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HydraDock — 11 Port USB-C Dock For Apple MacBook

Created by KickShark

Now you can plug anything into that USB-C port on the gorgeous new Apple MacBook!

Latest Updates from Our Project:

New PC Boards Tested And Good. Products to ship first week of July.
almost 8 years ago – Sun, Jun 05, 2016 at 03:06:15 PM

This past week was spent heavily testing a dozen sample PC boards of the revised design, plugging them into dozens of monitors, many of which create known problems with the earlier HydraDock circuitry. The new boards have worked with 100% reliability, so we are releasing the project for mass production.

A note about timing. Previously, we were going to complete and ship an initial 1500 piece HydraDock run that covered essentially the pre-orders through December 2015 placed through Kickstarter and on BackerKit. Then, we were going to do a second production run of 2,000 units to fill all pre-orders since January (from the Celery order system on the HydraDock web site.) Now, because of having to install a new PC board in all of the existing enclosures, we are combining everything into one 4,000 unit production run.

We have also received and tested an updated Roadie PC board that has proven 100% reliable. So, we are moving to a 2,500 unit production run of the Roadie.

The production runs for both the HydraDock and the Roadie will happen the first week of July, with products shipping from our Honk Kong fulfillment center as they are received there from the factory. Production could begin the last week of June, but we are adding a week to be safe.

All products will ship in the order they were pre-ordered, earliest pre-orders first. Understand that it will take up to a week to get all of these products manufactured, processed, and actually shipped out.

If any of you have an address change we need to know about, please email [email protected] and she will get it updated in our system.

We will post any additional information between now and the products being shipped.

As always, THANK you for your support and patience through this grueling process!

The KickShark Team

New situation. Circuit board problems.
almost 8 years ago – Mon, May 16, 2016 at 07:35:08 PM

The downside of posting a very positive update when things look great, but are still not completed, is that coming back with bad news hurts. That is what has happened since our last update.

What has happened is that the factory began loading the revised firmware into the 1,300+ unshipped HydraDocks and then testing them, and started seeing unexpectedly bad results. Instead of being “fixed,” as was believed from testing samples, the video problem was just as evident across hundreds of the new units as previously experienced. The charging problem was gone. But, the erratic video performance with some monitors was still there.

We have hired a globally respected (and expensive) USB specialist engineering firm in Taipei to investigate the problem, and have sent them 200 HydraDocks for analysis. The initial report is that in addition to the firmware issues we have been chasing for months, there are at least two hardware issues where the impedance of certain circuit board traces is slightly out of range for certain chip inputs. This combined with “some” monitors also having cabling impedance slightly out of standard results in random failures with some monitors.

The report we have now is that no firmware modifications can correct this random video failure with some monitors. So, a circuit board redesign and new production run is required.

We authorized and paid the deposit for the new board design work by the Taiwan engineering firm the end of last week. Our factory in Shenzhen will immediately begin new board production as soon as new samples are done and fully verified through testing. All of this will take at least 4 to 5 weeks, and is going to cost us a very large amount of money we had not at all prepared to pay.

Because of the expense, this is now a point where we as a team recognize our duty to just do the right thing, regardless of what is needed. We are arranging a credit line to cover the new expenses. And, we are cutting back staff on all company activities that are not committed to production and will create near term revenue. To be very clear, this is a disaster for us. But, it is a survivable disaster we are facing, and to which we have made a unanimous choice to do everything required for recovery.

We are going to review our current pre-order sales policy, and will be revising all of our online marketing tomorrow to reflect those decisions. At a minimum, we will very clearly state the current situation and provide a very cautious estimate to new pre-order buyers.

Obviously, our primary commitment is to our 2015 Kickstarter and BackerKit pledges, and we are determined to fulfill those commitments. If we can make the arrangements we are seeking, then we will do one large production run with the new board of probably 4,000 units, and fill all backorders at once. Worst case, we will resume the current plan of a 1,500 piece run to fill 2015 pledges, and a new 2,000 piece run afterwards to fill 2016 pre-orders through the HydraDock site. In either case, we will produce a Roadie run of enough units to fill all pre-orders to date.

We have sent our only three working Roadie samples to the same Taiwan engineering house for evaluation, to determine if there are any of the same circuit trace impedance issues with that board as with the HydraDock board. We will report on this when we get a result.

