Fathom One | The Affordable, Modular, HD Underwater Drone

Our Final Update
about 5 years ago – Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 02:27:20 AM

Hi everyone,

Thank you to all of you for being patient with us and for all of the support. We really appreciate it! We know it’s been a while since our last update, so here we go. 

Sadly, this will be our very last update to you all. We’ve officially run out of money and as a result, have to close Fathom. We’re going out of business.

What does that all mean and how did we get here? Let’s go through it. 

How we got here:

We launched our Kickstarter campaign in the Fall of 2016, and thankfully, with all of your support, were able to have a successful campaign. The dream of making underwater exploration accessible to anyone was much closer to a reality because of your support on this!

After we had received the funds in October 2016, we had developed prototypes and started to work with a development firm that was also a manufacturer. The purpose of using this group was to fill in our knowledge gaps on the product development cycle of the Fathom One and manufacturer the first units. That was our plan that we presented to you on Kickstarter. 

As you all know, in the spring of 2017, we ran into issues that became larger than expected and caused some lengthy delays in being able to manufacturer units. We did our best to keep you all updated on how this process was going and we had a lot of support from you all, even with delays, so thank you. 

With delays occurring and more issues arising, by May 2017, the amount of funds that we had remaining dwindled much lower than expected. We had almost shut down at this point, but were able to partner with angel investors and a business accelerator program that gave us more funds to keep the dream alive. 

During our time at the business accelerator program in the fall of 2017, we found a different manufacturer that was more capable of producing the Fathom One, especially considering we had completed the product development of the Fathom One to a point where it could be manufacturable. 

Without our new manufacturing partner and investors, we would never have been able to ship any units. As such we’re incredibly grateful for their support. They’ve been on a roller coaster ride with us.

By April 2018, we had left the business accelerator program, started to onboard the manufacturer, and received a little more investment money to help propel the growth of Fathom. 

We spent the summer of 2018 producing units with our manufacturer, and revamping our entire marketing strategy to prepare for a full rollout of the Fathom One. We shipped hundreds of units all over the United States and received a lot of feedback from you all which was incredibly helpful as we launched. Thank you for that. 

We opened up ordering the Fathom One to new customers on Black Friday of November 2018 and continued to receive more orders throughout the Holiday Season. 

However, this is when we ran into significant issues. We knew we would have some units come back, but we thought we could offset these returns with more sales and the cash we had on hand. 

The units that we did sell during the Holiday Season ended up coming back to us with faulty components and instead of us making money during the Holiday Season, we lost money with all of the returns and lack of new sales. 

As a result, we came into 2019 with our last chance to bring sales in, but unfortunately could not come close to the revenue we would need to continue as a company. 

These past few months have had us make tough decisions. We don’t take closing Fathom lightly. It’s been a decision that we’ve had a lot of thought and conversations about. 

This past month, we’ve been working on how we can best serve you with what we have left. You’ve been a significant part of the journey with Fathom and we couldn’t have gotten this far without you. Thank you for walking on this journey with us. 

We’re going to try to do what we can, but unfortunately there will be no refunds on anything since there is no more money left. In addition to the debt we owe to some of you, we owe a significant amount of debt to our manufacturer and other contractors. 

We would love to be able to pay everyone back, but there’s not a feasible way to do so. We spent the money taking our best shot at being able to make it all happen. We’re sorry that we couldn’t fully provide the value that we thought we could deliver on. 

Next Steps:

As we mentioned above, there will be no refunds on any items since there is no money to draw from. Even though we don’t have any funds remaining, we still want to do what we can to support you. 

Over the next 2 weeks, we’ll be available through email ([email protected]) for any technical support or questions you have for us. After these two weeks, we’ll be moving on and will be unavailable. As a team, we’ve scrapped together livable wages through side jobs outside of Fathom and that isn’t a sustainable way of living. Additionally, we won’t be answering any threats or emails that we don’t believe will lead to a healthy or helpful dialogue. We’re completely open to civil conversations over email in these next 2 weeks. 

