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OpenCV AI Kit

Created by OpenCV

Open Source Spatial AI From The Biggest Name in Computer Vision.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

It's Modelplace.AI Launch Day!
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 07:05:21 AM

Hello again, OpenCV AI Kit community! Today we have some great news. We’re proud to announce the immediate public launch of Modelplace.AI, the AI Model Marketplace by OpenCV. The site aims to fix many of the issues we see within the AI industry today, specifically: model discovery, model testing, and integration.

Modelplace has a great drag-and-drop interface for testing every model on the site, making it easier than ever to try out models on your own unique data. At launch there are dozens of models available, with many certified to work on your OAK devices by our custom-built continuous integration system which tests on real OAK hardware. We provide cloud APIs for all our models, and downloadable Python wheels for some of them.

You in the community were among the first to be let into the beta version of the site (see the previous post) and your feedback was essential to getting us this far. Thank you! We’ve put together a short launch video to commemorate the occasion:

We hope you’ll continue to use this new service for years to come, and we’d love your help spreading the word by sharing and discussing Modelplace.AI all over the internet. Here are some of the places the team will be watching today, drop in and ask any questions you have:

Modelplace co-founder Anna Petrovicheva will also be the guest on this week's edition of OpenCV's Weekly Webinar. Register to attend for free: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83231402214

Thank you again for your time, attention, and enthusiasm. We hope that Modelplace will supercharge your OAK projects, and we can’t wait to see what you do with it.

OAK-D-WIFI Does Not Include an Enclosure
almost 3 years ago – Fri, Jun 04, 2021 at 01:41:13 AM

Hi Everyone,


There seems to be some confusion about OAK-D-WIFI including an enclosure.  And we're getting heat about it.  First off, sorry to who we have disappointed here - OAK-D-WIFI does not include an enclosure.  


Second, let's look at some of the heat: 

Comment on OAK-D-WIFI not including and enclosure (and about delays)
Comment on our poor performance of the KickStarter and lack of enclosure on OAK-D-WIFI

So the root cause of this frustration was violating KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid.  I decided mid-campaign to not just make the design files for OAK-D-WIFI, OAK-1-POE, and OAK-D-POE and open-source them - as promised by the stretch goals - but to allow these as a purchasable option in the campaign.  So this took the team from making 2 devices and shipping them during the campaign to making 5 devices, with the latter 3 all being significantly more complex than the 2 promised in the campaign.

That was an exceptionally dumb decision on my part.  

We delivered ~10,000 or so OAK-D and OAK-1 to the shipping company in December of 2020, so had I not made that dumb decision, this would have been the conclusion of the campaign.  Nice, neat, and WAY less confusion.  But instead, I decided to allow purchasing of these OAK-D-WIFI, OAK-1-POE, and OAK-D-POE which are wholly designs - and are exclusively what is being talked about here in terms of being late/etc.

So had we kept the campaign to what was promised - only OAK-D and OAK-1 - this all would have been shipped in December 2020.  

But to the comments of us not making clear there is no enclosure on OAK-D-WIFI.  We're not perfect, but we definitely tried to make this clear - so I want to share some of what we tried to communicate, below.  

OAK comparison table showing which models have which features

To try to make clear that OAK-D-WIFI model is the only one that does not include an enclosure - we made this graphic to highlight that.  We made this in response to folks missing our text-descriptions of this.  

And in case this was missed, we also included this as a note in the survey, which required each and every backer to check "I understand" to:

Every backer had to literally check "I understand" acknowledging OAK-D-WIFI does not include an enclosure

We tried to allow self-selection here.  To allow those who absolutely want an enclosure to choose a different model.  Want an enclosure and want it ASAP - regular OAK-D was the choice.

In addition to this, we also did updates to make clear that OAK-D-WIFI will not include an enclosure. Example here on January 21st, but there are many others.  Text copied from one of them:


"So, we abandoned the idea of stuffing all this into the OAK-D enclosure, and went back to the most-popular form factor from the voting during the campaign (which got 55.7% of the votes).  So unfortunately, this means no included enclosure for OAK-D-WIFI, but we will work to make a new enclosure design as an accessory (as popularly requested)."


We are working to make said enclosure as an accessory.  But the mechanical engineer who was working on this had a life situation come up and was not able to continue working on it.  So we have been recruiting a mechanical engineer to do this, and one is starting next month.  So this will not be available any time soon - as the engineer needs to join (in a month), then do the design (a month) and then do necessary tooling and production (3 months).  But we'll try our best.

