Pre-Order Update: August 2025

Pre-Order Update: August 2025

by My Store Admin

This update, directly from founder, Jean Simonet, has been adapted from the communication shared with our Kickstarter Backers and contains transparent, detailed information about Pixels production. Some details may have been adjusted to focus on Pre-order info vs Backer Rewards. These updates are published at the end of each month and will continue to be re-published on the Pixels Blog with information relevant to Pre-order customers.


Dear Backers,
 
I’ve just returned from four weeks on the floor of our production facilities in China, where I was working through some of the fixes and optimizations I mentioned last update. Being onsite always makes a difference: what would normally take days of back-and-forth can be solved in a single day at the factory, and this trip was no exception.
 
 

⚙️ Production & QA

The headline from this trip: we worked through a backlog of 15,000 dice that didn’t pass QA. That number alone is a reminder of both the scale of this Kickstarter and the manufacturing challenges we continue to navigate at volume.
 
Of those 15,000:
 
  • 5,000 dice were reactivated using a “cold charging” process. (Yes, we literally chilled them before charging—90% woke up.) 
  • We expect another 3–4,000 to be resolved over the next few weeks. 
  • The rest will likely be scrapped. While the factories will bear the cost of those, we’ll bear the time lost, which is the more painful side of things (for you and us both).
To give you a clearer picture: during my stay, we encountered and addressed 44 different QA issues ranging from cosmetic defects (bubbles, polish problems, impurities) to electronics failures (delayed activation, LED misalignment, charging inconsistencies). Each die type and colorway brings its own quirks. A D12 in Onyx Black can have very different problems than a D00 in Aurora Sky, and even batches of the same type sometimes behave differently.
 
This isn’t meant as an excuse. It’s context. And I’ll continue to share it, because I know many of you are still waiting and deserve to understand what’s happening behind the curtain. A deeper dive is below if you're interested.
 
 

🔧 Optimizations in Progress

Beyond QA, we pushed forward on several important improvements, which I’m not ready to detail fully just yet, but here’s a preview:
 
  1. New casting process – with fewer QA issues to begin with. 
  2. Large charging case updates – addressing both reliability and usability. 
  3. Packaging updates – to streamline fulfillment once everything is ready to move. 

     

📦 Shipping & Timing: January

The piece we’re still waiting on for full sets is the large charging case updates. That process will take another two months, followed by another two months of freight (thanks tariffs) to reach the U.S. and our fulfillment partners globally (which are still being finalized).
 
That means the large batch shipment we’ve been preparing for cannot realistically happen before January 2026.
 
I know this isn’t the news you were hoping to read in this month’s update. It also isn't a guarantee, it's a goal set with multiple variables in play, including global trade economics continuing to impact fulfillment costs and timelines. Like so many times along this complex go-to-market journey, the message is the same: progress is being made, but slower than any of us would like. I’d rather set realistic expectations in this update, now, than offer false hope, especially through the holidays. 


 

🕵️ QA Examples

If you're curious about the details of what we're working through in production, I'll share a few here:
 

QA Issues Identified

  1. Exposed Coil
Sometimes the workers over-sand/polish the dice. When this happens on the bottom face, it can expose the charging coil, and often break it. This unfortunately is a death sentence for that particular die. While mishaps on other faces can be corrected, it is virtually impossible for us to repair the coil.
  1. Ink bubble issue
a fairly common occurrence, smalls bubbles tend to form when either the paint or UV paint dries. this issue is usually fixable though.
  1. Laser Issue
sometimes fixing an issue means repouring one of the faces and using the laser to re-engrave the number on it. and sometimes that goes wrong as well.
  1. Settling Issue
the colorways that use glitter can have issues with settling.
  1. Weird Pattern
     
I honestly have no idea what causes this. I couldn't replicate this pattern if I tried.
 
Thank you for reading, and for your patience. At this point, these aren’t easy updates to write, but I believe the best path forward is still the most transparent one. I remain fully committed to getting every last reward into your hands.

Looking ahead, I also want to reiterate, if only to restore a small sense of hope and excitement from those most concerned, that Pixels has a strong future beyond fulfillment. Partner collaborations, new product ideas, and feature build-outs are lined up and ready to move forward once backer rewards are complete. While it may not ease the wait if you’re still without your set, I hope it's worth restating that half of our 25,000 backer orders have been fulfilled, mostly singles, and the feedback on those dice has been consistently positive. Progress has never stopped. The wait is ongoing, but so it the magic of this product. Thanks for sticking with us. 
 
Warm regards,
 
Jean Simonet
TAGS: Annoucement