Make ice cubes the 21st Century way – fill with water, freeze and rotate the lid to produce perfect ice cubes with no mess.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
March Update
about 7 years ago
– Wed, Mar 08, 2017 at 06:34:34 PM
Hey there..
Just wanted to give you a heads up on our progress and activities. Sorry for this late update, but it is very busy times.
We have now issued ALL of the design changes, and the production site is catching up with the implementations - preparing for the production of 200 TEST PILOTs for Kickstarter and 100 units for additional testing. We have scheduled a trip to China by the end of March for the supervision of this.
The PILOT TEST production is scheduled for 2 weeks, including in-process quality control and final-quality inspection and test, allowing to ship the ICEBREAKERs to Denmark in the 3rd week of April, and shipping to the TEST PILOT backers in the last week of April.
The first week of May is dedicated to your feedback. And YOUR feedback is important. We want to hear about your impression and experience with the ICEBREAKER. It was YOU who made this project a reality – and is must be YOU who gives the initial thumbs up and tell us if we succeeded, or if you have ideas for improvements. Of course, we have tested a lot, but it is the users' voice that matters.
Based on your feedback, we will allow 2 weeks of adjustments of the design before starting the production of the remaining units for Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. These will then be shiped out of Denmark the last week of June. So, with a bit of luck we make it before the summer!
And even better – I have never used so many ice cubes, since my time in Texas. The ICEBREAKER works so great.
Many of you have asked about how many ice cubes it contains and if it is enough.
I have learned that I almost always empty the ICEBREAKER, whether that being for 1 big glass with 12 ice cubes, 2 glasses with 6 ice cubes in each, or 6 glasses with 2 in each. You easily get the habit of emptying and refilling it.
In addition to the product itself, we are working a lot with the product manual, the quick guide and of course the boxing. Everything is an important part in giving you the best experience. We have also made instruction videos for the use, cleaning and assembly of the ICEBREAKER, and we are excited to see what you thing about these… Hereby the first sneak peek…
And the testing goes on..
over 7 years ago
– Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 09:57:55 PM
We are on schedule with our testing..
Since our last update, we engineered some solutions (the issues found with the thread design), a solution that the factory where able to produce, and new parts was received from China, just before they went on Chinese New Year holiday! That means that we are on schedule to start the TEST PILOT production in March. With the new parts, we are now able to assemble even more ICEBREAKERs and extend our testing.. Here just some status pictures showing the work...
Right now we are doing a lot of reliability testing, including drop testing, leak testing, hot/cold shock and simulation of redundant use at -20 degrees. For that we have built a motorized fixture that activates the ICEBREAKER insider the freezer, to simulate the real life scenario, where you take the ICEBREAKER and dispense ice cubes directly from the freezer, with all the plastic parts still deep frozen.
One thing that is impossible to show on pictures or video, is the touch and feeling you get having the ICEBREAKER in your hand. It is awesome! The product is very solid and the lid has a fantastic smooth feeling. The icebreaking process requires very little force, and the dispensing is as easy as expected, and the ice cubes tumbles down into the glas. It feels like MAGIC!
The following 2 weeks will be heavily loaded with our full testing program, gathering requirements for last corrections before the TEST PILOT are built...
I appreciate your patience - I believe it is worth the waiting :-)
Best regards
Kim & the ICEBREAKER team
It's just like Christmas...!!
over 7 years ago
– Mon, Dec 19, 2016 at 09:17:13 PM
It is Christmas time, and I do not recall that I have ever been so excited as this year.. We are on-schedule with our production, meaning that we will get the very first plastic some time between Christmas and New Year. . I promise to snap it when it happens and share it with you!
These days, and the time until then, we are setting up the quality rutines for production, and developing the test equipment for the Lab. A huge part of quality insurance, is to test and simulate many years of wear and tear of the product in the hands of the users. For that we are developing automated mechanical setups, which are able to apply thousands of usage cycles, in the deep freezer and on the warm terrace..
Lab-test equipment in progress..
