Last chance to get your Launch Special price for Cura
about 2 years ago – Tue, Apr 19, 2022 at 11:51:32 PM

Hey Pico Squad!

Hope you are having a wonderful spring day!

We are back with some updates for you, plant lovers. 

Last week we announced the launch of our 5th campaign for CURA–your complete plant care solution. 

And we were so excited seeing so many of you joining our new campaign as backers. 

This is the highest level of trust and love we’ve ever got. 

This means that you not only loved our CURA, but trusted us Altifarm in delivering the next best product for your plants.

If you haven’t ordered your CURA yet, we have good news. 

In a couple of hours the prices for CURA will go up. However, there is still time to purchase it at our LAUNCH SPECIAL 50% discounted price until tomorrow 23:59 PST (just 14 hours from now). 

 So if you were planning on purchasing it, don’t miss your chance.

By the way, did you know that CURA is a perfect device not only for your plants?

Except for LED lighting CURA also had RGB ambient lighting for your fun evenings with friends and family. 

How cool is that?

We’d really love to see you on our page and hear your thoughts on CURA.

Yours, 

Arun and the Altifarm team

CURA is Live Now! Turn any corner of your home into a garden!
about 2 years ago – Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 11:57:11 PM

Hey Pico Squad!

Hope you all are enjoying the spring onset 🌻🌞

First, a few words on PICO Max fulfillment-

We have commenced assembly of the transparent units and shipping will begin momentarily. There's progress on Microgreen packs and Battery shipping as well. We estimate around 80% of shippable orders would be fulfilled by the end of this week.  ODA (out of delivery area) and unfulfilled surveys to be addressed on a case-to-case basis. Our support team is manning the direct messages/ comments and addressing queries proactively.

----------------------------------------------

As stated in the update last week,  our big reveal is here– CURA!

And now it’s live on Kickstarter! This means you can check it out and ORDER YOURS!

At Altifarm Enverde, our journey began with the home farms for growing fresh produce - Altifarm and Herbstation. Then, PICO and PICO Max were created to make gardening fun and easy.

With CURA, we're switching up your plant game. Now you can grow anything at home- starting from decorative plants to herbs and salads, fruits, and vegetables, without limitations of how, where, and when.

How can CURA help you with that?

It has four main components

1. CURA LED grow lights with presets for every type of plant.

2. CURA PUMP Automated watering system

3. CURA App to control your CURA devices

4. Selection CURA mounts to grow plants anywhere you want

This is our 5th campaign. Each campaign taught so many things about plants and their care. And more about people who do, and their pain points.

And that helped us immensely in creating CURA.

We would love to see you on the CURA page, hear your feedback and see you among our backers there.

Don’t miss your chance to order your CURA with Limited Launch Special Rewards. And there is more- back us within the first 12 hours and get a 1-year warranty for your CURA for free!

See you there!

Arun and the Altifarm team

Shipment Status Tool & More
about 2 years ago – Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 03:07:11 AM

Hey Pico-Squad

Here's a brief update. Since the last one, we have shipped hundreds of more PICO Max and PICO to all of you, and we hear about a lot of deliveries every day.

We made this tracking number fetching tool to make it easy to check the status of your shipments if you don't have them already.

https://picomaxshipping.altifarm.com

All tracking numbers are from FedEx. 

Further

• Transparent samples have reached after mold texturing and this will commence production on Monday.
• Orders with Microgreen kits are also expected to commence shipping next week.
• We have reached out to many backers with FedEx ODA (out of delivery area) for alternative addresses and unfilled Backer-kit surveys.

We are handing over 90-120 units per day to FedEx and the last of the shipments would be handed over next week.

If you have any questions on tracking or specific order information, please write to [email protected]

 🤩Something Is Coming 

We have our Spring surprise for this year getting ready to launch soon.

Stay tuned... more info soon.. 

Keep It Growing!

Shipping is coming to a close!
about 2 years ago – Fri, Apr 08, 2022 at 07:52:45 AM

Hello Pico-Squad

What's growing on 😉

We've been hustling away to get the last batch of PICO Max and accompanying PICOs and accessories to all of you.  While shipping commenced as a trickle in mid-February, it has picked up steam in March. We reckon that a huge chunk of orders have been delivered already, while others are in transit or in the shipping queue.

Some snips of the process...

Here's a TikTok Unboxing by a bubbly friend of ours...

