
The Rise and Fall of KREYOS (2014) - pavel_lishin
https://medium.com/@stevekreyos/the-rise-and-fall-of-kreyos-new-ac4e2d847964
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pfraze
More context: [http://www.pcworld.com/article/2683138/kreyos-smartwatch-
wer...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2683138/kreyos-smartwatch-were-not-a-
scam-just-a-trainwreck.html)

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com2kid
So to summarize:

1\. A group of marketers came up with a cool concept video and some UI
layouts. 2\. Marketers get surprised when a sketchy hw/sw house takes them for
everything they are worth.

Quote " _All we needed to do was provide them with our brand, watch industrial
design, packaging design, App UI design, and they will take care of all the
rest. So I thought it shouldn’t be too hard, as I won’t have to work on the
software, hardware, firmware and focus on building a good brand instead._ "

None of these are the hard parts of design. For sure, good design is a huge
portion of a successful product, but making a pretty looking sketch is not
hard. Having ME and ID teams work together on a design that can be actually
produced? A lot harder.

Another quote: " _In the beginning we did a wonderful job handling the
campaign launch, emails, social media and pretty much everything else. After
the campaign period we considered our part done._ "

Proclaiming "We'll make an amazing smart watch that does everything, has 7
days of battery life, and is waterproof!" is not enough to launch a product.

That 7 day battery life? You need damn solid EE and FW teams to pull it off.
How every single component is hooked up will impact your battery life, in ways
that are dependent upon your SoC. The amount of engineering discipline and
foresight required to squeeze good battery life out of a product is stunning.

This is a case where someone in marketing considered all the technical stuff
"easy", and outsourced it to someone who it appears was dishonest.

But no one honest would take them seriously. All the honest engineering teams
are already at work on their own smart watches!

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instanoodlz
...this is why you dont get in to business with something you dont understand.
If you want to deal with manufacturing and doing business in china, then you
actually need to have the core understanding of the process & actual costs of
manufacturing, as well as how to deal with business in china. (Generalized
rule of thumb, always negotiate. The price given is nearly always 1:7 for
every hand that's changed. If they say its $70 a unit, that means he got it
for $10 a unit. Negotiate.)