We have been detail planning a great deal more, scheduling materials etc, and our best best estimate is that the Test Pilots will be shipped from China the first week of March. We lost a few weeks due to the Chinese New Year in February caused by bad timing with our schedule. Any way - it gives us 2 weeks more of testing :-). Depending on the Test Pilot feedback, the remaining ICEBREAKERs are planned for shipping in April.
The product itself is one thing - but of course the entire go-to-marked package with marketing, videos, photos, graphics etc, are also in the mill now, and we look forward to share this with you a bit further down the line..
That’s it for now - stay tuned, and have a happy season until next time we speak!
Best regards
Kim & The ICEBREAKER team
Now, tell us what you think.. and WIN!
over 7 years ago
– Thu, Nov 24, 2016 at 11:24:57 AM
Hi all,
We are currently undergoing a research project that would help strengthen our online communication with you and the other fans and customers of ICEBREAKER. Therefore, we would like to invite you to participate in a short questionnaire about your online habits and preferences.
The questionnaire will only take about 5-10 minutes to complete.
We would also really like to keep in touch with you through our newsletter.
If you sign up for our newsletter at the end of the questionnaire, you will automatically enter our contest, where you can be 1 of 3 lucky participants, who will win an extra ICEBREAKER!
(The winners will be contacted in January 2017).
We strongly recommend, but also hope, you will share this opportunity with your friends and family. This will help us in becoming even more smart on, how we should communicate with you and everyone else in the future, but it will also give your friends and family the chance to win and ICEBREAKER as well.
Best regards
The ICEBREAKER Team
October Update
over 7 years ago
– Fri, Oct 14, 2016 at 12:31:53 AM
Hi guys & girls, So, we have listened to the comments about the wish to receive more technical updates. Unfortunately, at this point in the process it is not easy for us to provide you with too many technical details, as we will not share too much information with potential competitors and we are also bounded by the IP protection. This does not mean that we are trying to keep anything from you – not at all. We really want to be open and transparent in our communication, but the nature of the project does not allow us to be too technical specific.
We are trying to give you a status in our development process towards manufacturing readiness and we can share with you that:
Our patient backers will be given an extra feature to test. As you know, we originally designed the ICEBREAKER with 12 ice cubes. In the process, we have also tested and experimented with a 6 ice cube solution. These ice cubes are twice as big as the standard, and will be great for great drinks ‘on the rocks’
Our recent tests now verified that the ICEBREAKER can execute with both systems, giving you the option to choose. It is a simple swap between trays. As you can see from the picture, we have been through no less than 4 GENERATIONS of ice cube tray designs to bring us to where we are now. We will ship you both tray solutions in the box, as an extra free feature for you as a token of our appreciation of your patience.
We have worked a lot with the human interface through user-study, in order to make the operation of the ICEBREAKER intuitive through the single lid-interface, which has also shown some interesting and unforeseen challenges. Again, this is still in process, and we will soon be able to announce our new user-interface.
We have also learned through our user-study, that if you do not operate the device correctly it could be damaged, and that is why we are now developing a new feature to break-protect the unit.
We also learned that sometimes the ICEBREAKER gets stuck. We learned that the water expansion can show up on places not expected. So we have worked a lot with the process of how the water is freezing, in order to be in control of how and where the expansion is showing up. A final prototype next week will show us if we have nailed it (fingers crossed).
3D printing is a fantastic tool to test and verify - and we do that a lot. Some things can be tested and demonstrated, other things fail, and we have to validate if the failure is because of the 3D print elements or because of the design. So our prototypes brea a lot, and results in longer turn-around times.
Having Per on board has made a world of difference! Instead of working with external contractors, we now have an extremely skilled mechanical engineer with 30 years of experience to improve the process and who is just as passionate about the project as the rest of us. However, despite the strong resources on the team we still encounter new challenges every time we round a corner – this is just as frustrating for us as it is for you. But it is also amazing to learn so much about freezing ice cubes :-)
Next week we will have our EXPECTED final prototype, showing and verifying that the production start can continue as scheduled!!! Please send some positive energy this way! Our #1 goal is to produce the best possible product, we can all be proud of, and we are confident that we will get there. You are the one that has gotten us to where we are today and you deserve nothing less than perfection!
