October 2008 Newsletter
Greetings from the LucidLights™ team! We have lots to report this quarter – including some great news about added new value to the LucidLights product, and some information about lessons learned too.
The full utility patent for LucidLights has now been applied for. Our intellectual property attorneys at Advantia Law (Starkweather and Associates) did a great job of creating and filing the patent documents. LucidLights™ are now fully “Patent Pending”.
John invented the LucidBrake™ and submitted a new provisional patent for this completely new and innovative safety feature added recently to LucidLights. We’re extremely pleased and excited about the extra added value this new invention adds to the product, and to the LucidLights company in general.
Right now, thanks to the new plastics prototyping machine, we are completing the building of 20 working units, each being put to work as quickly as it’s made. These units are using the expensive parts (electronic and plastic) and are not cost effective to sell in quantity, but they’re perfect for sending to people who are showing them to other people they know with the intent to get us pre-sales and more investors.
Our circuit boards are being manufactured by Advanced Circuits, a company here in the Denver area that specializes in fast turn-around multi-layer, customized circuit boards. John’s first attempt at a commercial circuit board design worked flawlessly the first time.
A few of the chips selected for the pre-production boards are available only in surface mount versions. These are extremely tiny chips, and our first attempts at soldering them in house to the circuit boards by hand were not successful. We hired Jeremy Schaffer of Colorado Creative Electronics to do this soldering and that has worked very well.
We are also going to rent about 10 of these pre-production units out as flashy sophisticated signage (think “sign flippers”, or “human directionals” as they prefer to call themselves) to begin generating revenue and pre-sales. We’re accomplishing several goals by creating this sideline service within LucidLights™: Kinetic Billboard™
The next step is a big one – to go to full assembly line manufacturing of the circuit boards using all surface mount parts, and using injection molded plastic parts for the handle, housing, and optical feedback clear cover plate. We are almost ready for this next big step, but we do need to raise substantial capital to allow LucidLights to advance to this next stage confidently and securely.
We plan on making LucidLights™ a necessity for every bicycle (and later for every car, motorcycle, trailer, scooter, boat, hiker, private plane, etc.)
The earlier LucidLights™ prototypes each displayed one set of four messages, one message for each orientation. Now, all the latest LucidLights units have 16 message sets, each supporting all four orientations, selectable at the push of a button. Eleven of these message sets are reprogrammable by the user, and we’ve added five new safety modes, adding greatly to the marketability and value of the LucidLights product.
We’ve saved the most exciting new mode – giving you, the investor, the most value - for a write-up all to itself…
Perhaps you’ve see the flashing lights on bicycles that make them safer and more noticeable at night. We took that to a new level, and way beyond. Imagine as a bicyclist decelerates by putting on the brakes, a bright brake light lights up just like on a car, but it isn’t wired to anything – just snapped to the bicycle seat post.
For the latest video clip or clips showing LucidBrake in action, go to our new web page…
LucidBrake™
There are over 16 million bicycles sold in the U.S. each year, and there are thousands of reported injuries and deaths each year too. Here’s a web site that lists these and other important statistics… other important statistics… Most bike to bike accidents happen because the guy in front slows or stops and the one behind doesn’t notice in time. This is a huge and very important market, and LucidBrake™ can help save lives.
There are two bicycle brake light products on the market right now, but they both require complicated mechanical interfacing with the braking system. With our LucidBrake unit you simply clip it onto your bike and ride. It’s that simple, that easy to use, and it works great! It even self-adjusts to mounting angle, road grades, and bumps, making it the most intelligent brake light (of any kind) on the market.
Our plan is to include the LucidBrake mode in the LucidLights devices, and to also create a much simpler stand-alone brake light product. We’re investigating the best way to proceed with this side product, but right now it appears that we can generate significant revenue for LucidLights by licensing the stand-alone brake light to a bicycle or related manufacturing company.
On November 10th at the Cable Center here in Denver, we’ll present the stand-alone LucidBrake™ invention to the world. The attention that LucidBrake generates from this event will provide very important feedback to us and since there will be 60 “celebrity judges” this year, who knows where this might lead us. Stay tuned!
As mentioned before, the next steps are big ones – getting the injection mold created for the plastic parts, designing the all-surface-mount circuit boards, designing the optical feedback polycarbonate plastic cover plate, and committing to the manufacture of a minimum number of LucidLights™ units. We are as ready to proceed with these steps as we possibly can be, and just as soon as sufficient additional capital is available to us, we’re ready to go.
John 720-879-3493, john.lucidlights@gmail.com
EJ 720-879-3495, ej.lucidlights@gmail.com
Keep introducing us to people who’d like to know more about how to get involved with the LucidLights or LucidBrake opportunity.
If you know of anyone who wants to make their advertising dollar go further, have them call us and we can either rent out the unit to them or we can sell them our services with Kinetic Billboards™.
Keep telling people about LucidLights and help us gather pre-sales. As our list of pre-sales orders continues to grow, it gets easier to negotiate with the manufacturers, parts suppliers, and potential major investors.
If you have connections to major bicycle or bicycle parts manufacturers, or anyone who might be interested in learning more about LucidBrake™ and the huge opportunity it represents, please provide an introduction.
When we’re slightly further along, LucidBrake™ brake lights could provide a great opportunity for fund raising in parallel with the sale of other safety devices such as bicycle helmets. Please keep this in mind, and as the right opportunity presents itself at the right time, you’ll recognize it.
Thank You!
With gratitude we thank you all for being a part of the LucidLights™ family.
-John & EJ