Massive Kickstarter success has caused delays in shipping
Back in July, Kokoon smashed its crowdfunding goal of $100,000 and raised nearly $2 million from more than 8,000 backers (one of the most successful wearable tech campaigns we’ve seen). Now, four months later, the company has announced that shipping for its sleep sensing EEG headphones has slipped to September 2016, from February.
The company issued a statement to Kickstarter campaign backers via email explaining the situation:
“We are sad to announce that, in order to ensure that what you receive are the highest quality headphones, our shipment is going to be delayed.
“With the tremendous success of our campaign, we went from needing to produce a small batch of the first product to a full-scale, high-quality mass-manufactured product. When producing at such a scale the margin for error is very small and the product needs to work reliably every time for the full range of head types and broadest range of scenarios.”
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Kokoon Technology, which is partnering with Onkyo on the wearable, hired extra software and engineering staff to help with testing and reliability of the EEG headphones, as well as determine a better fit for comfort. After all, these headphones are supposed to be worn while you sleep.
The redesigned headphones might look better, but the process caused delays in the testing and production schedule.
There was also an issue with the company’s original factory partner, which it discovered wasn’t as experienced with active noise cancellation technology as previously thought.
The problems have been solved but the delay is significant. Comments on the Kickstarter campaign now range from ‘disappointed’ and ‘not impressed’ to ‘I will wait and see’. Some backers are requesting a refund of the $189 early bird price due to the delay.
Kokoon’s beta program has been pushed back to between May and June of 2016, after initial local testing is conducted. Meanwhile, mass manufacturing won’t begin until the third quarter of 2016 ready for that new target of September 2016 for shipping to backers.