So, for now, we are back in a prolonged holding pattern while the new PCBA is being completed and produced, and a new HydraDock run can be produced.

We have no idea how to handle this situation other than to just bear down even harder, make the financial arrangements and staff sacrifices required to pay the bills, and deliver what we promised, regardless of the effort required. It will not be easy or fun, but it is required, as we refuse to become “a failed Kickstarter campaign.” Period.

We will post updates as we get more specific information about timing, so everybody has a sense of when to expect this to resolve.

Obviously, we apologize. But, hopefully more importantly, we resolve to stay the course, fix this, and ship products.

Thank you sincerely to all of our backers!

The KickShark Team

Update on the HydraDock process
almost 8 years ago – Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 02:09:24 PM

We thought we needed to share a quick update to let everybody know what’s going on with the HydraDock process. The short version is that we are right on track with the process we outlined in our last update, but it’s taking a few extra days here, and a few extra days there. We should be shipping to you in about two weeks.

One of the decisions we made last year was to save the time and cost needed to build a central processor into the HydraDock that would communicate over the USB bus with a host product and coordinate a system-wide firmware update feature. As a Kickstarter project with tight funding and with expectations of quick delivery we wanted the product to work well, and expected to ship very solidly functional firmware, so that no field updates would be needed.

So now, updating the firmware in a HydraDock actually involves updating the firmware across five chips, of three different types, and using three different softwares on a Windows based computer running extremely clumsy special-purpose update utilities. Each chip in the product needs updated individually, with the whole process, from unpacking to repacking the product taking about 16 minutes (including running three different test routines).

1,300 HydraDocks times 16 minutes equals about 350 hours of bench time at the factory. And frankly, at this point, the factory is not particularly motivated to rush anything — preferring to be cautious and slow and avoid any possible new problems created in the process of fixing the old problems.

The new Firmware has been validated as being massively better, and has been approved for loading into the existing HydraDocks, as well as for use in the upcoming new production run of the HydraDock and of the Roadie.

We have been told that the firmware update process was started today, but we have no information about how many people are working on it. We only know that when it’s completed, they’ll ship those units to us.

We had to pay two outside firms to assist in diagnosing and solving the firmware issues. And, we are facing a significant increase in overall costs for shipping and handling due to returns and other issues related to the long delays. So, money is getting very tight here. We are adjusting down our staffing, and have long since stopped spending money on developing additional HydraDock brand products. And, we are holding tightly onto the money needed to honor our Kickstarter/BackerKit era pre-orders, and our next wave of pre-orders taken against the next production runs.

This has been a crazily expensive and difficult project, consuming not only what revenue has come in from Kickstarter and pre-orders, but at this point just short of $200,000 in additional costs paid from our company operating budget. So, it should be obvious that we are 100% dedicated to honoring our obligations and delivering a good product to everybody who has been waiting.

The next milestone is the existing inventory shipping from China to our HQ in Nashville, and then passing random testing we will do here before shipping all of them out to our Kickstarter and BackerKit backers. When we get to that point in what looks like about 2 weeks, we’ll post a new update.

Hang in there. It’s winding down, and will all be behind us soon. :-)

Thanks to everyone for backing our project!

The KickShark Team

Firm, final information on shipping of the HydraDock and Roadie products
almost 8 years ago – Thu, Apr 07, 2016 at 03:38:18 PM

Hi Everybody,

We are sorry for the gap in recent updates. But, we have tried to wait until we had solid information to share, rather than just more fuzzy guesswork. We are now ready to make some firm statements.

The Situation

There have been three sets of issues we have been trying to understand and solve:

  • Video problems from the HDMI and Mini DisplayPort jacks 
  • Charging problems with the 12 inch MacBook (and related HydraDock port issues) 
  • Compatibility issues with USB-C equipped Windows computers

Briefly, the video issues have been essentially solved with the newest OS X El Capitan version from Apple. The charging (and a mix of erratic port functions on the HydraDock) have been traced to a faulty USB-C cable shipped with the early 12 inch MacBooks. And, Windows machine compatibility has been addressed with a major firmware update we now have in final testing.

What You Need To Do

For those owners of the initial 200 HydraDock units we have shipped, we ask that you do the following immediately:

These steps will solve virtually all of the video issues and charging issues reported by HydraDock users.

