I will open an extra topic for this.
I like the idea proposed by @jan. It made my mind quite busy and before I do anything “business-wise”, I will share my honest thoughts about that.
(pinging @Masarin, @phonaak on this topic)
Although it might sound an easy thing to do, the upgrade is definitely not a job that non-tech person can do. It involves the disassembly, removing silicone glue, replacing the main board, plastic parts, soldering on the LCD board, and final assembly. To have it even more tricky, this differs between hardware revisions. There were four of them. The changes were made to power supplies (3V3 vs 5V, backlight control, plastic parts, and the internal structure of the aluminium case. If some things are not done properly, it may result in damaging the unit. This leads me to conclusion that the upgrade must be done by us (electra one). And that means shipping the unit to the Czech Republic and back to the owner.
The above also gives a hint that it takes more time and effort to upgrade the controller than to assemble a new one. Even though I like the idea I also have to make it financially reasonable. That results in price around 280 EUR without VAT + shipping costs. And that is 375 EUR final price for a EU consumer or 310 EUR for EU businesses. It is not a bad price but it is not cheap either. Kind of bonus factor of this is that your unit would be reviewed and services in general.
The Non-EU upgrades need more thinking. Even though the VAT could be deducted, the shipping costs are higher (2 x 35 EUR). The major issue, however, are the import taxes and duties. Unless Zdenek (colleague of mine) finds a way to handle this as some kind of servicing where import taxes/duties would not be applied, it does not make such sense for any body.
Another important point is that I really prefer to start doing upgrades after we start shipping mkIIs. While I am able to plan and schedule work on the new mkII manufacturing and programming it, upgrades are more of individual jobs and some of them might come with surprises and unpredictable situations. eg. I do recall dealing with E1 that was attacked by a pet rabbit. And there were more stories like that The most pessimistic scenario is that upgrades would be done after May 13th.
Every upgrade would be handled individually. I do not want to collect any higher quantity of controllers and keep you guys without them for longer time period. Instead I would contact each owner individually and would arrange shipping and work in the shortest possible time frame. Despite what I just wrote, we would still require pre-ordering the upgrade.
And the last bit that crossed my mind. Of course, after upgrading a unit, a functional mk1 board will be left. We still have some b-stock / test / defective units. We would use returned boards to refurbish these. That is something I really like. I do not want to, however, sell these to ordinary customers. It does not work well with keeping the warranties, servicing, returns in place. We are not Apple, we are Martin and Zdenek Electra One provided several controllers to schools and non-profit projects. The refurbished mk1s seem to be just perfect for that purpose. If anybody had some ideas or knows about projects that could benefit on that, I am fully open to discuss.
And again, mk1 will be still supported and it can do great stuff