Crowdfunding platforms allow anyone with an internet connection to become a quasi angel investor. Putting up your hard earned cash for an idea or a prototype is a gamble. When it comes to hardware, especially, backers often function as the R&D department for a startup that doesn’t have the funding to do it themselves. If you’re expecting a polished, perfect piece of tech from a crowdfunding campaign, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
This past weekend saw some of the harshest criticism ever generated from a Kickstarter campaign. Ring, a ring-shaped wearable device that uses gesture controls to perform a variety of tasks, was lambasted in the western media for falling short of its promise to “shortcut everything.” Gizmodo – which doubted Ring from the outset – used the gadget as an example of why not to trust Kickstarter videos, complete with the word NOPE at the top of the page (with Ring spelling the O). Snazzy Labs, in a YouTube video that has generated more than a million views since Saturday, called Ring the “worst product ever made.”
Tech in Asia sat down with Takuro Yoshida, the CEO of Tokyo-based Logbar – the startup behind Ring – to give him an opportunity to respond to both critics and unhappy users.
Yoshida, 29, greeted me with Ring on his finger, resembling a fashion model more than a tech geek. I asked him to start from the beginning, before the Kickstarter campaign even launched.
“About a year ago, I used to run a bar in Shibuya,” he explains. “I gave iPads to every customer so that they could order and share what they were drinking on social media to get a virtual ‘cheers’ from their friends. I wanted to find a unique way to connect people with technology – on a bigger scale than my bar, a global scale – and decided that I would have to design a new kind of communication tool.”
Yoshida had been a programmer and engineer since age 20, but his hardware expertise was limited to tinkering with Arduino at home. Taking note of the rise of devices like Fitbit and Glass, he decided to pursue the wearable form factor.
“I realized that a ring would be the perfect fit, because we as human beings can already express ourselves through moving our fingers,” Yoshida says.
He started prototyping Ring in early 2013 with a co-owner from the bar. The duo attracted an undisclosed amount of money from an angel investor before deciding to launch a Kickstarter campaign last February. Yoshida says his video was rejected twice before getting onto the crowdfunding platform. The final version featured a mockup, using gesture controls to do things like turn on/dim lighting, play music, and even make a mobile-to-mobile payment with the flick of a finger.
While crowdfunding sites are usually full of “vaporware” – hardware mockups without a physical prototype – Yoshida insists that his team had both a functioning prototype and a manufacturing partner selected before the campaign went live.
“By the time we launched our Kickstarter, we were on the seventh or eighth version,” he says. “Yes, it was huge, but it got smaller each time.”
Yoshida recalls his excitement on the night Ring’s Kickstarter went live:
I couldn’t sleep. My phone was buzzing non stop because I set it to get alerts for every pledge. It just vibrated all night. By morning, more than US$100,000 had been pledged. It took two and a half days to exceed our goal.
The campaign would go on to raise US$880,998 from 5,161 backers.
Hardware hiccups
Yoshida says that he never anticipated delays, despite only giving Ring a four-month window from Kickstarter to shipping. The campaign estimated delivery in July, but backers didn’t start receiving their pledges until October. The long wait would become a source of initial doubt, criticism, and refund requests before backers ever received the Ring itself – likely galvanizing negativity and setting Ring up for even harsher reviews than if it had shown up in mailboxes on time.
What was the Ring team doing on July first – the day shipping should have begun?
“We were still testing the hardware, hoping to ship in August” Yoshida says. “I have a lot of web and mobile app experience, so when there’s a bug I can fix it right away. But with hardware, it can take weeks to fix one problem.”
He admits that the final product wasn’t sent off for mass production until October 9.
In the meantime, Ring was receiving between 10 and 30 angry emails a day – and many more angry comments on its Kickstarter and Facebook pages.
“We had two people, from a team of only eight total members, replying to emails,” Yoshida explains. “With more than 5,000 backers, it was hard for us to respond to everyone, and we just couldn’t reply to the comments section because it kept growing and growing.”
