Dear snickerdoodlers,

Here’s an update on production schedules and (future) pricing…

snickerdoodle - The PCBs are officially “in process!” We haven’t yet received an official delivery date, but barring any unforeseen issues we expect it to be sometime in early/mid October. All the required parts are either received, on their way, or on order and scheduled for ‘on time’ delivery.

As previously mentioned, we’re building these first units in waves and working on exact release schedules for everybody. We should have this all nailed down in the next couple weeks.

An important Note on pricing

Beginning October 1, we’ll be updating our pricing as follows:

• snickerdoodle: $89/99 (connectors up/connectors down)
• snickerdoodle black: $139/149 (connectors up/connectors down)
• breakyBreaky: $39
• piSmasher: $99 (see below)
• giggleBits: see below
• all other accessories: unchanged

(We will also be moving to snickerdoodle + baseboard “kits” / “bundles” and adding a couple more accessories like wall warts and antennas once the new pricing is up. Note: today’s pricing - through the 1st - will still be the most competitive, regardless of the kit pricing.)

As far as the sub-$70 snickerdoodle goes, we are still 100% committed to keeping snickerdoodle as accessible as possible. Along those lines, we are expecting to announce a ‘spec-lightened’ version of snickerdoodle in October (available early 2017), so stay tuned for that. Note: none of this will impact any existing orders (i.e. any orders placed before October 1, 2016).

The “app” - The iOS Beta version has been officially “released” and is undergoing rigorous testing (by the Alpha team). We’re exploring how to get this ported to Android in a reasonable timeframe and will keep everyone posted on the progress there.

breakyBreaky - These should commence production next week and are scheduled to line up with the snickerdoodle builds.

piSmasher - Some exciting news here…

After taking some time to mull over the current piSmasher design and thinking about new applications and features going forward, we’ve decided to modify (see: upgrade) the design a tad.

• HDMI in/out and Gigabit Ethernet will remain intact.
• We’ll be adding a USB 2.0 hub and a second USB 2.0 jack.
• We’re also adding 3x 3.5mm audio jacks: stereo line-in, stereo line-out, and headset (mono microphone + stereo headphone outputs).
• J9 and J10 will be eliminated and the 50 unutilized FPGA I/Os (JC1 and JB1) will be broken out on 2x Samtec 40 pin TFM headers instead of 0.1" pitch square pin headers (50 for snickerdoodle black, 25 for snickerdoodle). The TFM headers will be able to selectively provide 5V at up to - 2A on pin 1 instead of the 3.3V from the snickerdoodle in case you want to run some servos or any other accessories that require 5V. This will be combined with a convenient way to mate and securely attach small accessory mezzanine cards to the piSmasher.
• J2 supervisory I/O on the snickerdoodle will be fully brought out to a 30 pin TFM to allow access to all of the ADC/DAC, power, I2C and bluetooth audio pins found there.

We did have to nudge the price up a tad, but all in all this will truly be the ultimate Pi Smasher… Note: anyone with a piSmasher on order will receive this upgraded version at no additional charge; we’re working on the final delivery schedule now and will keep everyone posted.

giggleBits - We have a new plan. Instead of dedicating an entire baseboard to software-defined networking - and in conjunction with the aforementioned piSmasher upgrades - the new plan is to accommodate this by way of an ‘add-on card’ for piSmasher. This add-on card will have 2x GigE RJ45 jacks and will plug directly into one (or two, if you want 4x GigE) of piSmasher’s Samtec headers…which are tied to FPGA pins. So you’ll have 1x GigE going to the processor and 2-4x GigE going to the FPGA.

We’ll be reaching out to giggleBits customers in the coming weeks to nail down the details, but this should satisfy everyone’s SDN desires. Updates to the campaign page coming soon…

cookieJar - Got the SolidWorks machine back up and running again. Still some work to do on this one…

copperHead - Good to go!

SD cards - Good to go!

Jumpers - In process/good to go!

Housings/Headers - Good to go!

To provide a little background on the pricing changes: we unfortunately - and frustratingly - weren’t able to come to terms with all of our silicon vendors after hours / days / weeks / months of lobbying on behalf of the community. This - in addition to needing to accommodate distributor margins (incl. Crowd Supply) - is the sole driver of the price increases.

We are continuously working on driving down costs without sacrificing quality by maximizing production/supply chain efficiency and increasing component integration, and we promise to always provide you with the most competitive and compelling professional-grade development platform available. We have plans for adding all sorts of extensions to the snickerdoodle ecosystem as we come across more and more applications, and making the core building block as widely adoptable as possible is the best way to achieve this.

Along those lines, we’re interested in feedback - positive and negative - and input on the pricing, product, approach, etc., so please don’t hesitate to reach out with your comments at hello@krtkl.com.

More updates to come in a couple weeks…

Kind regards,

the krtkl crew