Surprise Feature: Portable Mode
over 8 years ago – Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 11:05:42 PM

We thought we would share a cool discovery with you from playing with the HydraDock sample we have here last night.

Our product specification was for the HydraDock to only operate when powered by an external AC power adapter — plugged into the end female USB-C port — initially, of course, for the MacBook's Apple power adapter. It was 100% for fixed location desktop usage.

That was our specification.

Last night, we were testing USB ports, and got an unexpected "you are using too much USB power" pop up warning on the MacBook. We looked. And, we were using the HydraDock WITHOUT the MacBook's adapter plugged into it. It was operating from the MacBook's internal battery.

New Portable Mode

After some research and further testing, here is what we can report. Although we did not intend for this to work, the USB 3.0 Power Delivery Specification (to which we 100% conform) and all PD compliant chips support bi-directional power delivery. This means that by engineering a 100% standards compliant product, we accidentally benefit by being able to use the HydraDock without a power supply — powered by the connected computer's internal battery. "Portable mode."

The limitation is that total power is capped at 900mA of current by everything plugged into the HydraDock. Beyond that, and you get the aforementioned pop up warning about too much power being requested over USB.

What This Means

This means you can take your HydraDock with you and use it anywhere without the Apple power adapter — so long as you don't pull more than 900mA of current from the MacBook. That's more than enough power for the mDP or HDMI jacks, headphones, and a couple of normal USB devices, or the SDXC card reader, Ethernet... just no heavy power consuming devices like bus-powered hard disk drives (or USB coffee warmers...) that draw enough current to make the total exceed the 900mA limit.

Not bad for a completely unintended feature. :-)

Mike, KickShark Team

Backer Opinions Needed Please
over 8 years ago – Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 11:39:53 PM

Hi everybody! The team has tasked me with explaining a couple of ideas we are exploring here, and asking all of you if you would share your opinions with us, please?

1. Follow up campaign. It seems that after a really long, distressing delay, we are ramping up into high gear here with the HydraDock. We will receive, test, approve, and video the final fully functional production sample sometime over the coming week. While not yet firm, the factory has said that they are looking at December 15 to 20 as a mass production date. And, we will ship all rewards to our Kickstarter and BackerKit backers from that first production run.

The factory also tells us that scheduling a second production run for the January 15 to 20 timeframe is available, and has asked us for a quantity commitment for that second production run.

As unlikely as it seems with the massive delay we have had, we will still be the first and only USB 3.0/USB-C multi-port hub or dock in the world to (a) show a working product, and (b) actually ship a product. So, we would like to pursue this market advantage.

At the moment, because all of the money and much more that has come in from crowdfunding has already been spent to get the initial 1,500 piece production run done, there is no money here to then go ahead and do a second production run. The only way we can do it would be with a second crowdfunding campaign — specifically for the second production run in January.

If we do this — a new campaign — we want to be fair to everybody who got us here: meaning all of you. Our Kickstarter backers came in from $99 to $139 for the HydraDock. Our BackerKit backers have come in at $169. And, all of you will receive your HydraDocks from the December production run.

The retail price of the Hydradock is going to be $229. We are thinking to do a new campaign for the January products and offer an early bird reward at $169, and a regular reward after that at $179. That gives those new backers a nice price break, but does not undercut what all of you have paid.

Doing a new campaign is the only way we can scale into new mass production. We would like your thoughts on this idea, and, your reaction to the rewards pricing we are considering. HydraDock and this opportunity would not exist without you, so we do not want to offend or hurt or upset any of you by our actions.

2. A next product. Because we developed the whole 11-port product initially, we have all of the circuitry and firmware and knowledge to quickly now do a next product with any subset of any of those features. We are thinking that there is a need for a small portable hub, along the lines of Apple's Multipart Adapter, but with a USB-C charger input, a connector cable to the MacBook, and two USB 3.0 ports and Mini DisplayPort on the product. And, we've built a schematic and are working on a circuit board layout for that product.

