But when the BBC visited Zano’s headquarters for a demo in August, the drone couldn’t find a Global Positioning System signal to fly outside, took poor quality images, struggled to hover, and had a flight time of about 5 minutes – a third of what Torquing wanted to achieve – before running out of battery power.
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Kickstarter projects have gained a reputation for overpromising and underdelivering.
The “world’s most sophisticated drone”, however, will see neither flash of smile nor light of day: On Wednesday, Europe’s most successful Kickstarter liquidated.
There were a few signs of trouble, beyond the technological shortcomings – the summer shipping date for the 0 drone came and went; the CEO resigned in early November, citing health issues and “irreconcilable differences”.
The company also told that the backers of the campaign will also get back their amount, but how much of the money rose has been unspent is presently unclear. A Change.org petition demanding refunds from the company has garnered more than 1,000 signatures. This is not at all good on part of the company and Kickstarter, he said.
After a Kickstarter campaign that earned nearly $3.5 million United States dollars, the Zano Drone Project has shut down amid high-level staff resignations and heavy delays in production.
Kickstarter has always maintained that project creators are responsible for following through on delivering their products, and the onus for vetting projects and their creators ultimately falls on the backers.
Of the 15,363 drones sold to the project’s 12,000-plus backers, the company claimed to have shipped “over 600 Zanos” as of October 13th.
A representative tells Quartz that “there are no guarantees that a project will work out”, and that the company is working to educate backers about risks.
‘If they are unable to satisfy the terms of this agreement, they may be subject to legal action by backers’.
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On an unofficial Facebook page Dave Drake posted: “This is the second project I’ve backed on Kickstarter that has failed and will be why I never back anything again”.
