We're due to publish an update about Carbon Fiber backers ring vouchers and we wanted to get some community feedback before we hit publish. This is the draft at the moment. Please share your thoughts / questions!
Below is the update..
Qinetiq Zephyr - Stealth Bomber and Carbon Fiber Update
TLDR; You may be entitled to a voucher towards a replacement ring.
2 Years ago when we ran our campaign we introduced a ring called the "Stealth Bomber", this ring was a black ring with a Carbon Fiber inlay cover and it looked really great. During the production of this ring we hit three major issues.
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The PVD plating looked terrible after a few months of wear.
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The Carbon Fiber affected the read performance of the ring.
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The Black on Black caused issues during the polishing phase causing high rates of visual QA fails during production.
Because of these issues we decided to stop shipping these rings and instead we issued a free place-holder ring. The Fiber issue also affected all of our Carbon Fiber rings so we decided to stop shipping those too. We had come so far and we were not willing to accept defeat. We always wanted to make a ring that looked exactly the same but didn't suffer from these failures. Today I'm happy to announce we can make these goals a reality.
It's worth noting at this point that we don't compromise on quality. We apologize for the delays but all of this time has been spent in development and fine tuning so we can introduce rings that have great performance and look even better than the original concept. I'm really proud of our new rings and I'm super excited to get to show them to the world soon. Naturally our backers are always the first to hear and as always have been vocal in helping to draft this update.
What will the voucher consist of?
We will issue you a voucher to the original order value of the ring from your pledge. So if you pledged £15 for a stealth bomber ring and we provided you an alternative ring, you will get a £15 voucher. Pretty cool huh? Collection folks will get the value of that ring from the collection, we value each ring from the collection at £15 so you will get a voucher of £15 per substitution.
It's important to note that the voucher will not be usable on Kickstarter (Sadly KS don't support this) and there is no way we can manage a different pledge level with discounts for these backers (Kickstarter limitation again). When we introduce the new rings we will introduce them on Kickstarter initially and as we hit our funding goals for each ring we will introduce them on the NFC Ring store so you guys can use your vouchers on them then. We will be shipping Kickstarter and NFC Ring store purchased rings at the same time so you wont get your ring any later than backers. What will be important is that you get your friends etc. supporting the Kickstarter project as that will give you more options to use with your voucher in the NFC Ring store. It also means we will get funded and we can make the new ring a reality!
Who is entitled?
Anyone who ordered a Stealth Bomber ring or Carbon Fiber ring and did not get a Stealth Bomber or Carbon Fiber ring.
But I ordered multiple Stealth Bombers/Carbon Fiber rings and I got multiple replacements!
Single substitution claims will be the easiest for us to process, multiple substitution claims will require database checking and may be delayed.
Nothing to see here....
You can skip this paragraph, move along.. Okay, still here? We have 400 prototypes of our new ring and we want to give you guys first go at testing them in the field. The rings are all in one size (US 10). To get your hands on one we just ask you to post to Social Media with the hashtag #nfcringcan showing off how you use your ring. If you are lucky enough to get one of these rings we would like your feedback. Winners will be chosen based on the creativity of their application as judged by our community.
How will the next ring launch happen?
We will post a Kickstarter soon with an update will be details on how we intend to bring the new rings to life so stay tuned for that!
Sounds Great (Too easy)! What should I do?
Now is the time to act. You have 13.56 days to complete the Kickstarter Fiber Voucher Request form.
Thanks for being awesome and again our apologies for the delays!
J