And to the question of why folks weren't told.  In addition to the above, I actually personally emailed every single backer (on January 27th) who chose and OAK-D-WIFI, linking to the update that makes clear (again) that OAK-D-WIFI does not come with an enclosure.  I did this because it seemed like the updates about OAK-D-WIFI (including that it does not include an enclosure) were not being read.  

This was an email entitled "OAK Stretch Goal (WIFI, POE) Hardware Shipments" and came from me personally, and reminded the backers who had switched to these stretch goal models that they would ship later, and linking to the specific details for each (OAK-D-POE, OAK-1-POE, and OAK-D-POE), which, as above, again details that OAK-D-WIFI will not come with an enclosure.  

So to one of the questions above: "If it WAS such a problem...why on earth was I not contacted and told - 'If you want WiFi, we cannot provide a case".

I literally did that.  I sent him a personal email about this.  I sent everyone who switched to OAK-D-WIFI an email with a link that explains this about OAK-D-WIFI.

So then this goes back to the question of "Why didn't you anticipate that people would be so upset about not including an enclosure?" and "Shouldn't that have been obvious?".

It's super obvious now.  

And anything we do in the future will just include an enclosure as standard.  We learned this lesson the hard way.  We get it now.

But it was hard to know this to start with.  An example of which is below:

Our main campaign image - no enclosures here.

This is our campaign image.  Every campaign image shows these bare PCBs actually.  The campaign received $1 million of backing for bare printed circuit boards above.  And it was only past $1 million where there were going to be enclosures for those two models. 

So it was just a shock that folks would be upset about a lack of an enclosure - given that the whole campaign itself was about two boards that don't have enclosures.  And images of them were so prominent in the campaign and the video.

That and the Raspberry Pi for example started with no enclosure - and relied on the community to supply enclosures.  And in fact it wasn't until over 3 years after the the initial Pi release did the Pi foundation release their own enclosure (Feb. 29 to June 2015, here).

Had we known what we know now, we'd for sure go back and make different decisions.  But hindsight is 20/20.  We can't undo that.

So despite all the above, we're just refunding anyone who is unhappy with their OAK-D-WIFI.  As we want any of our customers to be happy with our products.  

"I would not have waited around a whole year for a barely realized product. To add insult to poorly planned injury..."

We're on a mission to bring this technology to everyone, and make it readily accessible so that it can maximally do good in the world.  E.g. here.  Comments like that hurt.  

And what does "To add insult to poorly planned injury" even mean?  It certainly comes off as vitriolic - that's for sure - but does it mean that we intended to injure that person but didn't do a good job injuring the person?  

And the thing he's talking about on that is the Azure training credits that we secured for everyone - which were a bonus.  And could be used before hardware arrives.  And the OpenCV team is working to extend them nonetheless.  Despite the delivery - we're taking the point (which was a good one) and executing on it to make sure these are extended.  

But more importantly, I want to bring up that it's a ton of personal sacrifice to try to make something like this -- to try to do something that matters.  There have been many Friday's where team members have worked until 7am on a Saturday - through all of Friday night to the morning - to make things right for customers.  And then continued straight through the whole weekend.  

Yes, in retrospect, maybe we should have made this with an enclosure or nothing at all.  But more importantly, we should have only allowed purchase of OAK-D and OAK-1 in the campaign - which was the original promised - and both of those did come with enclosures.  But we're people, we make mistakes, and we're doing our best to make it right.  Had we not made that mistake, all of this confusion and complaints would have vanished.

But back to it:  

In comments like these, there's a lot going on that's not discussed.  To just name one: Shipping prices have gone up a TON since we did the campaign.  And so have duty-processing fees/etc.  

Shipping cost for OAK-D-WIFI shipments.

We did not come back to backers to collect more shipping, or to collect more tax.  We just ate it.  That's $75.87/shipment, average.  The commenter above, his shipment was HKD986.92.  That's $127.20 USD in shipping costs.  When we launched the campaign, the shipping costs were well under half of this, if not a third or a quarter.  We went the extra mile and just absorbed this.

And this is ignoring the chip shortage that we worked around to deliver these, where we ended up paying $14.70 for per NOR flash on these for a part that's normally $1.40 - just so we could make these and get them out to everyone.  That's just one of the components we had to either pay huge fees to source, or do redesign to get these out.  And all of the components took _forever_ to be delivered (hence the delay, more on that here, and an accurate tweet on it, here).

And keep in mind this is the same set of supply chain issues that caused Ford, Subaru, Chevrolet, and others to have to halt production, to just name a few.  They don't do this lightly.  The whole market is a mess.


"It took that much time to layout the traces and tack on an Espressif SOM. Not a good showing."


