Meet the little heartrate strip that angered an entire crowdfunding community. #Winning

The Ampstrip heartrate wearable that featured on Indiegogo. Fitlinxx released the Ampstrip on Indiegogo in September 2015 and exceeded their target goal quickly – raising over $500,000. Only one month later, they retracted their product and promised refunds, but buyers and enthusiasts are outraged.  (via AmpStrip)

Ampstrip was the product heralded to take the wearable technology market by storm. It is a wearable strip that keeps track of your heartrate, temperature, and activity 24/7. Most importantly, this little strip is small and comfortable and can simply be stuck onto your skin. In addition, the AmpStrip was also equip with Bluetooth LE to communicate with your phone for use with a synced app, including MapMyFitness, RunKeeper, and Strava.

Not only could the strip perform all of the functions of a Fitbit, but it could also charge wirelessly and is waterproof for wearing in the shower or anywhere else. According to them, the adhesive lasts 3-7 days without you needing to worry about it and the strip itself would be replaceable (if necessary). All of these innovative capabilities were impressive enough for it to win the CES 2015 Innovation Award for the best fitness device.

However, after customers have been burned via Indiegogo, it is unclear whether the device can still tout its CES Award. It’s clear that this device really piqued the interest of many fitness fans who helped Fitlinxx, the startup company behind Ampstrip, reach 733% of their financial goal at lightning speed. In October, customers started asking about when the first devices would ship. In a surprising turn of events, Fitlinxx announced that they were cancelling the campaign and would refund customers their money. When a barrage of angry backers asked why, they announced that they decided to focus on developing their Amstrip as a medical device instead!

It seems that backers need to feel out a form to get their refund processed, but the refunds were extremely delayed as customers who requested the refund in mid-October only just received their money in November. Everyone was excited for a new fitness tracker which will never be delivered. Instead, it seems they have chosen to feed their pockets to use it as a medical device, however some spectators believe this to be a foolish move since these devices take a long time to be approved. What is certain is that the general public won't be able to get their hands on this technology for some time, I imagine. However, with some luck maybe another company will step in and innovate something similar.

My hypothesis is that they raised the funds to use it for development and secured further finances before deciding to return it to the backers. Sort of a testing of the waters for other capital investors. All in all, any company shouldn’t create a campaign if they don’t intend to make good with the product. What goes up must come down, so good riddance to them. Hopefully the next innovation will be even better and choose to treat their customers better.

C

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