Indiegogo Kreyos Smart Watch Disaster

Posted by admin on Dec 20, 2014 in Cool stuff, Innovation, Personal Insights | 0 comments

Last year, I wrote a blog post entitled, “Kickstarter Buyer Beware,” and I talked about the delays with two projects I backed on crowdfunding platforms – The iExpander and the the Kreyos smartwatch.  I won’t go into detail here on the iExpander, but a year after the post and 2 years since the Kickstarter campaign… I still don’t have an iExpander. I thought I’d give you an update on the Kreyos smartwatch I tried funding via Indiegogo.

Much like other campaigns, it started with the announcement of a few delays… and then a few more. However, the folks at Kreyos were pretty good about showing video of their prototypes in action. So, my confidence in it was building… until it came completely crashing down when they finally announced they were shipping the device.

The creators of the device posted a long blog post about how it all came crashing down, but here’s how I managed to narrowly avoid an $175 loss:

There were not signs of issues with the smartwatch when it started shipping – other than the fact that the shipping was extremely disorganized (but that was no surprise for a startup).  I was disappointed, because I moved this summer, and they shipped it to my old address. I was told by their terrible customer service (again, I thought this wasn’t too big of a deal, since they were a startup) that I’d have to wait for the watch to get declined by the new owners of my home, returned to Kreyos, and then it could be shipped to my new address.

At first, there seemed to be a lot of complaints about people not receiving the correct items. Again, I thought this wasn’t too big a deal, since the startup was using incompetent Chinese labor. Then, people began complaining about how the watch was taking on water simply from showering (it was supposed to be completely waterproof, which they revised to say it would be waterproof to 10 meters). Then everything came completely crashing down and the company completely folded up with the blog post I referenced earlier.

It appeared that Indiegogo immediately backed away from the problem, stating that they were essentially just an intermediary. It made me want to boycott Indiegogo completely. I still hadn’t received my Kreyos, so I contacted my credit card company and disputed the charge from Indiegogo. Since I never received the item, my credit card company removed the charge (except for the PayPal surcharge – but being out $5, is better than being out $175).

Again, I urge you to avoid these sites. No matter what kind of discount I might receive for funding something on Kickstarter or Indiegogo, it simply isn’t worth the risk of the item coming out late, faulty, or never at all. I think there’s a place in the market for a crowdfunding site that has more oversight and insurance from such issues… and hope one comes out soon. As for me, from now on, I’m going to wait until a product hits the open market and is tested before I buy.