If we did a HydraDock Portable product like this, our cost would be around $40, informing a normal suggested retail price of about $169. However, since we're going to be online only with the HydraDock, we would stay with online only with the smaller product, so could do as we've done with the HydraDock and set a more reasonable retail price — say $129. We could run it on Kickstarter at an early bird of $89, and an ongoing pledge of $99, and have it all make sense, as our development cost will be much, much less than we have already spent.

So, what is your opinion of this product concept? A USB-C power input port. A short cable to connect to the MacBook USB-C port. Two 5gB/sec. USB 3.0 Gen 1 Type A ports. One Mini DisplayPort port. It could run connected to the MacBook charger. Or, it could run only plugged into the MacBook, and be powered from the MacBook battery for true portability. Retail $129. On Kickstarter at $89, and then $99.

Should we do it? Are we missing a better set of ports for such a portable product? Please share your thoughts? We could include or not include any combination of the ports on the HydraDock: USB 3.0, USB-C, SDXC slot, HDMI, mDP, Ethernet, audio. What minimal combination makes the most sense for a little portable hub?

We respect all of you, and we respect Kickstarter. We are a new program with ambitious plans, all involving Kickstarter. So, we want to go overboard in our efforts to communicate and share and participate in "the crowd," and to always go to whatever length needed to respect our backers.

So, we want to hear what you say. New campaign? New product? :-)

Please keep all of your replies on these topics here in this comment thread, so we can all see the whole discussion.

Thanks so much for your help!

Kristin, KickShark Team

Spanning, Closed Lid, And Resolutions
over 8 years ago – Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 11:06:11 PM

We received a message from one our backers letting us know that his work mate wasn't convinced our video showing the HydraDock Mini DisplayPort to LED Cinema Display connection was actually real — because we never dragged anything from the Cinema Display into the MacBook display. So, here is a quick new video showing just that being done, as well as another closed lid operation. (forgive the quick iPhone video...)

Display Resolutions

The HydraDock reads an attached display's EDID signal, and looks for the indicated resolution in a lookup table of supported resolutions, for both the Mini DisplayPort jack and the HDMI jack — and generates an EDID for that resolution back to the MacBook. Our factory sent along the below list of supported resolutions and refresh rates for HDMI and Mini DisplayPort when connected to a 2015 Retina MacBook, so we thought we would share.

HydraDock supports the following HDMI resolutions:

• 1024x768 @ 60Hz 
• 1280x720 @ 60Hz 
• 1280x768 @ 60Hz 
• 1280x800 @ 60Hz 
• 1366x768 @ 60Hz 
• 1440x900 @ 60Hz 
• 1280x1024 @ 60Hz 
• 1600x900 @ 60Hz 
• 1400x1050 @ 60Hz 
• 1600x1200 @ 60Hz 
• 1920x1080 @ 60Hz 
• 1920x1200 @ 60Hz 
• 2048x1152 @ 60Hz 
• 2560x1080 @ 60Hz 
• 2560x1440 @ 30Hz 
• 2560x1600 @ 30Hz 
• 2560x2048 @ 30Hz 
• 2800x2100 @ 30Hz 
• 3200x2048 @ 30Hz 
• 3200x2400 @ 30Hz
• 3440x1440 @ 30Hz
• 3840x2160 @ 30Hz 
• 4096x2304 @ 30Hz

HydraDock supports the following DisplayPort resolutions:

• 1024x768 @ 60Hz
• 1280x720 @ 60Hz
• 1280x768 @ 60Hz
• 1280x800 @ 60Hz
• 1366x768 @ 60Hz
• 1440x900 @ 60Hz
• 1280x1024 @ 60Hz
• 1600x900 @ 60Hz
• 1400x1050 @ 60Hz
• 1600x1200 @ 60Hz
• 1920x1080 @ 60Hz
• 1920x1200 @ 60Hz
• 2048x1152 @ 60Hz
• 2560x1080 @ 60Hz
• 2560x1440 @ 60Hz
• 2560x1600 @ 60Hz
• 2560x2048 @ 60Hz
• 2800x2100 @ 60Hz
• 3200x2048 @ 60Hz
• 3200x2400 @ 60Hz
• 3440x1440 @ 60Hz
• 3840x2160 @ 60Hz
• 4096x2304 @ 30Hz

As always, we thank you sincerely for supporting our adventure!

