
Headphone startup Kanoa shuts down - sswaner
https://getkanoa.com/
======
stryk
It's worth mentioning that a reviewer on YouTube recently posted a scathing
review of their product[1]. It's a long video so TL;DR: product is junk and
they knew it plus they tried to pay him off with a paltry $500. No idea how
much of am impact this made on the decision to shutter the company.

1:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Gw3tErUSM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Gw3tErUSM)

~~~
sclangdon
I particularly liked the part where he tells the engineer "you're not
understanding me, I don't care _why_ it doesn't work, I'm just telling you
that it doesn't work. I'm a consumer and these are $300 earphones and they
can't send a signal from my ears to my ass" [1]

Reminds me of so many people I've worked with who think it matters to
consumers/users why something doesn't work. Like they can justify it, and it's
not that big a deal.

1\.
[https://youtu.be/36Gw3tErUSM?t=16m20s](https://youtu.be/36Gw3tErUSM?t=16m20s)

~~~
dragonwriter
> I'm a consumer and these are $300 earphones and they can't send a signal
> from my ears to my ass

To be fair, that's not the intended function of earphones.

~~~
joncrocks
From the video, they're wireless headphones, connected to his phone and his
phone was in one of his back pockets and couldn't stay connected for more than
'10-12 seconds'.

~~~
throwanem
That's actually pretty typical; every Bluetooth earbud I've tried has tended
to cut out when I move so that my body's blocking the signal path. Low-power,
high-frequency signals like these really don't penetrate human tissue well, so
when there's a large cross-section between the transmitter and receiver, not
enough signal gets through for the decoder to produce audio. And the earbud
form factor imposes a significant additional challenge, in that the antenna is
already mostly surrounded by insulation.

I mostly solve this by carrying my phone in a side rather than a back pocket.
But it still cuts out if I turn my head far enough to the side, as when
checking traffic in a road I'm about to cross. Them's the breaks - if you want
to wear a radio receiver in your ear and carry the transmitter in your pocket,
there's some physics you pretty much just have to deal with.

Don't get me wrong - I totally get being upset with $150 earbuds that don't
work reliably, especially when they're sold startup-style as the best thing
since sliced bread and the cure for all the world's mobile-audio-related ills.
But if that's your budget and solid signal in all circumstances is your major
criterion, you might be better served by something that goes beyond the pure
earbud form factor, like Apple's ones that have the antenna in an extension
that puts it outside the pinna.

~~~
vlozko
I'm not sure if that's truly normal and if it is, it shouldn't be. My first
and only pair of Bluetooth headsets are the Beats X. I chose them because,
unlike the AirPods, they stay in my ear and the ease of switching between my
devices as the source. Never once had it cut out on me when I'm near my
source. It only starts occasionally dropping when I'm 25+ feet away and with a
wall in between. I'm not trying to say that Apple's are the best but rather am
wondering if there's really that many headsets out there that perform so
poorly.

~~~
throwanem
As with the Anker set mentioned by someone else here, the Beats X doesn't
suffer the same limitation of size and antenna placement - the RF hardware is
on the cord that goes around your neck, and not in your actual ear. That's a
vastly more hospitable environment for an antenna intended to pick up a
Bluetooth signal. The AirPods similarly include a design feature that places
the antenna mostly in free air. The Kanoa earbuds do not.

For comparison, my Rowkin Mini does fine anywhere in my apartment when my
phone's sitting on the shelf by the door - but only if I happen to be oriented
such that my head isn't between the earbud and the phone. If I turn to face
the opposite direction, it cuts out and stays out unless I'm within about six
feet. So the problem doesn't lie with the receiver _per se_ , but with the
thick layer of RF insulation that a human body can put between the receiver
and the signal it's meant to pick up.

I don't think it's a totally insoluble problem. But it is a very hard one. As
I said before, I get the dissatisfaction with $300 earbuds that don't perform
up to the claimed spec. But, to the best of my knowledge, there is no fully
in-ear Bluetooth earbud available for any price which won't exhibit the same
behavior to a greater or lesser degree.

------
nartz
"Our founder invested the initial capital in KANOA, which went primarily into
market research and a feasibility study designed by a large engineering firm
hired to develop the product."

Founder immediately outsourced basic research and development - suspect at
best. Working with an established engineering firm may be a good choice at
some point, but my guess is that costs were 10x what they should have been,
especially in the early stages where the product was going through iterations,
bug fixes, etc.

