Select a month to read up on our manufacturing progress and feel free to email us with any questions at hello@boona.com.

2023 March

Manufacturing
Over the last few weeks, we visited our manufacturer to oversee a trial run of production.

Although we will continue to refine our manufacturing process, we’re really excited to share that we completed a batch of the first 150 units. These units are already enroute to the US and will ship out to customers in early May. (Container shipping takes ~4 weeks.) Moreover, this will be the first time that we use our new shipping partner and new warehousing partner. So this is the full end-to-end production experience - a big milestone for us!As mentioned earlier, we’re continuing to refine our manufacturing process. We do this to improve efficiency. For example, we identify areas during manufacturing that cause quality issues and improve them so we reject fewer parts in each production run. Or as another example, we tweak the assembly sequence to reduce the total time to assemble one unit.To build confidence in our processes as we scale up, we will continue to batch our production runs, much like we did with this first 150. Our next production run will be targeting 1,500 units and is estimated to complete in May with deliveries to customers in late June / early July. We’ll have another production run shortly thereafter that will handle all remaining preorders, which are expected to then deliver to customers in late July.We will fulfill preorders based on the following two prioritizations: First to members of our Founders Club. You all were our earliest supporters and we wouldn’t be here without you. The second criteria is simply based on your purchase date relative to other preorders. Please note that it’s still too early for us to predict when exactly each person will receive their order.Packaging
Our packaging structure and graphics are now complete! The last step is to perform formal testing via the International Safe Transit Association. This is a global standard for establishing confidence in packaging reliability.Order Fulfillment & Shipping Address
Thanks to everyone who’s already completed the order details form. If we don’t have your color selection or shipping address yet, we sent you a reminder with the subject: “[Reminder] Tandem Shower Order Details” today (Friday).We’re working with our logistics partner to estimate shipping rates to each address. Once we have this information, we’ll send you the final payment link for the shipping fee. As noted before, we’re shipping orders out in batches and in priority order. We’ll let you know when to expect your delivery as soon as we have that information.

2023 February

Manufacturing
Last month we shared that we would need to work with the factory to improve our variance from unit to unit. Additionally, we identified cosmetic changes which, although minor, we felt needed to be fixed to meet our quality bar for mass production. These are all underway and should be complete by the end of the month.We also mentioned that we started reliability testing last month. These all completed successfully and validated our design. Our reliability evaluation included industry standard tests provided by internationally-recognized safety bodies like UL as well as custom tests which we designed due to the unique nature of our product. These tests include load testing, temperature and humidity testing, failure testing, glue testing, etc. The full list is extensive but these screenshots of the report give you a sense of the level of detail this gets into.

Packaging
Last month we ran more thorough testing of our latest packaging but unfortunately we still had substantial failures. Though this isn’t entirely surprising since we have a very large and unique product, it’s still disappointing. As a result of these failures, we’ve decided to over-engineer the packaging to guarantee the product arrives undamaged to everyone. We’re nearly complete with this next iteration and will be running another round of tests right after. As of now, we’re not pushing out the shipping schedule because of this but it certainly remains a risk factor for us.

Order Fulfillment & Shipping Address
We’re excited to share that we’ve selected our North American fulfillment partner. In doing so, we’re able to now assess the shipping costs to our customers. This brings us to our next major milestone - we’re now ready to collect shipping addresses.You should expect to see a survey for this next week. Once we have your shipping address we’ll be able to calculate any applicable shipping cost + sales tax and provide a final checkout link.

2023 January

Manufacturing
Last month we shared that we completed reviewing all of our components individually. The next step was to build a small batch sample of the entire product. This is intended to replicate a small production run. In doing so, we’re able to test the assembly process, see how well the parts fit together, etc. This was completed over the last month:

As part of this build, we discovered issues that we’ll need to address before proceeding to the next phase. For the most part, these issues can be resolved by process tweaks. For example, there are some assembly processes that were done by hand but this caused too much variance from sample to sample. To fix this, we’ll be creating more “fixtures” or devices that help constrain an assembly process such that we achieve our quality bar repeatedly. A few other issues will require adjustments to our component molds to ensure tight fits. Overall, nothing major, but the remediation steps will take up to 3 weeks to complete. In combination with the delays reported in our October update, this pushes deliveries into April/May right now.At the moment, China just kicked off its New Year holiday, the biggest holiday of the year there. For about one month, most of our supply chain is not operational. We of course knew about this and are proceeding with other efforts such as third party reliability testing which we just kicked off. In light of the issues we discovered, we know we won’t pass all of our reliability tests, but we’re proceeding with them to catch anything else.Moreover, overall, we’re ecstatic about how the product is coming together. Our showerheads just feel awesome. We’ve tested so many competitors over the past year and we think you’ll all love what we designed.

Packaging
We now have a final candidate for the structure of our packaging for both the Tandem Shower as well as the individual showerheads. We’ve done preliminary testing on it, but have a more thorough validation upcoming. We are also working through the graphic designs for both packages now that we have a final draft of the structure.

Shipping Address
We’ll send out surveys to collect or verify your shipping address just before we ship to avoid delivery issues. Once we have your shipping address we’ll also be able to calculate any applicable shipping cost + sales tax.

