Wish: The user manual (LED color meanings)

[Oliver]

btw @unfoolishly: the blink every 10m that you're suggesting could quite possibly use more power than the Bluetooth connection staying on, as we've discussed before - the LED uses a lot more power than BLE!

Also, to answer one more question I saw somewhere in your many many words:
the "red and green" that you saw is actually supposed to be yellow. Unfortunately the casing design with the two "signal lines" fits a little too well with the placement of the individual LEDs that are supposed to mix to a more uniform color. So one line shows more green, the other shows more red. This is a little better or worse on each individual Unleashed.

[Oliver]

As I mentioned before, While possible, this would be a HUGE (therefore expensive) change in Firmware and both Apps, for a very very very small target group! The fewest of our customers use more than one Unleashed, and even fewer have more than one of the same camera, and even fewer of that sub-group have an issue with which camera is which. In fact, you're the only one that has mentioned anything about it, ever! ;-)

[Andy]

I understand your problem and I see your point, but I don't see how any of this would be fixed by changing LED sequences.

We did think about a name setting for the Unleashed a couple of years ago, and in fact that's already half implemented in firmware, but there were always other issues with higher priorities.

We have plans to introduce a new "Unleashed Settings" screen in the near future, where one could change LED intensity, GPS timeouts, etc, so maybe we can squeeze the naming feature somewhere there. In any case, as I said, we have other topics with higher priorities.

In general, things that require UI/UX design and development take a lot of time and are therefore expensive. That's why we have to prioritize these things. I think you will be happy about our priorities when new features finally get released :)

[Andy]

Oh, and by the way, I started working on a "rough" user manual. Quite detailed, but quite rough.

It's written by me, so it will be a detailed manual from an engineer's perspective, which I expect to be useful to Unleashed users. However, it will be rough in the sense that it will be text-based only, no fancy images, no design, no PDF, etc. It will probably be released online in the near future once it has enough useful content.

For a nicely designed, user-friendly, easy-to-understand PDF manual, you will have to wait. The stuff I'm writing will probably serve as a good base for that one though, so it's a step in the right direction.

[Unfoolishly]

As I mentioned before, While possible, this would be a HUGE (therefore expensive) change in Firmware and both Apps, for a very very very small target group! The fewest of our customers use more than one Unleashed, and even fewer have more than one of the same camera, and even fewer of that sub-group have an issue with which camera is which. In fact, you're the only one that has mentioned anything about it, ever! ;-)

Then I am the best tester you have around. I have a sharp eye for details! ;-)
Greetings,
Unfoolishly

[Unfoolishly]

I understand your problem and I see your point, but I don't see how any of this would be fixed by changing LED sequences.

That is only for the user, so that the user sees some activity as long as he/she intents to use it that day. Example: walk around in Paris, turning ON/OFF/ON/OFF/etc the camera for a photo moment now and then. The user could set in the App to fully timeout (let the Unleashed go to state "fully asleep") after 4 hours. In the mean time it knows by the blinking of the LED that the Unleashed is in "sleep mode" (still listening for BT signals). But its just a suggestion I made. Maybe you have an even better idea?

We did think about a name setting for the Unleashed a couple of years ago, and in fact that's already half implemented in firmware, but there were always other issues with higher priorities.

We have plans to introduce a new "Unleashed Settings" screen in the near future, where one could change LED intensity, GPS timeouts, etc, so maybe we can squeeze the naming feature somewhere there.

That would be a great idea, because to me mentioning the type of Unleashed (N1, N2, C1, C2) in the App adds no real value, next to the camera name itself. It is only useful when you have different camera types. Most users do have different camera's, but I just have the "luck" to have 3 of the same type :-)

In any case, as I said, we have other topics with higher priorities.

In general, things that require UI/UX design and development take a lot of time and are therefore expensive. That's why we have to prioritize these things. I think you will be happy about our priorities when new features finally get released :)

Yes, I do understand that good UI/UX design is hard and thus expensive. I have seen some crazy UI/UX designs in my career already. And mostly those designs were made by die-hard C/C++ programmers... And you know what that means... not user friendly at all!

Maybe you could do a design contest among your Unleashed users and set some prices to win for the best UI/UX designs (on paper), like a free Unleashed, free Entagged, free [fill in other product], coupon for products of another company (Rollei, Sirui, etc)? You will be surprised what your users can come up with helping you in design... It's just a suggestion.

Greetings,
Unfoolishly

[Unfoolishly]

Oh, and by the way, I started working on a "rough" user manual. Quite detailed, but quite rough.

I think that anything is better than nothing. And I am sure that users will provide feedback about the online manual, even when you think it is "complete". It will never be perfect, but you do learn from the ways users seek for information in the manual. Some users have a very creative mind of their own and are looking for ways to use the Unleashed to make it do something with the camera you probably never thought of but is technically implementable. I am not saying you should implement it, but you do learn from those creative customers!

The most details I am looking for in a manual are:
- setup and configuration (getting started. NOT: getting frustrated ;-))
- what does this mean (like: LED blinking)? (information / feedback from the App and hardware)
- how do I....? (instructions)
- why isn't this working? (troubleshooting)
- interfacing with other appliances / accessories (like which GPS devices are supported and how to get it to work (interfacing)
- updates, both the App and Firmware. And how to stay updated. Not everybody is highly technical ;-)
- copyright information (which fools wrote this? ;-))

And I am sure many customers look for other information as well.
You have already provided a lot of this kind of information in blogs, videos, forum posts. Maybe it is a good idea to just "copy/paste" them into one single online HTML document?
Just put a warning above the page: ***DRAFT ONLY. Information is subject to change without written or verbal communication. Check versioning table for updated information details. All rights reserved. No (legal) claims can be made from the information provided here. DRAFT ONLY***

Greetings,
Unfoolishly

[Unfoolishly]

Hi All,

Do you have an ETA for when the user manual is (finally!) released? Is it going to be at the end of this year (2020) or is it going to be in the beginning of next year (2021)?

I certainly would like to have the manual available with the next major release... if possible (no pressure!)

Greetings,
Unfoolishly

[Oliver]

no, but we're actively working on it, so there's a good chance it will go up with the next release.

[Unfoolishly]

no, but we're actively working on it, so there's a good chance it will go up with the next release.

Thumbs up (and fingers crossed ;-)) !!!
Keep up the good work!

Greetings,
Unfoolishly