Refund Status
almost 7 years ago
– Wed, May 08, 2019 at 08:40:17 PM
Backers,
Thank you to all who have entered their information in the Refund Portal. If you haven't yet, please do so here: https://refunds.xcraft.io/
Although we had hoped to be able to provide refunds by this point, we have not yet been able to do so. Providing refunds is dependent on receiving funds from the investment round mentioned in our February 20th update. That round was completed and signed however, the funds from that raise have not cleared.
We are doing everything within our power to make sure that happens as soon as possible but cannot provide a date since the investor cannot provide one to us. The investor has assured us that they are committed to this investment and will transfer the funds as soon as they are able. We will keep you updated with any new information as it's received. Thank you for your patience!
-Team xCraft
A New Era
about 7 years ago
– Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 11:41:46 PM
PhoneDrone Ethos began as an idea I sketched out in my garage in Sandpoint, Idaho many years ago. Little did I know at the time where that idea would take me and the company. It seemed like such a logical progression to use all the “smarts” and camera of a phone to control and fly a drone.
I’ve always had a passion for flying things. I’m honestly not sure why. Just a built-in urge to tinker with materials, build something cool, and then watch it fly (or not). That is the story of PhoneDrone Ethos.
We developed this product from a sketch into a working design, secured patents, ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund it, and then found a contract manufacturer to build it for us. The process was wrought with issues, so many of which were out of our control; cashflow problems, design glitches, tooling complications, software bugs, and on and on. But anything worth doing is that way, so we pressed on. Delay after delay, setback after setback, we pressed on. Trust me, it would have been much easier to throw in the towel long ago. But we didn’t. We owed it to our backers and customers to find any conceivable way to get this product to them.
Then came the final straw – a broken promise from our Chinese contract manufacturer. They had committed to build the entire first production run of PhoneDrone Ethos. Contracts were signed, deposits of several hundred thousand dollars were paid, a final design was submitted, and production tooling was built. As of September 2018, xCraft had received a dozen or so beta units and were finalizing the drone’s firmware when the contact manufacturer simply pulled out. In violation of all contracts, without explanation, and without warning, they simply stated they were not going to produce PhoneDrone Ethos. We made every attempt to work through this issue with them but unfortunately, our efforts were ignored. xCraft is pursuing legal action but we are not going to drag our backers and customers through this lengthy process so, at last, we’ve come to the end of an era. The time has come to sunset PhoneDrone Ethos.
xCraft will be refunding ALL PhoneDrone Ethos backers and customers. We are doing this out of funds received from a new investment round which was recently signed. We are extremely grateful to have an investor on board that sees the value of taking care of the people who helped get this project started.
You will be receiving a notice containing a link to the refund portal. Once logged in, you will verify your name, items pledged or purchased, and enter a valid PayPal email address. We will verify all information and then mass refund through PayPal. We anticipate this notice and additional instructions will go out in the next 3-4 weeks, but we will keep you updated on the progress. Please have patience. Making mass refunds on a four-year-old campaign is a major undertaking and will take some time to properly set up.
I sincerely apologize to our community for all the time spent waiting and hoping for this product to materialize. Just know that this was never done intentionally. It was always our goal to deliver the product and we exhausted every avenue to make that happen.
The flying phone is not dead. xCraft will leverage our intellectual property to build something even greater. There is tremendous potential in the capabilities this technology affords through cellular connectivity, phone processing power, and the unlimited uses derived through flying mobile apps. We will license the technology and develop entirely new commercial products that solve real-world problems.
The drone world is changing and xCraft will continue to lead the way by developing powerful flying machines that change the world!
Looking forward to the future,
-JD Claridge
CEO and Co-Founder
xCraft