2022 December

Manufacturing
Last month we mentioned that it would take us another iteration or two to approve all components. Well, we’re thrilled to share that we’ve crossed that milestone as of this update! The next step now is to test, refine, and approve the assembly process. This is where we see how well the components come together and how smooth that assembly process is.Here’s the latest version of all three of our colors:

Take a guess which you think will be most popular ;)Packaging
There are two aspects of the packaging design: the structure of the box as well as the graphics. We’ve finalized the structure of the box for our showerheads and are working through the artwork now. We’re also just getting started now on the design of the packaging structure for the full Tandem product.

Shipping Address
We’ll send out surveys to collect or verify your shipping address just before we ship to avoid delivery issues. Once we have your shipping address we’ll also be able to calculate any applicable shipping cost + sales tax.

2022 November

Manufacturing
We recently received the first samples of the Tandem components, as well as a second iteration of the showerhead, and have since completed our inspection. Although we’ve not yet approved any of the parts, the open issues are relatively minor. We’re optimistic that within another iteration or two we will be able to approve all components.With that said, we’re excited to share photos of some of the parts!

Packaging
We’re continuing to iterate on our packaging design. We previously shared early renderings of our packaging for Tandem. Now we have physical samples of concepts for our showerheads. As you’ll see, we’re experimenting with ducks and waves ;)

Shipping Address
We’ll send out surveys to collect or verify your shipping address just before we ship to avoid delivery issues. Once we have your shipping address we’ll also be able to calculate any applicable shipping cost + sales tax.

2022 October

Manufacturing
We’re excited to share that the first tooling stage (commonly referred to as “T0”) for the remaining components has been completed! Below are some of the first parts to be formed with the tools:

We’re currently inspecting all of this tooling. Typically it takes at least a few iterations of review and modification to finalize each tool. You may recall that we’ve spent the last month going through these iterations for the showerhead tooling.

Once all the tooling has been finalized, then we begin work on the assembly process for the Tandem Shower. This stage of development will involve building assembly fixtures, testing the assembly process, and making adjustments to ensure a reliable and consistent final product. The Tandem Showers we build at the end of this process will then be used for reliability testing and certifications.Timeline
The tooling process has taken longer than we expected due to recent COVID outbreaks in China which have caused factory shutdowns. In addition, the latest lead-time estimate we received for certifying the Tandem Shower is much longer than our original estimate (~12 weeks). Considering all of this, we expect a 2-3 month delivery delay. We are working hard to ship you the Tandem Shower sooner but of course we won’t compromise on the necessary quality and reliability processes to ensure a premium product.Shipping Address
We’ll send out surveys to collect or verify your shipping address just before we ship to avoid delivery issues. Once we have your shipping address we’ll also be able to calculate any applicable shipping cost + sales tax.

2022 September

Last month we reported that we kicked off tooling for all components of the Tandem Shower.We’re excited to share that all nine tools for the shower head itself have been completed and we’re currently performing an on-site inspection of these parts.Here are our latest photos. (Please note that these are not representative of the final fit and finish.)

Here’s an example of the tooling for one component. Molten material is poured into the mold we created and cooled to create the desired component.

Here’s a demonstration of the tooling operation for one of our components:

Tooling for the remaining components of the Tandem Shower is progressing nicely but will take a few more weeks.In the meantime, we are preparing for the next stage of development - reliability testing and certification. Our top priority is to identify a testing partner to execute on our suite of tests and formally certify the product.


PackagingWe’ve also begun work on our packaging design. Although this is likely to evolve further, it’s very exciting for us to see what it could look like:

2022 August

We crossed our biggest milestone to-date - we officially kicked off tooling for all components of the Tandem Shower. This includes the showerhead which we mentioned last month would require a second prototype assessment. We approved this second prototype along with the rest of our assembly.As a reminder, “tooling” is the foundational investment you make in manufacturing that enables you to then create thousands of copies via molds. Tools are complicated, intricate designs. Tooling is like reverse engineering the negatives from an old-school film camera. Here’s an example of the tooling design for just one of our components:

The first component which now has completed tooling is our valve. We are in the process of reviewing this to make sure it is dimensionally accurate. Once we have a complete first assembly of all components, we’ll have a better sense of our progress and timeline for production shipping.

2022 July

Last month we shared that we kicked off tooling for our valve. (“Tooling” is the foundational investment you make in manufacturing that enables you to then create thousands of copies.) We’re excited to share that the valve handle is complete:

Tooling for the rest of the valve is on track to complete by the end of July. Last month we also mentioned that we ordered a manufacturer’s prototype of our showerhead. Here you can see the progress and evolution of the showerhead design:

The prototype has some aesthetic deviations as well as functional issues but that is to be expected at this stage of development. We’ve already ordered the next engineering validation unit to address these remaining issues. We’ve also already paid for the showerhead tooling. We’ll kick this off as soon as we receive and approve the next showerhead iteration.Tooling for the remaining parts will be batched together based on a final review with the supplier (often referred to as Design for Manufacturing).

2022 June

We’ve now signed manufacturing agreements with all of our vendors. We’ve also kicked off tooling for the valve. (“Tooling” is basically the foundational investment you make in manufacturing that enables you to then create thousands of copies.) And lastly, we’ve placed an order for a manufacturer’s prototype of our showerhead for aesthetic and functional validation.