To our earliest backers, thank you! This is what we've been up to...
about 4 years ago – Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 12:52:17 AM

Hello Genki Founding Members!

Seriously, we want to thank you for backing our first project on Kickstarter in what feels like a decade ago (but really only 2.5 years).  If it wasn't for your early support, Genki would never have even existed as a product let alone a relatively small brand today.  You've allowed us to grow and take risks in new gaming accessories that we never would have ever thought we could take this brand and we still definitely have more to come.

So we have two pieces of news to share:  

Introducing Genki Audio Lite!

We've actually developed a new Genki Bluetooth Audio adapter that we call Genki Audio Lite.  It's essentially a slimmer version of the original Bluetooth adapter that you guys helped us create.  It comes in a few colors that generally match the Switch Lite but are compatible with both the Switch and Switch Lite.  

The main difference is that it doesn't have passthrough charging so it can fit better especially when left plugged in while packed.  It's slightly cheaper at $34.99 than the original Genki Audio without the passthrough charging and we felt the new Switch Lite and "New" Switch (Red Box) have a much longer battery life so that it would be a relatively good trade-off, especially with the compact form factor of the Switch Lite.  

In addition with the Switch Lite we came up with a nifty dual magnetic flip case that is the first case designed to work with our Bluetooth adapters - it's called the Force Field Lite.  If you're interested to learn more and be one of the first to try them out they're available for shipping now at our website.   

Meet ShadowCast, our latest Kickstarter (4 days to go!)

So as someone who's been on a wild Kickstarter ride with us before, we actually quietly launched the ShadowCast at the end of last year and time has flown by to the point where the project is already ending this Thursday. If you haven't heard yet, it's essentially a tiny dongle that connects to your Switch dock and lets you play it on your laptop. 

If you back now, you can be immortalized in our app (Genki Arcade, the app that lets you play the games in) and we'll actually even give all of our backers a short quote they can put in.  We'll make sure people who have been backers of all 3 of our KickStarter projects get a special call-out in the app as well.  We also have a limited edition "Illuminating Yellow" colorway that's inspired by the Pantone color of the year.

And we've actually just finished our mold and are actually *early* for once in our production schedule which is definitely worth celebrating and are on track to ship everything between Feb-March. Please join us on our third adventure!

Oh and here's some crazy hacks you can do with it...

Back ShadowCast today!

One Year Later Genki Update
over 5 years ago – Thu, Jun 06, 2019 at 02:47:03 AM

It’s hard to imagine we launched on Kickstarter one year ago, actually it was on the first day of E3 last year when we launched. And thanks to all of you, we somehow become the 4th most funded Gaming Hardware project on Kickstarter behind Oculus and Ouya (RIP) and its been an incredible ride. We hit a lot of challenges along the way and truth be told we’re still learning and growing as an indie hardware company and looking back we wouldn’t have traded it for the world. 

Our Next Project

We’re finalizing some prototypes that we are excited unveil later this month - some of you who opted in for Genki Lab have given us several rounds of feedback that we’ve taken back to the drawing board to refine it before our launch. So far the latest reactions and feedback has been amazing and we really can’t wait to share with you more news as we get closer to launch. Here's a teaser:

But.. if you’re impatient and going to E3

We'll be there too!  We’re not quite baller enough to have a booth of our own but we’ll be among the gamers wandering the exhibits in bright red Genki t-shirts. Please come by and say hello, we’ll probably be trying out all the fun previews and sitting on the edge of our seats as new announcements are made. And if you’re really interested, ask for a peek at what we’re working on and we should have something to share. 

Help Us Spread the Word

We've been relatively quiet since shipping but that's because we basically crashed after fulfilling the crowdfunding and took a short break before ramping up R&D again.  We've been pretty crappy at getting the word out so we're going to try something a bit experimental for us, a new referral program as we know that our backers are really the ones that know Genki best. So hopefully this will help create a triple win here:

1.  You - Sign up for a referral link at http://genki.kickbooster.me and share it with fellow gamers and you receive 15% of sales generated
2.  Your Friend - buys from your referral link, and can use coupon code FRIENDOFAFRIEND for 15% off
3.  Genki - we get to spread the indie hardware love to more gamers

Ever salivate playing Breath of the Wild?

I know every time I see a cliff I want to climb it after playing Breath of the Wild and while most of the concoctions I’ve cooked up in the game have been horrible there have been a few that stand out. I personally backed this and think it really deserves a bigger audience so check it out, the Legend’s Cookbook made by a bunch of seriously talented people.

OTA Update
almost 6 years ago – Fri, Mar 22, 2019 at 03:08:00 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Life after the Factory
about 6 years ago – Sat, Jan 12, 2019 at 02:07:38 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Merry Switchmas!
about 6 years ago – Tue, Dec 25, 2018 at 01:54:18 AM

Our Holiday Wish

You've already given our team the best Christmas gift by helping us bring Genki to life, but we do have a small request that would be the cherry on top. Thanks to you guys we’ve been nominated on Reddit channel r/NintendoSwitch for most creative/best accessory on the Nintendo Switch - but I’m not going to lie - competition is fierce as we’re up against some pretty amazing first party fan favorites like Nintendo LABO and the Pokeball Controller. 

It’s not really like us to just flat out ask for a vote but if you got Genki and you love it, what better way to show it than by helping vote for Genki here (Category 22 for Best / Creative Switch Accessory). You don’t need a Reddit account but it's always good to have one as the community is almost a million strong and our team will be hosting an AMA (Ask Me Anything) soon and will keep you posted when we can confirm the details. Okay, alright enough with the advertising, back to the good stuff.

