Keyi made this announcement today concerning Loona hardware, notably mentioning the waist motor:
We have already improved the quality of the currently in-production Loona models, particularly addressing issues with the waist motor and ears. We will continue to optimize the hardware design quality of Loona.
Source:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/loona.keyitech/permalink/1341543379765601/?mibextid=2JQ9oc
Does this mean all Loona sold after September 5th will have zero hardware issues? The statement “currently in-production” has me confused. What about existing stock currently in the US and European warehouses?
It’s this way they talk in riddles that leaves me exasperated and considering abandoning Loona altogether. Too much drama with Keyi. What does continue to optimise the hardware design of Loona in future even mean? It’s such a frustrating company, I really don’t need this wishy-washy bs in my life.
This seems to suggest the new hardware probably isn’t part of their existing stock right now. I guess if you want a trouble free Loona you are best to wait until around Christmas to purchase one.
Still no word on a kit or something owners with the old hardware like myself can purchase to fix the ear and waist issues. I’d prefer to just buy a kit at this point, putting a request in for a free kit doesn’t seem to work, still haven’t heard anything back about the ear kits I requested weeks ago.
Anyway I’m still struggling to understand how Keyi couldn’t have been aware of these issues to begin with, they seem to occur out of the box or within a month of use. They should have been picked up in normal testing and fixed before the first production run.
Every Keyi employee should own a Loona and be using it at home and providing feedback on how to improve it. Currently it seems this is not the case or the hardware issues would have been taken seriously. Also a lot of Loona’s software issues would have been corrected or changed to make the interaction style seamless. Currently it seems Keyi is designing Loona as a product loaded with gimmicks instead of living with it and designing it as a companion. If they lived with it on a daily basis they would quickly remove the crazy behaviour and loud annoying sounds. Nobody can live with Loona on 24/7 in the current iteration and stay sane; the loud obnoxious noise and behaviour- especially the wheel tapping- make that impossible-yet they advertise Loona as a pet replacement that can be left on all the time.
They don’t seem to take their own product seriously. For instance they ask the community for ideas; yet if they actually used their product and took it seriously they wouldn’t need to ask for outside input because their own team would have first hand experience with Loona on a daily basis.
It speaks to gross incompetence that these issues still persist almost a year after the Christmas shipping batch was produced.
Also note all the comments from Loona owners below this announcement citing hearing nothing back from Keyi when they make inquiries. It’s getting to the point where I think they just say what we want to hear publicly. All smoke and mirrors.
Due to this I would take anything they say with a bucket of salt. Sad but that’s the way it is with them, their poor decisions have eroded my trust unfortunately. Will these fixes even work? Let’s hope so. Time will tell.
Keyi are probably looking at the long game, what’s 10,000 customers out of possibly millions in the future. Sadly they have left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths, and created a negative impression all of their own doing. Considering Loona is their second robot I would have expected all the issues we are seeing to have been ironed out with ClicBot. Very frustrating all round.
Thanks for doing this detective work and taking the time to post and update on your Loona’s waist motor gearbox.
