It’s been about a month and a half since Zu released his “I’m Done with AYANEO” video, detailing a multitude of issues that AYANEO customers have been dealing with. This sent ripples through the community, prompting responses from other creators, and even AYANEO itself.
In its response, AYANEO introduced its “Service Improvement Plan,” which included promises to reduce “reliance on pure crowdfunding,” along with providing hope that the company would be more focused. However, since Zu’s video was published, AYANEO has announced/released the following products:
AYANEO AM03 Mini PC: Released onto the AYANEO Store.
AYANEO Pocket DMG Aura Yellow: Announced and released onto the AYANEO store shortly thereafter.
AYANEO Pocket S Mini: Released onto the AYANEO store on for direct pre-orders.
KONKR FIT: AYANEO revealed full specs and it debuted.
AYANEO Pocket Vert: Crowdfunding campaign ended on February 4. However, overseas shipping began early, starting on January 28.
AYANEO Pocket Play: Revealed the Dimensity 9300 as the chipset.
AYANEO Pocket S Mini: Officially launched.
AYANEO Pocket S Mini: Company provides “Battery Capacity Explanation & Compensation Announcement.”
KONKR FIT: “Officially released” on February 6, but won’t begin shipping until “End of April.” Pre-orders only available through AYANEO Store.
AYANEO Pocket Play: More details and specs are shared.
AYANEO NEXT 2: Unveiled on February 8, opened Indiegogo campaign shortly thereafter, but isn’t expected to ship overseas until “June, 2026.”
That is one product announcement, tease, or “debut” per week since the beginning of the year. Which feels simply impossible for a company that tries to tell the community that it’s akin to mom and pop shop.
Nevertheless, right before the company decided to take off for the Chinese New Year, it published a new blog post. This suspiciously came right after Zu dropped another video about AYANEO on us that you can check out below.
The blog post is a rather lengthy one, and it starts off talking about the holiday and the “Achievements and Challenges.” Then, it dives into the “improvement measures” that it supposedly “swiftly promoted.”
After a bit of self-high-fiving, we get even more, but more importantly, the blog post goes on to share some product updates. Essentially, AYANEO is claiming that it has completed all or most crowdfunding orders for the Pocket Fit (G3 Gen 3), Pocket DS, Pocket AIR Mini, and Flip 1S. The exception is with the Flip 1S, which there seem to be enough lingering orders to prompt the company to “provide a delay compensation plan” once it returns from the holiday.
Moving to the next section, AYANEO detailed some more of its “wins,” using these as examples to try and prove that it’s improving. However, in regards to the NEXT 2, the company shared the two reasons why it went with Indiegogo instead of opening pre-orders on its own storefront:
We chose to continue using crowdfunding for this product for two reasons: 1) This product had already completed its pre-launch phase on the crowdfunding platform earlier, requiring us to fulfill the established cooperation arrangement with Indiegogo. 2) We maintain a long-term strategic partnership with the Indiegogo platform.
I’m not well-versed on the relationships between companies and crowdfunding campaign organizers like IGG or Kickstarter. That said, I can see where AYANEO is coming from when it comes to the first point. However, the second reason sure feels like those promises about relying on crowdfunding campaigns in the future will, at some point, be broken.
To its credit, AYANEO does raise a good point when it says “The sales channel itself is not the key; delivering as promised is the true measure.” I agree with that 1000%, which is part of the reason why any of these problems surfaced to begin with.
What I don’t want to see is related to where it says that it “will provide appropriate compensation.” It’s not so much that I don’t want the company to take care of its customers, but I’m more concerned with that becoming the norm. Something to the effect of “oh, sorry, our bad for not delivering as initially promised. Here’s a free Pocket AIR Mini, even if you have three of them already.”
Personally, I’m rather conflicted on this entire situation, as the cynic in me doesn’t really believe AYANEO is changing, while my inner child is screaming like a banshee for the Pocket Play. I guess we’ll just have to wait and ride out this wave, and see where it ends up taking us.