Thanks for your kind words of appreciation post-delivery. We appreciate every share on social media and every DM sent to us. Our team has put a lot of work to get the product shippable and your positive feedback motivates them further.  

While we had built and shipped over 55,000 units of PICO during and after the lockdown, PICO Max was a different animal to tame. The chip shortage and resulting component shuffle along with firmware revisions made a mess of the shipping schedule.  Nevertheless, we are glad that  Max is overwhelmingly loved and appreciated by backers who made this happen. 

For mass production, we have been thinking of launching a PICO Max 'Basic' model without the lower control unit, dimming function, and battery compatibility - just a bigger PICO at $79. Once the supply chain is sorted we might launch the 'Pro' model at $99. 

What do you think? Please let us know in the comments.

More info...

1. We commenced production of the transparent units this week. While the transparent PICOs look amazing, the bigger Max could use a better finish and we went to mold making factory for improved texture. We shall let you know soon when this begins to ship.

2. Microgreen seeds are expected to clear some regulatory paperwork this week. Orders with seeds to EU were held up at our end for this. Orders with seeds to NA were shipped without them and seeds are to arrive separately.

3.  Batteries are yet to begin shipping from China, to reach you directly by post. There were delays due to the Chinese New Year, followed by a slow response from vendors. We are testing early samples and making decisions based on our testing.

4. All other colors except the transparent ones are being shipped and all the other accessories and add-on packs are included in the package.

5. Around 195 backers are yet to complete the Backer-Kit survey at https://picomax.backerkit.com. We urge you to do so if you haven't yet.

6. We've been shipping exclusively with FedEx this time.  Shipping has been insanely expensive until recently but we hope to get more slots, as India has resumed international flights first time after the pandemic. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/after-two-years-regular-international-flights-to-resume-from-sunday/articleshow/90464492.cms

7. Tracking numbers are sent to registered emails from the FedEx portal as packages are labeled. In case you haven't received the same, please write to us at [email protected] for quick updates on your shipment.  

We have more updates and surprises planned ahead...

Keep it growing🖖

Team Altifarm

Shipping Commences; Pico at CES
over 2 years ago – Thu, Jan 20, 2022 at 12:03:18 AM

Hi Pico Squad

How are you all? Before we jump into shipping info, some other news.

PICO at CES!

We had a booth at CES 2022 in Las Vegas, where we created a magnetic wall with PICO Maxes and PICOs. Our leadership team was at the venue and they were excited to meet at least two dozen PICO users who randomly walked in. Besides, every third person knew about the product through Kickstarter and this was very heartwarming. Our products were covered by international media and we got plenty of inquiries from several countries for partnerships and distribution.

CURA is here!

Prototypes of our upcoming CURA platform were exhibited in order to gauge the response and this was a smash hit. CURA offers 360 degrees of plant care and is unlike anything else in the market. More on this soon..

PICO MAX shipping commences

As informed earlier, we had shipped 500units to 3PL partners at Walpole, MA, and to the Netherlands. These are being shipped out to early backers, beginning next week. More units are being shipped out from Mumbai directly, from next week.

Production status

We had completed 100% of all the plastics, rubber, telescopes, rubber, and all other custom-made components. Also, the entirety of the imported components barring batteries is ready and available with us.  We had to take a pause on PCB production due to firmware and proximity sensor mismatch, resulting in a pause in PCB assembly.

Firmware Issues Resolved

We had planned to ship during the holidays and were on track. During testing we found inconsistencies in the functioning of the proximity sensor, which was responsible for the automatic dimming of LED grow lights. Pico Max has the first auto-dimming function in the entire industry and we were super proud of it. However, due to the chip shortage and resulting mix & match of components, as explained in the previous update, led to incompatible firmware/software combinations and this led to weeks of testing and troubleshooting. It could not have been shipped in the previous state. We have now resolved this. 

Delay in this update & slow response on comments

While our leadership team, who usually frames the updates was away, our operations team in Mumbai was out of action due to COVID. The entire team was down and we had to keep operations to an absolute minimum. Even during the first and second waves of the pandemic, we were fully operational and we'd shipped 50,000 units of original Pico during the lockdown. However, the last 3 weeks saw every single team member going under the weather. This led to a communication breakdown between 3PL partners and order fulfillment. Everyone is now safe and is fast recovering.

We apologize for the delay in shipping and lack of communication and will strive to do better.

More shipping updates would be shared in comments and emails in the coming days.

Thanks again for your support

Team Altifarm