant the paying of a forfeit: a kiss or a gift. The lines of the song involve the gifting of an increasing number of birds. Join us in meeting all twelve.

The best part? For each day of the 12 days, we prepared a cool, downloadable gift. Check them out.

Bird Buddy News

We’re incredibly excited to announce that we’ve recently closed a series seed funding round that will both help us deliver an amazing product to you, our backers, as well as explore new opportunities to help you stay connected with nature in meaningful ways. The eagle-eyed amongst you may have seen Franci’s recent interview with TechCrunch about this investment development.

We are also going on the road! Fingers crossed that Covid doesn’t put a stop to our plans as early January sees us at the globally renowned CES show in Las Vegas, US where we will be presenting our Bird Buddy product for the first time at an event. If you are there, come and find us in the Venetian Expo/Sands Hall, booth number 54349.

As always, if you have any feedback for us, don’t hesitate to contact support@mybirdbuddy.com.

Lastly, from all of us here at the Bird Buddy team, we wish you happy holidays and a happy New Year.

‍The Bird Buddy team

‍P.S.: Here's a compilation of recordings from one of our beta devices. And as usual, our animation team is also sending some greetings!