During the past year, we’ve been given scant details about GF production. I understand that you may have secret sauce to keep from competitors. But other Kickstarter-like projects would have released something during development to demonstrate that mass production is progressing. December 2016 is two weeks away. If you’re about to ship thousands of units next month, there must be something you can show us.
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Would be awesome to see 
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I didn’t see that picture. So I can’t answer your question.
I didn’t see it in an announcement emailed to prospective GF owners. This brings up another issue, though. I’ve felt for the past year that I have to hunt through the forums, read the forum digest, or scour the Internet for information about GF. I’m not being kept up-to-date from GF staff. It’s not a reassuring customer experience.
Just saying that delivery is expected to be in December 2016, unless something goes wrong, only goes so far. We’re in the eleventh hour. More news is not too much to ask.
Some signs of actual production progress outside of the experiences from owners of a few beta units and promotional appearances (like Maker Faire) would go a long way toward customer confidence.
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I would like to see Glowforge respond to this request not just other forum members trying to answer for them.
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Wow! Not even to the long ago announced start-of-delivery-time and already we have a lack of customer confidence?
As a veteran of more Kickstarter, Indiegogo, GoFundMe, etc. projects than I can count, I have been overjoyed with GF’s responsiveness and efforts to keep everyone in the loop. The appearances at fairs where you could actually watch the GF work, the web site with a great forum with regular participation by GF staff – I can tell you their efforts to keep us updated and in the loop have far outstripped most crowd funded projects I have participated in (some of those ended up 6 months or a year overdue with little or no notice). I am extremely pleased at the level of information I have available at my fingertips going into this.
I could not feel any better about where they are in the process if they posted dozens of pictures of 500 or 1000 or 10,000 boxes in a warehouse, or a line of grinning brown uniformed UPS folks with handtrucks all eagerly waiting at the warehouse door.
I would recommend we patiently wait (I know it is hard in this age of instant communication and Amazon Prime) until the actual delivery times before questioning the delivery times. Otherwise, it’s kind of like eagerly awaiting the latest episode of your favorite series only to start questioning their ability to broadcast it at 10 minutes until the scheduled time…
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Dan has responded to this query in one form or another all year. His response has always been that they’ll tell us something when they think they have something material to report.
His last announcement was 29 days ago when he said they would not be in a position to comment further on December until after they evaluate the results of the November pre-release shipments.
We can all want more communication but Dan has made it clear, he is following his communication plan and is willing to disregard what we think should be done.
This is just more dead horse flogging.
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For $4,000, I think it’s OK to flog the horse a bit. 
Seriously. To meet the December shipments, they’d have to have units in crates by now.
You’ll notice that I have been very patient. This is the first time I’m posting in the forums because I feel like we’re going to get an eleventh-hour postponement.
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You don’t have any first hand knowledge. You may feel great. And I’m glad you do. But I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling like something is amiss.
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That’s why I’m actually hopeful. I figure if there was something ugly they’d have raised the alert already. They’ve typically provided more than a month’s notice if they’re missing a date.
I {speculation alert} believe the only thing they think will impact December shipments is if the November pre-release shipments get wrecked in transit. I expect Dan’s promised announcement in the beginning of December as to whether the pre-release taught them anything new.
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Nobody has any firsthand knowledge save for the staff and the people working at the factory. None of us know the production rate nor the shipping timetable. Therefore it is useless to speculate.
A date has been specified. We will have our units in hand by the end of the year.
Further word on the subject likely won’t happen until after the pre-release units roll out at the end of this month, meaning that we won’t hear anything until the beginning of December.
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GF staff have first-hand knowledge. And I know they watch the forums. I thought GF wanted customers to discuss things here. And that we could count on getting their input.
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Sure, but they have also stated that they won’t make statements about stuff like this. Repeatedly. We’ll get an announcement after the pre-release units ship and that will have more info. Until then they have made a promise of delivery by 12/31, and given us no reason (no matter how much anyone might speculate as to their production or shipping capacities) to believe otherwise.
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I spent way more time here at work than I should have searching… I can’t find it.
Maybe I was wrong about seeing that specifically. I thought I had. It was a reply to a question I’m sure, not an “announcement”. Ship in December is for sure though.
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That’s the current promise. Delivery was not committed to - that came out of a thread from Bailey’s interview at the MakerFaire where she pointedly said that they were scheduled to ship this year. I raised that as a change from delivery and Dan came back with a post affirming her shipping comment and then followed up later with the one you linked to where he said it again.
But everything is subject to the caveat that it has to be “ready” and we don’t know what that means except that it’s supposed to be wonderful.
I’ve actually been encouraged by the walkbacks on some things over the past month or two (like the Pro software, filter, etc). That means they’re probably assessing what’s really needed to be a successful launch vs what they had promised from the beginning. It feels like they’re having the “Day 1” vs “Day 2” conversations that precede product launches.
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Yeah, that hasn’t been my experience at all.
I’ve been happy with the updates and communication from glowforge, but I totally understand that some people feel like they’re being kept in the dark. I do agree that you kind of have to look for the information and updates yourself.
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That’s actually an interesting concept. It suggests that full on production will not begin until they are happy with the November pre-release shipments. That might imply that best case scenario is production, claibration, testing and shipping, all in the month of December. I mean there would be not point manufacturing 10,000 units only to find out that the November pre-shipments showed that beefier stepper motors were required type of thing. Unless the only thing being tested in those shipments was the freight forwarder itself.
So I guess if 10,000 ship in December it will be cool and I’ll be able to start doing my thing with it. And if it gets delayed yet again, well, what you gonna do. . .
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Or that production is well underway and what they’re looking to test/evaluate the shipping - what happens as these boxes traverse the country vs. the narrow range of the current beta users. If they ship pre-release units and see some damage issues they can address the packaging before boxing up 9900 other units.
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Yes, I think that’s what I was at in the last sentence of the first paragraph. 
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Yep. We’re agreeing.
I think their silence on the hardware is encouraging (vs those who think its troubling) - Dan has been slowly pulling back on some things (software features, air filter, etc) and to not have pulled back on the shipping date suggests the hardware is fine in their eyes. The only other thing they can’t have tested yet is large scale shipping (I believe the betas are all pretty local to the PAC NW) and that’d be the logical last testing step before calling in the brown trucks 
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