The Email sent out said he would start shipping in March and have all (pre Oct 25 2015) orders shipped by July.
This is our new plan. We will be manufacturing hundreds of units per month through February and scale up to thousands starting in April. Most customers will get their deliveries in May through August.
I don’t read any claim about shipping in March, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect an update on manufacturing. There should be a minimum of “hundreds” of units manufactured by now if things are still on schedule. If not, then the schedule has slipped at least one month. If I were a betting man, I would put my money on that July date moving out to October, but I’d love to be proven wrong.
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Mmmmm… I don’t see that. I see ramping up to producing thousands of units in April and shipping beginning in May. But he’s since recanted May in favor of July.
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Oh! You’re still betting on 2017? Hmmmm… I might take that bet! 
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Remember that we are getting $20 Credit per month they slip this year, so far $40, so with the $150 from last year, we are at $190, and the $50 Inventables. So the longer they slip, the more proofgrade material they will have to give us as well, which is far more than any interest they could possibly earn from the money I paid them for my Glowforge Pro for the month. It could start adding up to a lot if they slip farther, so they might have some financial incentive to get them out to us.
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Here you go:
I understand that as if they are on schedule, by the end of february they should be producing at least 3-4 units each day.
Yes. That’s what I was saying.
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Fingers crossed on a March update this week. I’d love to hear about how the international certifications are coming along and how the factory line move went. As always, the more that can be shared the better.
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Given the pre-release units popping up, I’ve got a good feeling about this next update. I hope I’m not wrong!
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Weird. I have the opposite feeling. They keep sending out pre-releases so that means nothing’s ready and they need a lot more people testing the units in order to properly identify and fix the issues. It can take a long time to collect the data from those pre-release and beta units. And then they need to plan, test, and act on that data. And then, I imagine, repeat the testing process with those folks to fully ensure the issues have been resolved. All of this needs to happen prior to production units shipping.
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this is my fear as well
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Yes, plus why would they send another pre-release if production units were imminent?
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Meh.
July and August. You gotta believe!
(Also, I do not agree with some of your assumptions.)
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I guess by “good feeling”, I meant that I don’t feel like it will be bad news.
But then again, I’m kind of an eternal optimist.
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Personally, I think prerelease units will continue to go out until the day they have a meeting and everyone with a C in their title says “let’s do this”. As far as I can tell the hardware is 100% and the software is very close to fulfilling all of the original promises for the basic.
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We haven’t seen a finished version of 3D engraving and nothing of double sided cutting and variable focus engraving on a curved surface. I.e. the hard things that distinguish this from other laser cutters. and even kerf compensation, which is easy.
Is even the basic motion control finished? The last I heard it couldn’t do the full 11.5" promised and the corners of scores were over cut. These are things existing lasers can already do.
Why would they go to the expense of shipping pre-release models and then replacing them if they could send production units a few weeks later?
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I like to think we’re of some use. 
It’s actually a hindrance to be too knowledgeable about a product when you ship it out. It’s natural to assume that everyone knows the difference between a Score and an Engrave for instance, when the fact is, those who have never lasered before wouldn’t realize they were different.
Or they might not realize that they need to be a little more clear about which way the tray goes in.
Don’t assume that all of the users of this thing have the same level of knowledge that you do, because they don’t. Glowforge has to get it ready for everyone before they ship it out.
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If they’re ramping up pre-release units, my interpretation is that they’ve found the issues that you can find with a small number of testers, meaning that the hardware is likely In good shape, and the software basically works, so they’re ramping up the volume of testers to harden the software and the manufacturing process. Many software companies ship pre-release products straight through production. Since the GlowForge is heavily software driven, and it’s almost all on their servers, they can keep enhancing the software easily over time, so they can ship with a minimal viable product on the software side. Of course they can’t do that with hardware, so that’s what has to be solid before they ramp up shipments.
So far the GlowForge laser looks like it’s mechanically ready, and it’s the software that’s functional but maturing, so that’s not as bad as the reverse.
Though I would like to see the Pro filter. I don’t think we’ve seen that yet, and that’s a major capability for me; I want to use the laser in the family room, not the garage.
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The Pro and filter hardware have yet to be demonstrated and some of the key Pro features are also MIA.
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Yes but it takes some time to get useful feedback and act on it. This is why when they said they were going to send out pre-release units at the end of Nov we knew they were not going to ship at the start of Dec.
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