The Kreyos Meteor was able to raise $1.5 million and the device funders received was…less than ideal.
Crowdfunding of any kind does involve somewhat of a gamble, and while a number of smartwatch projects have been able to use these funds to get off the ground and become a true success, there are others that waste a tremendous amount of money in order to come up with a product that is little more than garbage.
Unfortunately, the supporters of the Kreyos Meteor found themselves left with a gadget in the second category.
An Indegogo campaign was launched on June 23, 2013 for the “KREYOS: The ONLY Smartwatch with Voice and Gesture Control!”. This was not the most expensive crowdfunding project ever to grace the internet, but it was quite successful in bringing in the funds it wanted. Its video suggested that it was waterproof to five feet, it featured fitness tracking, flawless voice control, and will work with iPhones, Android smartphones, and Windows Phone. On top of all that, it had a battery life of seven days.
Backers of this smartwatch had a starting price of $100, with a $140 price for those who waited.
The goal of the company had been $100,000, but they managed to go far beyond that level and reached $1.5 million. This should have been more than enough to be able to produce a good quality smartwatch, but when the story played out, it turned out that this was hardly the case.
While there were a number of warning signs, right from the start, this didn’t stop backers, who wanted to take a shot at being able to obtain an incredible device for a very low price. Some of the red flags that had been waving included unrealistic promises, an extremely low funding goal, a price tag that was certainly far too good to be true, and the fact that all of this was coming from a manufacturer without a track record at all.
The truth of the matter was that the “prototypes” in the video were allegedly actually not prototypes at all, but were injection molded products. Still, Kreyos had promised that the first 500 smartwatch devices would be shipped to the backers last November (five months after its appearance on Indegogo). Just about a year after the company received the funds, the very first devices are finally starting to be shipped out. Unfortunately, the backers are exceptionally disappointed and the reviews are typically quite upset with the result. It seems that nearly none of the features actually work as promised, when they are there at all.