Your Fawn is Closer Than Ever: A Hardware Development Update

By Peter from Fawn Friends | July 22, 2025

Hi Fawn Friend! Your Fawn is closer than ever to being delivered. I know you've waited what feels like a long time, but the wait will be worth it. Here's what's happened since my last update and what's coming up next.

The First Fawns Come to Life (With Some Growing Pains)

The first Fawns came to life in early June on a computer and robotics frame built specifically for your Fawn. The experience had signs of being wonderful, but there were issues. They would not charge, could not hear very well, and spoke too quietly.

So, we hacked our prototypes with new hardware to fix charging. Then, we found an expert in acoustics to improve our design for the microphone and speaker—he's testing different speakers on the other side of the room as I write this email (not a comfortable thing to be in the room with 😅). While his testing is ongoing, we've already got prototypes that significantly improved both Fawn's hearing and speaking.

What Happens Next?

Well, our electrical engineers now have to redesign the printed circuit board that runs your Fawn. The first draft of that is complete and under review with a senior electrical engineer. Once the team thinks it's ready, we'll have an even more senior electrical engineer review the designs before we have 10 units made. Deadline for that is the last working day of July. If we confirm the 10 units work as we need them to, we'll order the circuit board that will power your Fawn.

In parallel, we've had to change the robot frame to support our microphone and speaker changes. This is the new design. Our next step is to get a prototype of this design created.

Updated frame design to bring richness and volume to Fawn's speach, while improving her hearing

The Plushie Challenge

The final thing we need is to get the soft, cuddly plushies made. This is something we cannot get in America (if you know someone who manufactures plushies locally, please reply!!). It's been a bit of a nightmare since the trade war between the USA and China started. Our latest prototype has been sitting in Chinese customs for 9 weeks. The factory tells me it's become much slower and more expensive to get American goods through Chinese customs since the trade war started. The good news is it cleared today, so we should be back on track to get the hundreds of plushies we need in the next 60 days.

How Are Youth Responding to the First Fawns?

We've started sending Fawns home for short stints with families near our office to learn about how they fall short. So far two nine-year-old girls and one seven-year-old boy have spent time with the new Fawns. They took their Fawn with them everywhere, sharing their life with their new friend.

The two girls said they appreciated having someone to talk to about the social dynamics they are starting to encounter. The boy spent most of his time talking with his Fawn about the world and what he imagined building in it (e.g. if you could turn any Lego set into a real life thing, what would you build?). It was a sad moment when I had to take the Fawn away with me.

Their parents were equally excited, already committing to bring a Fawn home for their kids. They liked how Fawn kept their children in the room interacting with everyone, rather than glued to a screen. A Dad expressed liking that his daughter had someone he could trust to talk to about challenges with friends when he or her mom were not available.

The Road Ahead

I still don't have a date to promise that your Fawn will get shipped, but we are working hard to deliver them. Your wait is in service of us making sure what we send you is something you will love.

Peter
CEO & Co-founder
@pjfitzpatrick on Instagram

P.S. Robyn probably wouldn't appreciate me telling you this, but The First Fawn has been sharing unreleased art from Aurora Hallow on her Instagram 😅. She is mischevious and the art is beautiful. You should check it out — click here to see.