Mycroft AI has partnered with Neon AI to offer the new Neon OS to Mark II users. The Neon OS is a new personal digital assistant for the Mycroft Mark II, from Neon AI, a Mycroft Partner, based on the open-source Mycroft Classic Core.
The Neon OS offers additional skills and features for the Mark II. New capabilities include skills such as stock prices, USB music, jokes, enhanced alarms and reminders, automatic location setting, and much more. The Neon OS also delivers on privacy, including support for local backends, and completely offline use. For developers, Neon AI welcomes community development on GitHub. Visit https://github.com/NeonGeckoCom for more information.
For a limited time, you can order a USB drive with the Neon OS pre-installed for free*. Visit the Neon OS Square store and use coupon code “mycroftneon” to have a USB boot drive shipped to you at no charge. No credit card is required and shipping is free to the US*. Visit our Square store here:
Thank you for being a Mycroft AI community member,
Clary
clary@neon.ai
INTERNATION SHIPPING UPDATE 2-12-23: We have been informed of and corrected an issue on Square that prevented some orders from Australia, Sweden, and possibly other places from being placed. If you received the error message “This address is not supported, please select another” you should now be able to place your order without an issue. Shipping charge should be a flat $12.
International shipping is available worldwide, fees are on our Square.com store.
Hi, this looks great, and I plan to get one – however, I have a question about longer-term intentions on the part of Mycroft. While it’s great that Mycroft is an open platform that doesn’t prevent you from developing/running other compatible operating systems, and at some point there should be a healthy ecosystem of operating software for the hardware, I feel like there’s not a critical mass of developers working on code for the platform to really support multiple OS. So does the partnership with Neon mean that Mycroft is stepping back from software development of the “stock” OS in the short term, or that there will be a merge of the stock OS with Neon in the mid term? I would say that if there’s no intent to merge them, there should be, and whoever is working on development at both Neon and Mycroft should pool their resources to get more features in front of customers. Obviously, my perspective is purely that of a user/customer, and there may be reasons you can’t do this, but that’s my two cents.
Our most recent Neon OS image uses only 1.67GB of space, so even a small USB will be fine.
We’re working right now on setting up to allow music files to be stored on the same USB with the OS, and the extra space may have other uses as well eventually, but for now it’s not necessary for anything.
Thank you - I’ve also fixed the link, though it just goes back here
INTERNATION SHIPPING UPDATE 2-12-23:
We have been informed of and corrected an issue on Square that prevented some orders from Australia, Sweden, and possibly other places from being placed.
If you received the error message “This address is not supported, please select another” you should now be able to place your order without an issue.
For international shipments please make clear on the site that there will be custom’s fees on top of the price for shipping. I just had today the (naughty) surprise of 15€ for the USB
That’s an unpleasant surprise to me as well!
I expected standard EU VAT of 20%, which I did previously look up.
I learned then that being a small company based in the US there is no practical way for us to prepay the VAT.
I also learned that VAT is calculated based on the shipping cost added to the product value. Since you chose to pay for the product (thank you!), the value is set at $19.99 (rather than the lower replacement cost I can list when sending as a gift,) and the shipping cost from us was $16.25, so I’d expect a fee on your end of about 7 Euro in VAT, and about half that for people who get the USB free.
Do you have any details about how they arrived at that very large customs fee?
Your order was one of the very first few we received, so I have quite a few more to send. I doubt I can help with the fee you’ve had to pay, but I’d like to better with future packages if possible, and if not, I’ll need to send a heads-up email to our EU orders to confirm they still want their USB before mailing.
If you want to share a photo of a receipt or anything, I think you’ve got my email already, but just in case - clary@neon.ai
Thank you @denics!
It was my pleasure to buy and pay for the product and give little contribution to your great work.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t there when the package arrived so I could not ask for details. As soon as I get home I’ll check if I still have the original package and send you pics of the receipt.
@NeonClary If you import something into the EU, the calculation is as followed;
Value of the product + insurance of it if applicable + shipping cost = value for import duties.
That value is then used for the calculation of the VAT.
Couple of remarks.
Import duties are to be determined by the HS-code.
Total value of product+insurance+shipping < 150,- the you are waved from import duties.
If the commercial invoice / airway bill does not state those values and HS-code, custom will have to guess and you will end up with strange and high duties / extra costs. (Some just guess, other have a fixed high rate to cover their costs/time doing that)
So in short;
Always include the commercial invoice / airway bill stating;
Hmm. Thank you. The scannable customs form generated by USPS through Square & Shippo does list the value as $19.99, and the correct HS code - 8523.51 - and it’s sent as category “merchandise”. The postage isn’t listed, so maybe that’s where the issue is, if customs thought I sent it using some more expensive postage choice.
I only send actual gifts as “gifts,” and include full and detailed information with them.
Ah, perfect! Well then it is most likely that USPS and the postal service of that specific country do not have proper agreements and/ or have their systems linked.