If you own a Fathom One, here are a few notes for you:

The apps will stay available for you to be able to continue to use your Fathom One. The android app will stay on the android app store and will be available there even after we’re done supporting Fathom. If you’re an iOS user, the iOS app is now on the Apple app store and can be searched for as “Fathom Drone”. We recommend you download the app from the app store so you can continue to use your drone. The Testflight app will only be useable for a short while longer before the subscription runs out. Because Testflight is a beta program, once the program runs out, the app will be removed from your device. If you download the app from the app store as you would any other app, it will remain on your device for as long as you keep it there. 

The drones will inevitably die out at some point though. The apps should last through the summer at a minimum. When the apps do not work any longer or your drone does not work, we highly recommend that you dispose of the LiPo battery within the Fathom One. The most we can ask is that you dispose of the drone responsibly. This would mean removing the front cap, removing the LiPo battery inside the unit and having it recycled. There are many battery disposal centers as well as computer repair shops that will recycle old LiPo batteries for a few cents and some townships will dispose of them for free. Please do not throw the entire unit away with battery installed when there are accessible and more responsible ways to deal with battery disposal.

As always, please be careful with the LiPo battery as LiPo batteries can be dangerous if not handled properly. 

Lastly, if you’re still looking to be part of the underwater drone community, we highly recommend working with Blue Robotics. They a highly capable team and have been able to get through more hurdles than we were able to here at Fathom. 

Thankfully, they were willing to work with us and offer a discount if you’re looking for a new underwater drone or accessories. It will last until May 15th.

Blue Robotics discount code for 15% off: “fathombacker” and expires May 15th, 2019. 

Thank you.

We know this isn’t the ending we all wanted, but hopefully you’ve gotten to enjoy some parts of the journey with us. We’ve learned a lot, and were able to take a chance at this dream of making underwater exploration accessible to anyone. We’re incredibly appreciative that you came on this crazy journey with us. We would have never gotten this far without you. We hope you continue to take a chance with new companies that come to Kickstarter and that you don’t lose hope in future Kickstarter campaigns. 

Thank you for going on this journey with us. We hope you all continue to embrace the deep. 

-The Fathom Team

A Quick Monday Update
over 5 years ago – Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 12:41:39 PM

Hi everyone,

Wanted to give a quick update at the start of the week. We were going to send something out on Friday but then this showed up on our doorstep:

 So instead we threw together a quick unboxing video. Not a lot of new details in this, but overall testing has been good. The only thing of note is that due to small differences between our initial units, and those made with final parts by the manufacturer, these new units are slightly heavier. We're talking less than 100 grams (~0.2 pounds). Because of this, these units are a little more negatively buoyant. We won't be making any changes to the drone, but here are two notes on this difference.

(1) We do not want to risk any delay while trying to make this perfect. The drone sits very balanced in the water right now and any adjustments to the internal weights have a huge effect on submersed devices.

(2) In our experience it can actually be easier to pilot the unit after seeing the bottom of the lake/stream/coast etc. flying an underwater drone regardless of who makes it, can be difficult without any reference points to go off of. The bottom of the body of water is often one of the best references to go off of. The Fathom One also has a natural tendency to swim upward as well, so you'll be able to avoid scraping along the bottom, and engaging the rear motor while moving forward can keep you level while moving straight ahead.

Anyways, here's the video, and we're off to a busy week.

-The Fathom Team

A Quick Friday Update
over 5 years ago – Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 02:07:05 PM

Hi everyone,

We wanted to follow up on a comment from previous update and give a really brief update at the end of the week. There's not a lot to report other than that things are going smoothly and that we expect to have our first 100% finished units next week! Just a reminder if you need to update your address, and have not done so on your own or contacted us to change it please do so, we'd rather avoid shipping drones to the new residents at your old address. 

