You all have probably moved on from this topic, but I wanted to provide an additional take on this project as one who had backed it, has personally moved on, but still participates (and is ignorantly hopeful) in the facebook group "Ossic X Class Action Lawsuit".
:: Assess the Product ::
The Ossic X was touted as a product that solved the problem of making 3D audio more natural by addressing the uniqiue differences in each users' anatomy. The team spoke of utilizing sensors that would measure head size & ear structure and would process the audio to reflect delays and pitch changes based on that anatomy. The claim was a more natural sound that didn't reside in your headscape, but in the field around you.
The team was comprised of two former Logitech employees, a company with a reputation in quality computer peripherals. Jason Riggs and Joy Lyons appeared to be seasoned in the audio field each, with additional digging, some patents, while at Logitech, to their names. Though it was largely unclear, I assumed their time at Logitech ought to have exposed them to enough experiences essential to building a small company to produce a product
In the project, a product was presented as near completion. They provided...
- a chart that claimed actual, in-ear measurements
- a chart with spatial accuracy tests with a number of participants
- photos of "the latest design" (against Kickstarter policy to show renders)
- photos of development that brought them to this current stage
== Now some of you may be seeing red flags. I didn't. And of course, I may have been blinded by my excitment for the technology as I had spent much of my own time and resources pursuing developing my own 3D audio headset. I also know, hindsight is 20/20.
:: Post Campaign ::
Kickstarter is an interesting avenue. Backers are not investors, but according to Kickstarter's terms and conditions there are some obligations put onto the creators of projects.
- Kickstarter does not offer refunds. A Project Creator is not required to grant a Backer’s request for a refund unless the Project Creator is unable or unwilling to fulfill the reward.
- Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill.
In addition their are obligations in terms of communication which I can't find at this time.
To keep it short and sweet... Ossic released periodic updates indicating no signs of struggle other than the side effects of feature creep pushing back the production date.
- Jan 2018; developer units shipped (at least two people have confirmed that they recieved the units)
- Feb 2018; software update pushed out
- May 2018; doors close
One backer had reached out to Ossic in April 2018 and recieved a semi-canned response that production was still on for spring.
Throughout the post-campaign period many backers asked for refunds, but were denied as funds were commited to production.
Besides not being transparent about any financial troubles (as claimed by the May update) there was no effort put forth by Ossic to survey the backers and find a way to satisfy the rewards.
:: Not Just Kickstarter ::
But, this goes beyond Kickstarter. Yes, Indiegogo was another avenue that Ossic raised funds, but also their own website - taking pre-orders.
On each of these platforms the product was presented as soon-to-be-complete. Imagine the suprise of the individuals who pre-ordered that they found out they won't be recieving their product (or refund) after reading it in the headlines on their favorite tech blog.
:: Money ::
The obvious outrage is, "where did all the money go?" Some expense sheets have been circulating that were used by Ossic to raise additional funds through investors and it is clear that a large percentage of their money was spent on marketing. Flying around, doing trade shows, hyping the product.
:: Developer Units ::
So far, I've seen two people speak up about ownership of a developer unit. They both claim that the solution works amazingly well, but that the software is still very buggy.
:: Theories ::
Many theories are floating around out there, but not much is available to prove any of them...
- Inflated idea of their abilities to run a company
- Shell to obtain patents for later use
- Just a regular ol' con
What I can tell from reading screen captures of peoples emails with Ossic and the campaign updates themselves that there was lying going on.