------
SyneRyder
Hmm. There was an excellent comment here that has vanished. It added that
there's been bad reviews of the product in the last week, and more
importantly, a claim that the startup offered bribes of $500 for good reviews.
Bad reviews are one thing, but I can see if there's even accusations of
corruption, that might cause investors to back off at least until it can be
cleared up.

The video review link is here - I've updated the timestamp directly to the
bribe claim. Worth noting that the video title seems to have been updated in
the last 24 hours too:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Gw3tErUSM&t=24m40s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Gw3tErUSM&t=24m40s)

~~~
kozak
They use careful wording: "good review" might be interpreted as "a detailed
and objective review", not necessarily one that praises the product.

~~~
SyneRyder
Yep, I noticed that too. All the same, offering to pay for a review,
especially for completing it before a specific deadline, seems rather dodgy.
At a minimum it would require reviewers to disclose that they had received
compensation for the review.

------
CaliforniaKarl
So, I work in the Valley, and I read & participate here, but I'm not working
at a startup, and most of it is unknown to me.

With that note, I have a question!

>Most significantly and to our unpleasant surprise, our investors recently
backed out of our funding round.

I don't understand something about this.

I mean, yes, it is very un-specific, but I am wondering, when is the 'point of
no return' for something like this? Is it possible for a VC firm to go through
all the motions, and say all the right things, and then back out 10 seconds
before wiring payment for whatever reason they want?

Of course, I don't know if that happened here. It just seems to me like
stories regularly appear of a VC backing out at the last minute.

~~~
jeeyoungk
Point of no return is when the VCs wire money to you.

These people tend to exaggerate their funding prospective, saying things like
"they backed out". Ultimately VCs don't owe anybody money and startups are not
entitled with funding.

Investing is just like any other purchase, and as a VC if you believe that a
company is not worthwhile to invest then you should be ready to say no no
matter what stage the conversation is in.

Ironically the fact that the company couldn't raise another round / continue
without finding is a sign that VCs did make a right choice.

~~~
flukus
> Point of no return is when the VCs wire money to you.

I'd be surprised if there wasn't some sort of cool off period in the
contracts.

~~~
therein
If that was the case, VCs would wait until they would have wired the money to
you before they signed the contracts.

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dovdovdov
Great, now I'll have to settle with a major company's properly developed
product that comes with continuous product and customer support. :/

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smaili
Slightly off topic but why would their farewell announcement be routed to
/password?

~~~
jedberg
Most likely their website was designed to redirect anyone who isn't logged in
to their login page, but then they configured the web server to just server
the farewell notice no matter what page you are looking at.

If you put any URL in, it redirects to /password.

~~~
justboxing
> If you put any URL in, it redirects to /password.

Wow, you are right.
[https://getkanoa.com/wescrewedupbigtime](https://getkanoa.com/wescrewedupbigtime)

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pfarnsworth
I don't see how Kickstarter or Indiegogo have much a future when many high-
profile campaigns fail so spectacularly. The CEO of both those companies must
know that "buyer beware" doesn't cut it and their namebrands are being
tarnished by letting backers be swindled like this. They need a way to protect
backers from complete losses of money, by delivering money in tranches after
hitting milestones, or doing a complete demo in real life at the headquarters,
once it reaches a certain level of funding.

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noyesno
Can anyone recommend good wireless earbuds that isolate outside noise?

~~~
tmikaeld
These seem to be the best on the market (Considering the amount of pre-reviews
from the kickstarter).

[https://www.revols.com/](https://www.revols.com/)

But they haven't yet launched to backers so, It's a risk.

~~~
mdekkers
_These seem to be the best on the market_ [...] _But they haven 't yet
launched_

How can they be "the best on the market" without having launched?

~~~
tmikaeld
Seem to be, as per reviews. Since there is only 5 others with ear shaping tips
but with bad reviews...

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gadders
This is one of those annoying webpages that dims the whole screen. Windows 10
and Chrome Version 60.0.3112.101.

I don't think it's the webpage's fault, but something on pages like it is
triggering it. Anyone know what the fix is?

//edit// Firefox 54.0.1 (32-bit) as well.

~~~
ctz
Some screens have dynamic brightness/contrast adjustment which can cause this
effect.

~~~
ucho
Some monitors just have bad backlight. I had old one where maximizing
terminal(which is mostly black) window caused taskbar and window handle also
to turn almost black.