What We Will Do

We are completing what will be the final week or so of testing of a large group of HydraDocks using updated MacBooks with many 3rd party HDMI and DisplayPort monitors, using the replacement Apple USB-C charge cable, using our updated firmware that has vastly improved Windows compatibility. So, we are also running tests with this setup using a variety of new Windows laptops. All result so far are great. So, we expect to conclude testing next week.

When we have certified the new firmware next week, our factory will schedule the 1,300+ HydraDock units that are still there from the pilot production run to be updated to the new firmware and shipped to us. We will randomly test units from this shipment here using our own MacBooks and monitors. And, if there are no problems (which we expect to be the case), we will ship everybody’s rewards and pre-orders from 2015.

Next week when the new firmware is certified, we will release the mass production orders for the new HydraDock production run and the new Roadie production run. These will take about 5 to 6 weeks to ship, and will effect only those pre-orders placed since January 2016.

And, that will conclude (finally!) the crazy, extended, frustrating post-Kickstarter campaign period of stress and hassle for our backers and pre-order customers and for our team and supply chain.

Thank You!

It has taken us over 10 months of prolonged hassle to accomplish what we originally expected to do in 3 months. We have tried to be as open and informative along the way with all of our amazing backers and pre-order supporters as possible — even when we hit moments where we really didn’t know what the next step would be to move the project forward. We have tried to be responsive to anyone contacting us, and to be as helpful as possible along the way. But, in the end, it is your belief and support and patience that has gotten us all the way to the end of this long process where we can finally see the last steps occurring to get this product completed, rewards fulfilled, and commitments honored.

Crowdfunding a complicated all-new thing is a crazy, wonderful, exciting, frustrating, educational, roller coaster process full of ups and downs and sideways lurches. We are thankful to all of you who have taken this ride with us, and we are grateful for your financial, spiritual, and emotional support all along the way.

It is all of you who have made this happen as much or more as ourselves and our suppliers. It truly has been a team project! :-)

We will continue to advise you about the specific steps and timing as the above discussed steps take place. So, still stay tuned to our updates as we finish off the last few steps and bring this project home.

As always, we sincerely thank all of you for your amazing support!

Ryan, Andrey, Sonya, Mike, Kristin, Forrest, Kathryn, Jack, Michael, Danielle, Jeff, and Jonathan 

The KickShark Team

HydraDock shipping, firmware fix, video issues
about 8 years ago – Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 11:33:58 PM


It's clearly time for an update here, so we are posting this, despite not having much new information to share.

What we've learned is that there are a handful of odd little defects that have effected 1 or 2 users, there are 4 users with a charging problem (which has been determined to be a hardware chip defect), and, there is a major firmware problem in all HydraDocks effecting usability with some HDMI or DisplayPort monitors. Most monitors work fine. Some don't. It is a problem with our video controller/demux firmware not having a wide enough range of negotiated connections to work with some of these other displays.

So, all HydraDocks need updated to the new firmware, starting with the ones reported with actual display problems. A few will need replaced due to a handful of hardware defects — 7 total units from the initial 200 shipped units. All of this will be done from the 1,300+ units we still have in China, the moment the firmware has been updated and installed.

So, what's the timing here?

We’re in the uncomfortable position of having to distill vague reports and promises from our factory into something resembling firm statements to the thousands of people out there now engaged from the backer, customer, and sales channel side of things. There’s a lot of pressure to give the best case, most optimistic guess.

However, we’ve decided to stop leaning toward reporting “best case guesses,” and instead, to give vague worst case leaning estimates… under the “It’s better to under-promise and over-deliver” idea.

The reality is that the “firmware fix” has turned out to involve code in three different chips, and has required engaging the chip makers at those three foundries, and a USB-specific engineering firm, in assisting our factory engineers with the fix. They are saying “a week or two.”

We’re just saying “maybe 2 or 3 weeks." Because, frankly, we don't actually know "what" to say. We are totally at the mercy of all of these people in China working on the problem.

So, this is the most honest update we can give everybody today. Please bear with us as we push through this situation, get it all fixed, and get everybody their products.

As always (with even MORE sincerity) THANK all of you for your continued support!

The KickShark Team