You can update your address here: 

https://fathom-one-the-affordable-modular-hd-underwater-dr.backerkit.com/

 It's not totally done, but here's a first look at an assembled Fathom One minus the white front cap (We promise, it's not pretty on the inside once it's been potted).

Have a great weekend everyone.

-The Fathom Team

Manufacturing Update #5
over 5 years ago – Thu, Aug 02, 2018 at 07:21:05 PM

Hi Everyone,

You may have seen a short update in the comments we made at the end of last week before heading down to visit the manufacturer. Thank you for your patience as we traveled earlier this week. We had a great visit and there’s a lot to talk about so let’s jump in.

As was mentioned, we had a visit scheduled on site with our manufacturer at the beginning of this week, the goal of which was to answer any final questions and proactively clear up any potential areas of confusion surrounding assembly before they could become issues. We also hoped to pot a few drones but for reasons I’ll get into, we weren’t able to get that far. Potting the drone is just about the final step of assembly and involves pouring a two part hardening foam into the Fathom One’s body. It’s a step that gives the unit incredible structural integrity (enough that you can stand on a drone without issue) but there’s also no going back. I’ll get into how we are ensuring quality during this step later in this update. Regardless, we were able to answer a few lingering questions and clear the path for a confident assembly process.

At the time of writing a quick comment last week, we had received all but two major components of the Fathom One build, namely the smart chargers, and the motors. First up, the chargers. Included with these chargers are the cables that connect to the circular charging plug on the bottom of the Fathom One. These connectors have four wires that connect internally to the balance leads of the LiPo battery, which in turn correspond to the three cells within that battery. Obviously it’s imperative that the wiring scheme for this is correct, and being that as it is, we wanted to wait until these cables arrived and could be validated. It also meant we waited to install the connector into the bottom of the Fathom One, and with no connector in the drone, there was no way for us to pot it. These chargers arrived yesterday, just missing our visit, but the manufacturer is in the process of checking the quality and will be able to move forward soon.

The other set of components we were waiting on was the brushless motors. We’ve been going back and forth for a few weeks trying to nail down a delivery date with the supplier, but they have been evasive. Fortunately we just received a shipping confirmation a couple days ago, so the motors should arrive within roughly a week. The good news here is that because the Fathom One is modular, we can assemble the hull of the drone without having the motors. It also means that prep work with the motors can happen in parallel.

There are a couple steps of prep work happening with the motors that we may have mentioned in passing that will ideally improve to their longevity. One step is a conformal coating on the motors that will help repel the rust and buildup on the motors that eventually leads to degradation. The other step involves replacing the stock steel bearings in the motors with ceramic ones, another line of defence against corrosion. As soon as the motors arrive we’ll begin working on this process in parallel with other parts of assembly so that the motors are ready to go when the body is. It bears repeating here, as we have mentioned many times, that proper care of your drone will be crucial to keeping it running well. This means rinsing it off after use to clear saltwater residue or other debris, drying it to the best of your ability after use and before storage, and any other precautions you would take with a piece of tech that is used in harsh environments.

We are also waiting on masks for painting the front cap of the F1, but luckily these aren’t crucial for any step of assembly. They’re basically stencils that will keep paint off the front lens while we paint it, and can be removed afterwards, leaving a crisp line. These need to be die cut, but should be arriving from a local shop in Grand Rapids by the end of next week. Again, this step won’t hold anything up because the front cap can be attached separate from the rest of the body assembly.

Now a quick update on subassemblies. These are the steps that will make final assembly of the drone much quicker as they can essentially be “dropped” into place. Here are a couple examples:

Shown in this picture is a set of PCB assemblies. These have been wired up to a part of the front assembly which includes the LEDs and the Lens cover. This will take several steps out of the final assembly process while also allowing a quality check that I’ll touch on later.

Here we have one box of many full of Fathom Wifi Links. This is less a subassembly and more a finished pieces ready to be tested and shipped out.