So in making comments like that, it's focusing on literally one aspect of so many things, in a vacuum, removed from everything else.  There are countless other examples of us doing our best to make it right.  Paying way extra for components.  Doing redesigns from scratch.  And all sorts of other efforts.  And this is of course ignoring all the times we tried to make clear that OAK-D-WIFI does not include an enclosure - the table showing it, the survey that literally requires every backer to check "I understand" to the sentence that says that OAK-D-WIFI does not include an enclosure, many updates, and me personally emailing these updates to the backers who had selected OAK-D-WIFI.

But anyway, almost everyone gets this.  And appreciates it.  And I would like to thank everyone who has backed us, and who has remained positive and provided support.  That's the vast majority of you.  It is super appreciated.  We recognize and appreciate your thanks.

So if most people get this, why am I writing this long post?

The reason I'm writing this is that the hard part about comments like above, is that if left unchecked,  others feel progressively more authorized to go on the attack.  To be disrespectful, dimunative, condescending, inappropriate - and outright mean.  And no one has an idea of how far it will go.  As on comment spurs on the next commenter to be more aggressive.

So this leaves that awful feeling of "Well, what is going to be said next?".  How vitriolic are the posts going to be?  How far will this trajectory of each post being more aggressive than the previous take the discourse?

But anyway, just let us know if you'd like a refund on your OAK-D-WIFI.  We will go on the honor system on this and just refund you. 

Thanks again,

Brandon





OAK-1-POE and OAK-D-POE Update - Shipment Delayed to July
almost 3 years ago – Sun, May 30, 2021 at 10:05:51 AM

Hi everyone!

This post is purely about the OAK-1-POE and OAK-D-POE status.  (If you're waiting on an OAK-D-WIFI, they're all shipped, see here.)

TLDR:

  •  OAK-D-POE is scheduled to finish production in mid June.
  •  OAK-1-POE is scheduled to finish production in late June.

What does this mean for ship dates?

  • We've learned the hard way that it takes about a month for product that arrives at a shipping partner, to leave the shipping partner.  
  • So if this holds, we're looking at 
  •  OAK-D-POE shipping in mid July and 
  •  OAK-1-POE shipping in late July.

From our previous two experiences, it seems to take about 30 calendar days from when our product arrives at a shipping warehouse for it to actually get shipped to backers. So even though OAK-D-POE and OAK-1-POE will both be finished in June, and likely delivered to the shipping warehouse also in June, it is extremely likely that these won't start shipping to backers until mid- and late- July, respectively.  

Why is OAK-1-POE delayed further than OAK-D-POE?

OAK-1-POE is going to have to have its tooling changed because there's an internal collision.  This falls under the category of "no good deed goes unpunished".  See below:


Internal Collision on OAK-1-POE

What happened is that from our initial prototypes, the number one feedback was that folks wanted a way to mount OAK-1-POE via the back of the enclosure, instead of just via the 1/4-20 "tripod mount" on the bottom:

OAK-1-POE Initial Enclosure Design Without Back-Side Mounting Holes

This initial design only had the 1/4-20 mounting hold on the bottom:

Original OAK-1-POE with only 1/4-20 Mounting Hole on Bottom

So we made the change, which is what caused the POE models to be delayed in the first place, both OAK-D-POE and OAK-1-POE, as noted in the March update here.

In changing the design of OAK-1-POE to add the mounting holes below, we didn't notice we had made an interference between the Ethernet jack and the back of the enclosure.

OAK-1-POE with Mounting Holes on The Back of the Enclosure

And specifically, here is the interference:

The addition of the rear mounting holes resulted in an interference with the RJ45 connector of the OAK-1-POE that we did not catch.

So we're now changing the tooling to fix this issue, raising up the PCBA in the enclosure, as above, to prevent the interference.

As usual, we'll keep you all updated.

Thanks,

Brandon

1,777 Shipments in Progress, 1,660 In Transit to Customer
almost 3 years ago – Sun, May 30, 2021 at 10:00:30 AM

Shipments of the "OAK-D-WIFI" batch of shipments

1,592 OAK-D-WIFI In Transit; 233 Processing at Warehouse
almost 3 years ago – Sat, May 29, 2021 at 07:40:40 PM

Hi everyone,


It looks like as of this morning, 1,592 of the 1,835 (mostly OAK-D-WIFI) shipments went out.  

OAK-D-WIFI (and some OAK-D and OAK-1) Shipment Status

We're all super excite that these are on their way out.


We expect that the remaining 233 will go out tomorrow, assuming there are no surprises.  Many of you (who ordered OAK-D-WIFI) should have now received a tracking number.  The remainder of OAK-D-WIFI backers should get a tracking number tomorrow (if all goes well).


Thanks,

Brandon