Timeline + production update 
The countdown is on! Only 2-3 weeks remain until we will be shipping a total of over 500 packs of our passiflora formulation to our Pioneers. A huge thank you to all the members of the sofi team who have worked tirelessly over the past few months to make this happen, and an even bigger thank you to our Pioneers for your patience and ongoing support!
As of this week, we can confirm that we will be shipping passiflora formulations in two waves. The first wave, estimated to go out on the week of the 11th of July, will consist of 250 Refill Packs to our S1 Pioneers, and the second wave (taking place the week after) will contain the Starter Packs, including the latest version of our sofi stick, to be shipped to each our S2 Pioneers who currently don’t have a sofi stick. *Please note that shipping time will vary depending on where in the world you are.
To give you some further visibility on where we are: 
- Formulations - Our three brand new flavour variations are decided (and yes, it will be a total surprise for most of our team members too)! Unlike our S1, we are now mixing our flavour extract oils with our passiflora extract in-house, and we hope to have some images of this coming very soon as both extracts arrive at our sofi labs on the 4th of July.
It has been a journey getting the passiflora harvest to the right extraction and we even had our extraction partner who has for over a century worked in this space have a rare incident during transportation that meant the entire batch had to be re-extracted. This set us back four weeks, but we know they have worked tirelessly since to reduce the time-delay impact, for which we are all extremely grateful. There is also an important lesson here: just ‘cause you have done something for a century doesn’t mean you can take your eye off of things for even a second (gravity can do a lot in one second)!
- Electronics - Our S2 sofi sticks have undergone extensive testing and are all ready to go. One of the new features we are thrilled to be introducing in the updated firmware for our S2 Pioneers is the addition of time-stamped sprays. Now, instead of requiring the app to be open and for the stick to be paired before each and every spray, our S2 sticks will capture data on the time and quantity of sprays for us and store that on the sofi stick and sync it whenever the stick sees the app. For S1 Pioneers using their original sofi sticks - you will indeed still need to have the app open before each spray, but thankfully we have no doubt you are all pros by now!
We also believe we identified the power drain on the S1 circuit - and it was not the continuous bluetooth pinging that we had suspected but part of the solution that we are using to sense the bottles. We have changed these electronic components on the S2 sofi circuit and will be watching them carefully as we expect that this change could easily extend the life of a sofi stick two to three times its current performance.
We again had an interesting challenge with the electronics as the sofi circuits are designed to print on 0.8mm thick boards and for some reason our supplier decided to offer them on 1.2mm boards. One might think - well what’s 0.4mm of difference?… Unfortunately, considering how tight the space is at the top of the sofi stick, the answer is a lot! So our incredible mechanical engineer is individually adjusting and chiselling back each of the circuits to fit - we are in awe of his excellent dexterity and control, but this again carried for us a one week time penalty!
By the S3 Pioneer Program all existing pioneers will receive brand new sofi sticks with rechargeable lithium cells (so no more batteries), latest electronics package (extended life) and updated firmware (including storing time-stamped spray data locally on the sofi stick). But for the S2 Pioneer Program existing S1 sofi sticks will have to maintain their app open for the sprays to register at the right time (i.e. when the sofi stick and the sofi app have a live connection and you can see the main app screen counting down when the formulation is sprayed). We also ask our Pioneers to make sure they have spare CR1632 batteries at hand. The original S1 sticks, as our existing Pioneers know, were much more power hungry and used to go through the small watch batteries every week. Our expectation is that the S2 sticks will sip energy much more gently, so that one or two spare batteries should be sufficient for the entire S2 Pioneer Program.
- Hardware - The production for the sofi sticks is also complete, and the metal and plastic components are awaiting assembly in the sofi lab. You’d be surprised how such minor changes to the structure of the pods and sofi stick can result in such big challenges for hardware development. Thankfully, we managed to pull them off and can’t wait to see what you think. For more on the updates in our hardware development, make sure to check out the following thread: S2 | production & improvements
P.S. it seems that in the matte vs shiny debate, matte was the finish of choice - commiserations for those wanting shiny sofi sticks! But we promise we will finish them beautifully so everyone loves them equally.
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Bottles - our formulation bottles, aka “plant pods” are on their way! We expect to begin filling them just as soon as our formulation extracts arrive and can be mixed.
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Packaging - Our packaging is complete thx to the talented @J and are on their way to our sofi labs in Liverpool. Click here to check our packaging out, and learn more about how our re-use of empty plant pods will work.
As production reaches completion, now is the time to really ramp up our baselining efforts, and establish a journaling routine. Push notifications are also available to be enabled if you haven’t yet!
We are truly blessed to have such an amazing, intelligent, and empathetic community here with sofi, and it’s unbelievable just how excited we are to be launching the second real-world trial of our plant-based remedies. We sincerely hope they pave the way to permanently better sleep and calm for all of us.
xx