Okay all, we’ve kept you all in the dark about as long as possible. Many of you have been long awaiting details on the promised P8 and Jr., but the truth is, we canceled both the P8 and Jr. programs back in July. No kidding.

We actually went in a new direction – far beyond the original scope of the Jr. and P8. In short, we’ve created the “second generation” RadioPopper system – two new transmitters and two new receivers – a complete redesign from the ground up we’ve been furiously developing over the past six months.

It’s now finished. Oh yea!

We’re thrilled we have a user base checking here daily for an update and it’s been killing us keeping the story from you all this time.

When the P1’s took off, we were already keeping a list of the various improvements we would build into a future “second generation” RadioPopper unit. We added user feedback of obvious fit and finish improvements, but we were also trying to vastly improve the technology under the hood with the radio and electronics. We didn’t expect any significant redesign to come to market until summer or fall of 2010.

But there we were in June of this year, about to give the go-ahead for a production run and certification of our P8 and Jr, which were by that time fully developed and ready for production for an easy release date in August as originally planned.

As we prepared to write the checks, we realized how far we’d moved on our re-design list. We’d proven that some various advances of the technology were possible in controlled test, but we hadn’t considered actually putting them all together anytime soon. At a lunch meeting that went well into the evening, we broke it all down – filled some notebooks and set a challenge to deliver our 2010 re-design by the end of 2008. It was massively ambitious but we got to work.

Which brings us back to our very loyal user base – we hope you’ll forgive us for keeping you all in the dark, but we were trying some pretty radical new stuff and didn’t want to create expectations over ideas that weren’t proven. It’s been a long wait, and you haven’t heard much from us, but we think you’ll find it worthwhile when you see what we’ve got behind the curtain

(more after the jump)

The Second Generation

We are very proud to announce the second generation of RadioPopper. We’ve completed a total redesign of the P1/P8 into an all-new unit with similar purpose and function. We’ve also completed a second generation Jr. unit much improved from the original Jr. plans from last summer. The new Jr. keeps the original spirit of the project in delivering a high quality simple trigger system in one of the least expensive options currently on the market. As both new systems were developed together, they share the exact same advanced radio, and all the new units now work together to create an incredibly flexible lighting control system. Want to mix manual strobes or studio lights with advanced ETTL/iTTL including groups and ratios? Now you can, and that’s just the beginning of what will be possible with this new system.

The new collection of units are part of our long-term future plans to create a “family” of units that all play nicely together, and each is designed as a “hardware platform” allowing us to roll new features and compatibility into the existing product with a simple software update, while allowing the design of future products to remain backward compatible. Software upgrades will be available to unlock more advanced features as required by the individual photographer.

These new units are “sick”, as has been described by the few photographers who were preview to the design process. One notable photographer having a name you’d certainly know said “this is going to turn the whole thing on its ear – again”.

We had some great feedback on our P1 units and we feel we’ve addressed every single suggestion brought to us. Some biggies include elimination the optic and tape on the receiver as the units are now small enough to attach directly over the sensor on your flash, as well as allowing easy battery access (yes, with your fingers – no tools required) via the front/top of the unit so many users won’t ever need to remove it from the flash.

We’ve rolled in a list of incredible new features, massive improvements to the current technology, longer range that will blow your mind, as well as design of a certain ‘scalable’ nature to the system which includes close integration with the new Jr. unit allowing for mixing of units to create complex new lighting setups.

We were able to design systems on paper far faster than we could actually bring them to market, so you can expect even further expansion of the new system in years to come. We’re serious about advancing this technology and making your life as a photographer easier. We’ve filed five new patents over the past year – hitting complex flash communications, directly interfacing the camera, and integration by radio – much relating to ETTL/iTTL and High Speed Sync by radio, but also going several major steps beyond into the world of interconnecting devices in ways technology is just beginning to make possible.

Friday December 12, 3:00 PM Pacific

It’s been crickets here on the blog, but it’s been a very exciting six months for the team here at RadioPopper. We are very excited to share all the details. Come back here to the blog on Friday December 12, at 3:00 PM Pacific time as we pull back the curtain. We’ve got a significant press release lined up. You’ll get all it all – details, images, pricing, ship dates, etc.