Shipping Update

So the mail tracking has been moving slow but it looks like most if not all of the non-extended USB-C head customizations are out the door either on the way or in the case of 5,346 of you in your hands. For those in the exception field it highly likely means your product is stuck in German, UK, or even Swedish customs. UK seem to just want to hold it and charge you service fees on VAT (sorry), Germany wants everything from translated manuals to CE declarations (you can get them here if needed), and Sweden we don’t know as no one’s been too vocal from there.

As for the extended USB-C heads we've completed manufacturing, assembly and testing and have them boxed up and ready to go to the fulfillment warehouse once it opens again on the 27th post Christmas. So some of you may ask why the extended USB-C heads took so long, and why aren’t we offering them anymore:

So the besides the first batch of 300 or so we sent, the 7,000 next batch was fairly easy to produce - and the next 1,500 or so color combinations took longer than the first 7,000, and this last set 1,000 with custom extended heads and colors took even longer. We weren’t able to to automate the manufacturing process for these PCBs so they’re literally handcrafted electronics. We have a higher defect rate from testing obviously and so we even had to more thoroughly test is then a normal Genki. We were originally going to solder these one-offs ourselves but when demand exploded to just less than 1,000 units we knew we needed help so we enrolled our PCB supplier to help - and they were not happy. We had to entice them with the promise of more long-term business but basically assigned 5 soldering very highly-skilled solder technicians to assemble 160 custom USB-C heads per day, begrudgingly.

In order for us to head out of the factory without the Kickstarter left unfinished, we literally started to bring the assembly line to the airport hotel to finish up - you guys with your crazy order combinations! The process of customization is much more painful, more expensive, more time consuming, and something that isn’t sustainable ever again after this campaign. But we did it cause we promised - and frankly it wasn’t supposed to be so difficult. Me and Andrew have left, while Chris volunteered to wrap up the final shipments on Christmas Eve and we’ll get those packages out to the fulfillment warehouse when they open after the holidays with tracking numbers hopefully out by the end of the week.

Have you ever Googled yourself?

Well we did! And found some pretty awesome videos in the process. Checkout TimeLag Gaming’s video (one of our backers!) - the last part where he throws the competition into the Amazon return envelope says it all.  Help get him over 1,000 views! 

Another gem is Filip Miucin's review.  He was one of the first major promoters of our *cough* knock-off and its good to know that he's come full circle to recommending ours.  

Another one from Gaijin Hunter who did a great capture of the latency performance with Airpods:

We’re super pumped at everyone’s reviews and good to know that despite others being fast to copy us, our thoughtful attention to details has still put us on top! Oh and we love hearing your stories and seeing your awesome time with Genki, these are the ones that have put a smile on our face recently:

"My brother and I just took the Genki for a spin with Smash Bros. while everyone else was asleep. Audio was so much clearer and timely than the headphone transmitter we'd been using. And it's much easier to wrestle your sibling to the ground for pulling cheap moves when you don't have to worry about ripping out cords or damaging splitters!” - Joshua

This brings back so many childhood memories of family gatherings and my cousins getting together to play games. We didn’t have anything as amazing as Smash Bros Ultimate but we had old school Mario Kart and Super Bomberman.

"-dances- -dances-. it arrived today. works like a charm. tested with my Nuraphones and Air pods both with the switch and the ps4! my gaming life is now complete. well done Genki. great KS project. Great Product. wishing you all the best for the holiday season and future endeavors. lots of love!!" Stuart

We’re up here doing the happy dance with you Stuart!

"I just wanted to say that the product is just AMAZING. It works and its worth every penny. I’m so in love with it I put the Genki sticker on my new iPad Pro. Strong work! -Happy NYC Customer" - Daniel

This is super cool and it makes the effort we put into the sticker totally worth it. Not sure which sticker you used but the drawn one is done by the talented Tino - you can check out his Instagram here. Also I’m super curious as to where you put the sticker, I mean I wouldn’t imagine you’re covering the Apple logo but if you did we may have just hit cult status!

Kellan sent us these two photos of him playing Smash with his wife at the airport:

And I just want to say congrats on marrying an incredible woman and despite our love for the suitcase and lego stand, we will get you a new portable stand soon!

Add-ons and Replacements

Which brings us to the next point, accessories. So a lot of you have gotten Genkis are wishing you had got on of the sweet add-ons, whether it’s a dock adapter or a portable stand, or just a replacement case cause some jerk at the post office tossed it around. Our next step in January is to try to get away from a one warehouse distribution point and setup local warehousing in the US and Europe so we can get you those add-ons and replacements in a more sustainable and cost-efficient way.

Still Waiting for Genki and it was a Gift? 

So unfortunately, due to whatever myriad of reasons you didn’t get your Genki that was meant to be a Christmas gift, we had one backer actually request us to write an email to them they could show their recipient that they did indeed try hard to get them a gift way ahead of time but it’s been delayed. So Chris’ girlfriend helped us design a little “Christmas Raincheck Card” which kind of apologizes to the receiver that we’re late. But they got it in time anyways, and now we have an extra card gone to waste. Honestly, we have mixed feelings about whether you should use this - so if you are do so at your own risk and print it on nice paper. We just want to give you the option - you know who’s getting your gift better than us so you’ll know how they react. We know it doesn’t really replace a real Genki but it shows that it was thoughtful despite being late, you can grab it here.

We’re taking a Slight Break

Our communications are gonna slow down to a crawl between now and New Year’s Day and we hope you'll do the same - don’t worry your tracking number will update! It’s definitely a shorter holiday than we were anticipating but the mix of popularity explosion (good) and crashing into every logistics hurdle (bad) we’re going to need to rest our eyes a bit and get some fresh air, good food, and the occasional drinking and celebrating with loved ones.

Wishing you a Happy Holidays from the Genki Family