For backers still waiting for their pledges to arrive, Yoshida tells Tech in Asia that everyone should receive their Rings within a week – unless the package has been returned due to an incorrect address. Logbar will not be issuing refunds or accepting exchanges, but will be sending three plastic size adjusters to each backer (if your Ring is too small, you’re apparently out of luck, as size adjusters can only make a Ring that’s too big fit more snugly).
Practice makes perfect
Despite the backlash from media, backers, and early reviewers, Yoshida maintains the same optimism he’s held onto since leaving the bar to start Ring:
Gizmodo made fun of us as soon as we started our Kickstarter campaign, saying it was impossible, we don’t believe it, it’s vaporware – we got a lot of those comments, people telling us we couldn’t do it. It was very, very hard and we faced a lot of obstacles – but we made a real product. We know it isn’t perfect, but it’s real.
Yoshida adds that the criticism is a necessary part of the process. Backer feedback is the best way to gather data and learn about what users want. He also believes that many of the haters are using their Ring incorrectly.
“When you first tried to used a keyboard, you had to look at every key before you pressed it,” Yoshida says. “After a while, you learned how to type without looking. Ring is the same. You need practice to use it, and we also realized that we need to publish more information about how to use it correctly. It’s hard to explain by video or words, and I wish I could show people how to use it properly face-to-face.”
I asked him to put that claim to the test. Yoshida passed me his ring and I was able to learn six gestures in a matter of minutes. Without his instruction, I probably wouldn’t have realized that I was flicking my wrist too much (you should only move your finger) or moving too much after completing a gesture (you have to hold still for a moment for the gesture to register). I had about an 70 or 80 percent accuracy rate, while the much more experienced Yoshida had closer to a 90 percent accuracy rate.
Snazzy Labs’ scathing video review claimed just five to 10 percent gesture accuracy. The reviewer can be seen using his entire arm or flicking his wrist to make gestures.
“If I could teach backers how to use Ring the right way, and if they still think its useless, then I want to remind them that this is just our start,” Yoshida says. “We want to improve Ring together, so we welcome the feedback, good and bad.”
Yoshida tells Tech in Asia that he gets daily emails from people who support the startup and enjoy using Ring. “People only see the criticism, they never see the nice stuff,” he says. “We get a lot of love.”
Responding to backer complaints that Ring is made of plastic instead of metal, Yoshida says that it’s made of zinc with a tin-copper alloy coating. He also says that the app does work in the background, but that it must be open for camera and magic voice functions (there are about 20 gestures in total at the time of writing).
And finally, let’s address the elephant in the room. Yes, Ring is big – but so were the first computers and cell phones. Yoshida says that the size issue is being addressed and future versions could get smaller in the same regard as chip makers focus on miniaturizing components for wearables
Undeterred
What’s next for Yoshida and Logbar? Can Ring survive long enough to see a version 2.0? The CEO says that his team is updating the app every week. He also admits that it’s been one hell of a learning experience:
Four months was too short, and we had to hurry up to make it. A lot of unexpected things came up that we couldn’t foresee, but that’s the nature of hardware. Hardware is tough, but there are a lot of possibilities that web services and standalone apps cannot achieve. If we succeed, the potential is enormous.
Yoshida, undeterred by harsh words online, is committed to improving Ring and pursuing future hardware endeavors.
“We’re developing new firmware for Ring and all users will be able to update it soon from the app,” he says. “This update helps users do gestures more easily and accurately. We will keep updating our app every week and I want backers to know that Ring is improving every day.”
“We will never give up,” he adds. “Our journey has just started!”
This post ‘Worst product ever’? Ring CEO responds to the crowdfunded wearable’s critics appeared first on Tech in Asia.
‘Worst product ever’? Ring CEO responds to the crowdfunded wearable’s critics
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