One more subassembly involves the Fathom One hull itself, and is the pre-installation of ESCs and pressure sensors. We’ve got boxes and boxes of Fathom One hulls that each contain 3 mounted ESCs and a pressure sensor in the back. With these installed, we’ll cut out the steps that precede wiring these components to the PCB, which will make sliding it in place much simpler.

Now a quick update on our manufacturing quality checks and how those will be performed. Of course we want to make sure each drone that gets sent out has each part of it’s assembly tested, but we also want to be able to identify problem areas should the arise. To do that we’ve implemented multiple quality checks throughout the build. For example, we tested each of the LED assemblies, identifying 4 out of the batch that were bad, and fixed them. We’re also testing all of our charging cable assemblies. In the example below we’ve rigged up a test that validates that each wire in the charging cable has a strong connection and is soldered in the correct order.

Related to this, we’re also testing all the tether connections. There are quite literally miles and miles of tether in the picture below, and to test each of the wires individually would be about as maddening and inefficient as finding a blown bulb in a set of holiday lights. Because of that we’ve created a similar rig to the one in the video above that will test each of the wires at the same time, allowing this check to take place at roughly 10x the speed.

We’ll also be checking purchased components such as the smart chargers that recently arrived for functionality. In this instance it will involve steps like power cycling and confirming major functionality (i.e. their charging capability).

Lastly we’ll also perform multiple holistic integrity checks on the drone. These checks will validate the various features of the drone such as orientation feedback, motor control, LED control, camera feed, and camera quality. These tests will take place both prior to and after potting the units so we know everything still performs at 100%. We’ll also do a system check before packaging that will ensure that each drone, tether, and wifi link all work in harmony.

That about covers everything related to our trip to the manufacturer, lastly we want to give an overall update on shipping. With everything in mind, we’ve discussed with the manufacturer and fully believe assembly will begin within the next week and shipping within the month. We’ve made similar statements before that have burned us and we’re working on not overpromising, but things feel different this time. During our visit this week we saw the raw materials for hundreds of Fathom One units, and just as many drones beginning to take shape. We have everything in stock needed to start assembly, and the couple stragglers mentioned above are being tracked and should be arriving soon.

As a quick reminder, if you have moved and need to update your address, please use the following link to do so. You can also use the link to check which address we have on file for you. You will have to log in with the email address associated with your Kickstarter account.

https://fathom-one-the-affordable-modular-hd-underwater-dr.backerkit.com/

A small number of you may be unable to update your address. This may be the case if we’ve previously shipped you a shirt and had to freeze your address for that shipment. If you run into this problem just shoot us an email with your updated address and we’ll take care of it manually.

Managing this stage of the manufacturing process is a full time effort. If we don’t respond to you immediately or miss comments, please know our attention is likely devoted to making sure this process runs as smoothly as possible. If something is pressing you can always email us and we’ll get back as soon as possible.

We want to thank you again for all the support along the way, it’s what motivates us to provide something you’ll love and we couldn’t do it without you.

We’ll be back soon. 

-The Fathom Team

Manufacturing Update #4
almost 6 years ago – Thu, Jun 21, 2018 at 11:50:56 AM

Hi everyone,

After a quick visit to our manufacturer last week we wanted to give an update on everything we learned. Let’s dive in!

We visited the manufacturer at the end of last week with the main purpose of checking sample plastic parts and hopes of approving them. Right off the bat, the good news is that everything looked great! We were able to give final approval for these parts and give the greenlight to the mold house to produce the parts. We have a tentative ship date for those pieces of July 9th. Allowing for transit time of those pieces, we expect to have them in house mid-July ready to be assembled. In the meantime, we’ve kicked off several of the pre-assembly steps so that, to the best of our ability, we’re ready for final assembly when the plastics arrive. We’ll detail a few of those pre-assemblies later in this update. 

