ZTE shuts down Hawkeye Kickstarter campaign

ZTE has announced that it has cancelled the Kickstarter campaign for the Hawkeye smartphone after failing to reach its goal. 

To recap, the Hawkeye was part of ZTE's project CSX, with the aim to crowdsource new ideas for a smartphone. The winning idea was a phone with eye-tracking technology and self-adhesive property, and was called Hawkeye. The phone was unveiled at CES 2017, and launched via Kickstarter campaign.

The Kickstarter target was to reach $500,000 for successfully launching the phone, but the Hawkeye managed to get only 190 backers and raised a total of $36,245. Those who backed the project will get refunds.

The reason behind the failure was that the specification didn't meet the consumers expectations. The Hawkeye featured 5.5-inch Full HD display, Snapdragon 625 processor, dual 13MP+12MP cameras, 8MP front camera, 3GB RAM, 32GB storage, fingerprint scanner, Nougat, fingerprint scanner, NFC, USB Type-C and 3000mAh battery. It was priced at $199 (Rs. 13,500).

Even though Hawkeye carried the special eye-tracking & self adhesive features, decent specs, and a reasonable price tag, ZTE says most people asked to "make it (Hawkeye) more expensive, but don't charge more". This made the kickstarter campaign untenable.

ZTE also said that the project isn't over, and the company is re-evaluating the device for the winning Project CSX idea – an eye-tracking feature with self adhesive backing –, and it will be implemented based on customers feedback to deliver a higher spec'd device. The company is yet to finalize the date for the release of the new phone.

Via | Source