Janus One and cPhone: Like "The Light Phone"... more B.S....

[edy]

Hey folks,

I was looking around for updates on "The Light Phone" when I came across this campaign for something called "Janus Phone". They took in $100,000 in their campaign, promised delivery in September 2015. Well it is now many months late and people are complaining on their comments section:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/340954677/janus-one-a-phone-to-simplify-your-life-in-a-smart

They had a $50,000 goal, they raised $100,000. Pretty much same concept as all the other credit-card phones out of China. It is even more basic than the Light Phone, yet they still managed to piss a lot of people off who bought it (see comments section).

And here is another one from the comments:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cphone-a-phone-designed-for-simpler-life#/

At least the cPhone is $19, closer to the cost of an Alibaba phone. The Janus One and Light Phone are just expensive marketing gimmicks suckering people who have no idea the world is not supporting these turd phones anymore.

Possible SHIFT IN CROWD-FUNDING strategies?

I am seeing CHINESE COMPANIES crowd-funding their own products (really not crowd-funding) to simply increase awareness in foreign markets by using these sites to promote their wares. Before, "middle-men" were doing this by finding cheap Chinese products that were not as visible in other markets, changing a bit of the design and working with the manufacturer to produce and ship them out. Seems like Chinese companies would rather do it themselves.

Anyone else getting this feeling?

[ataradov]

$1,570 USD raised by 0 backers
8% of $20,000 fixed goal

How is this possible?

[edy]

Good question. Maybe the campaign creator can put in their own "seed" money and that is counted? Either that, or there is a bug in the IndieGogo software.... maybe when a campaign fails to get funded, the backer count resets to 0? Anyone seen other IndieGogo campaigns that fail to meet funding, what they say?

[Kalidor]

..promised delivery in September 2015. Well it is now many months late and people are complaining on their comments section

They delivered last year, the complains are from some backers that got nothing. Most of the comment complains about how crap this thing is.

works only with 2G (GSM) micro SIM card
lot of noise, the receiver can't hear me
battery take only five days, very far to 90 days
lot of echo when I make a call

From the comments it looks like several countries / providers already no longer support 2G.
And that looks to be true https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G#2G_shutdown. 

[edy]

You can find this now on eBay ($36) for about half the price of the KickStarter campaign "EARLY BIRD" special ($69):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Janus-One-Ultra-Thin-Pocket-Mini-Phone-Card-Mobile-Phone-Alarm-Clock-1500mAh-GSM-/282017631583?var=&hash=item41a98f8d5f:m:mluQLuL_mYXHItylX9VWQ7A

KickStarter Image:



eBay image:



Meanwhile, you can get this almost identical looking phone (button layout/icons exact copy) with a better display for $25:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ultra-Thin-Pocket-Mini-GSM-Bluetooth-SIM-Card-Mobile-Phone-Cellphone-MP3-8mm-FM/311645888515?_trksid=p2047675.c100623.m-1&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D39497%26meid%3D5283960c69294e90bec07ed865ab64e4%26pid%3D100623%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D282017631583



.... or go even as far as this one for $10:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/AIEK-C6-1-0-Card-Phone-Bluetooth-2-0-Calender-Alarm-Calculator/122091886518?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D39497%26meid%3D4232d3e8e358459da52ae35b7a7116bb%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D311645888515&rt=nc



So can anyone tell me what exactly did anyone gain from backing this Janus One? To get this phone a bit earlier than the rest of the world? At double the price? When at least some of those other phones were available at the same time as Janus One or at least shortly after. Who's to say the Campaign was not just a quick inexpensive re-badge/design of one or several existing Shenzhen products?

Ironically, the cPhone did not get backed on IndieGogo (Richard Lee of ShenZhen, China was the creator, asking for $20,000 and he only got $1570 with 0 backers) and yet he was asking for $20 for the phones which have a larger display version (see below). Meanwhile, the Janus One ("The Peak" out of Hong Kong) managed to get 1,131 backers to pledge $100,589, and that one was $69 at least per phone (more than 3x the cost).

cPhone IndieGogo page image:



... And then the latest 2G thin phone "Scam" I think is the LightPhone which is another reboot of the cPhone and Janus One.