You'll notice in these pictures that the front of the Fathom One is clear, we'll be painting it white in a future step. Originally we would have liked to do a process in molding called a "two-shot" which would have allowed us to have a clear lens surrounded by white plastic (see graphic below), however we were advised by the mold house that they could not guarantee a water proof seal with a two-shot mold. Rather than risk it, we went with the safer single shot route you see here.

A quick aside. We mentioned previously that we expected to begin shipping by the end of June. While we’re off by a couple of weeks, what we’re trying to communicate is a narrowing ship date. We are pushing as quickly as possible but there are still steps out of our control. For example, our visit to the manufacturer took place a couple days after they received sample plastic parts. We were in the building within days to give approval, but no matter how fast that happened, time zone differences, shipping logistics, and manual labor are outside our control. When we received the sample Fathom One circuit boards, we had validation and approval done within the afternoon, but it still takes time to build the entire batch. There are often times when we plan ahead as much as possible and then find ourselves on the edge of our seats waiting for a task to be completed or a component shipment to arrive. Regardless, we will continue to complete everything within our control as quickly as possible and push our partners and suppliers to do the same. You have all been incredibly patient and we thank you for that. Alright, back to the update.

During the visit we also checked over a few other parts of the Fathom One build like the electronic speed controllers (ESCs), printed circuit boards (PCBs), the brushless motors, and testing rigs. This is where much of our pre-assembly work is focussed.

First up are the ESCs, these are basically small interfaces that allow us to control the motors in the Fathom One. Each motor is connected to an ESC, so three ESCs per drone. Normally, we have these sent as custom units to us from the supplier. Typically they come preloaded with Fathom firmware, have wire leads that are longer so that they can reach the thruster connection points, and have hardware installed that allow them to be physically connected. Unfortunately the supplier sent these to us stock, meaning no firmware, short wires, and lacking connectors. The good news is that for the past two days we are able to work through flashing the software to each individual ESC and will be sending them all back to our manufacturer in order to attach longer wire leads and connection hardware.

In our last update we mentioned validation of our PCBs. We received a few sample boards off the line a couple weeks ago and worked to verify their functionality. Picture the PCB as in interface between the Fathom One’s computer and everything that gets plugged into it. In earlier models connecting the battery, motors, lights, etc., meant a lot of tedious work. With the PCBs we’re able to make this assembly process much faster and simpler to follow, a hugely important factor when making a large number of units. We were able to validate these boards within an afternoon. This is also what brought ESC issues highlighted above to our attention, allowing us to get a jump on the solution.

The motors are another component that were also delivered stock, rather then customized for the Fathom One. Part of our assembly process involves ruggedizing these motors so that they are better prepared for saltwater environments. Please note they are better prepared not invincible. After using the drone in saltwater, it is still best to rinse it thoroughly with freshwater, just as you would any other piece of gear you use in the ocean. We’ve kicked off this preparation for the motors so that once the plastics arrive, all that will need to be done is install them in their thruster housings.

As we’ve said many times, testing rigs and procedures will be a huge part of drone validation so that we know everything is working well before they go out the door. We’ve continued to work with the manufacturer on several rigs that will allow great consistency with building, streamline the software validation to one or two steps, and verify the health of the LiPo batteries in a single measurement, something that used to involve four measurement steps.

One last preassembly step is loading the each drone's software onto their internal memory. We’re working on this currently and plan to send all of these back with the updated ESCs next week.

Finally a note on shipping address updates. Originally, we were anticipating having to manually update each address. Manually entering multiple addresses is both a tedious and error prone process, so you can understand our reservations surrounding that undertaking. The good news is that after speaking with Backerkit representatives, most of you should be able to update your own address using the link below. You will be asked to login with your kickstarter email address. From there you will either be taken to a page where there is an option to update your address, or you will receive an email with a link to the same location.

Click this link and log in with your Kickstarter email to update your address.

https://fathom-one-the-affordable-modular-hd-underwater-dr.backerkit.com/

That’s all for now. Again, please check out the link above to update your address if necessary and let us know if something doesn’t work.

-The Fathom Team