It’s Christmas Time / Dates:

Given your patience this long, we will share our best estimate of ship dates on these new second generation units before the official press release.

Many of you are asking about availability of new units for Christmas. We expect our first large stock of the new P8-like units on December 17, but it’s looking doubtful all the paperwork for the radio certification will be official by then, and as this will be the very first production run, we need to account a few days to deal with any last minute details, anything that may be askew with the delivery and so on.

We’ve been working in a fury over the past two months to try and start shipping all the new units the second week of December. We were right on track but there was a month long delay added to delivery of a key component from the factory. (One of our electronic components is itself brand new and just started production in September of this year). We’ve got them now and future supply looks good, but it held up the production run as well as pushing back the certification process.

All of our new units are now in testing / certification and we have every reason to believe they’ll pass right through. The new P8-like unit is in production right now and the parts for the Jr-like unit are due at the production facility by December 20.

Given the time the industry shuts down around Christmas, we expect to ship the revised P8-like units to customers in North America the second week of January. We should also have stock available to hand you for purchase if you’re attending PPA Imaging USA and / or DWF Convention here in Phoenix.

They’ll start the production run of the Jr.-like units as soon as the facility re-opens from New Years, which will probably yield a customer ship date about the second week of February for customers in North America.

Pricing will be released on December 12th.

P1 / Trade-Up / Notes:

If you like your P1’s and were waiting to upgrade to P8’s, then your going to flip out over the new stuff. Maybe in more ways than one. Those who purchased or will purchase P1 units were promised there would be some sort of trade-up program offered when the P8 was available, as the “P8” is now a “P-not-gonna-be” you’ve got some obvious questions. Rest easy.

All current P1 owners will be offered a substantial credit toward the purchase of the new re-designed unit for the return and credit of their current P1’s – an offer we think you’ll find quite fair. Details of this program to be released on the 12th.

Anyone who purchased P1 units since October 12, 2008 will simply have to pay the difference in cost between the new units and your purchase price of your P1 units to upgrade, and of course that offer extends forward until shortly after the release of the new units.

So if you’re considering purchasing P1 units or require them for any events leading up into the holiday season – you can be sure you won’t be out anything by ordering P1’s so close to the release of a follow-up product.

We still have what we estimate is just enough stock of P1’s to get to mid December, but we may run thin just before Christmas given a spike in volume near the holiday. Units usually ship the same day for orders placed by 3:00 PM Arizona time.

Shipments to Europe and Australia:

Many of you have been waiting patiently for a year or more on the other side of the pond. The short story on that is the P1 units probably will never be exported to Europe or Australia. There is a technicality in one of your laws that we’ve found difficult to find a consensus on between the various government agencies involved. Rather than continuing to pursue what seems to be a never-ending paperwork process, we have taken specific steps to design our new second generation units such that there is no question on this matter. We now expect the new units to pass the required testing and certification quickly and easily.

We expect to be shipping to EU and Australia about six weeks following each North American ship date. We are also already in discussions with various dealers which will hopefully make the units available for direct purchase in local shops quickly after the ship date.

European Frequencies:

Some web forums have a buzz with discussion and speculation about RadioPopper units in Europe related to the European GSM cell phone system. A note to clear a few things up:

In North America we have a frequency band from 900 Mhz to 928 Mhz called the “ISM” band which allows operation of devices such as ours with minimal restriction. It happens the GSM cellular system in Europe also runs on this frequency – but that’s okay. In Europe, there is a separate “ISM” band (they call it “SRD”) from 863 – 870 Mhz. All European units will operate in this 863-870 band that will not conflict with the GSM phone system.

“Deleted” Blog Posts:

Over the past few months we’ve received a lot of comments on our previous post essentially asking for updates on progress. When placing a comment on the blog it is held in moderation – you will see it on your own screen after entering, but it will not be public until approved. If you come back some time later after your web browser session expires, your comment will no longer be visible. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused as some people became upset thinking their comments were actually deleted. No comments were deleted, we just had quite a few asking a similar question. As we were working up a complete new design that had to remain under wraps for a while, we hope you’ll understand.

See you all next week.