The KickShark Team

Closed Lid Mode. Shipping Cables-Only. Tech Comments.
over 8 years ago – Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 06:28:57 PM

Here is a quick video showing connecting the HydraDock to a MacBook, and then closing the lid. We've had lots of questions about this. So, here is the answer. :-)

Cable Only Pledges

We have also had regular questions about why we are not shipping the 12V car cables and the iPhone adapter cables to people whose pledge was only for those products. We had a team meeting this morning, this topic was raised, and, the truth is we really don't have a reason. We've been so focused on the Big Product, that we have been irresponsible with this subset of about 60 backers.

We're sorry we've screwed up, and we will begin shipping these out on Monday. The fact is that they have been here in boxes for 3-months, and there is just no possible excuse for not having shipped them. We apologize, and will get them on their way on Monday and Tuesday!

Note that this includes both Kickstarter backers and BackerKit backers who only asked for the cables, not the HydraDock.

Technical Comments & Tests

There is another project on Kickstarter that, frankly, blew our campaign away back this summer with a product claiming impossibly small size, impossible performance, at an impossible price. We knew it instantly, and told Kickstarter. Kickstarter responded — by making that campaign a Staff Pick. Since then, with nearly a million dollars in backing, that project has turned out to be a failure — most recently by claiming that they just couldn't get the silicon to implement Mini DisplayPort and USB 3.0 Gen 1 (5Gb/sec.).

Please look at the  below screenshots of an LED Cinema Display working at 2,560x1,440 60Hz resolution, connected to a HydraDock. The info shown is the USB connections, showing the fully USB 3.0 Gen 1, 5Gb/sec data path within the HydraDock, and the Gynesis Logic and VIA chips that make that happen. Obviously, these chips exist. And, both companies would be happy to sell them to this other project. Anyway... screenshots:

We are more than sorry — appalled, actually — that we had the catastrophic problem with our HDMI video demux chip and this project effectively stopped for over 3 months while we waited for the fix. But, the existence of the needed chips was never a problem — for us, or for that other project.

Next Tests

We ordered a pile of little USB-C + USB 3.0 reversible flash drives today that will arrive tomorrow from Amazon. We'll plug one into all 6 USB ports on the HydraDock, run some diagnostics, and post a video tomorrow or Saturday.

Recall, we still only have the first test unit here (with some firmware issues with HDMI, SD slot, and USB audio), so can't do the full barrage of tests and videos yet — not for another week or so when the final unit comes in. But, we're posting what we can now.

This Is Hard Work.

Building a 100% new product from scratch for a completely new standard — making it 100% standards compliant, without shortcuts — for which only a few brand new components are available, and for which no mature firmware exists, and no reference schematics exist, no circuit board designs exists, and where no OEM "kits" exists, is the most profoundly challenging task in the whole electronics industry.

That's what we decided was the right thing to do back this spring — knowing the cost and effort we were committing to face. And now, months later, here we are — days away from showing the final product, and a few weeks away from everybody who gambled on us actually getting the world's first, state of the art, fully standards compliant USB-C multi-port hub. :-)

As always, THANK all of you for your support!

The KickShark Team

Everything Works
over 8 years ago – Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 10:33:11 PM

Our factory has just emailed that they have chased down and solved all known functional issues, and that the product works 100% in thorough testing. They have ordered a final approval board, and will assemble and ship a final approval HydraDock sample to us "within a few days."

We thought we'd share the news. :-)

The KickShark Team