HeyGears G1X backers: 99% we have been scammed
At this point I genuinely think there is a 99% chance that G1X backers have been scammed in some sense.
When I say "scammed", I don't necessarily mean HeyGears is going to disappear, shut down its website and run away with $18 million. I don't even think that is the most likely outcome. I think the much more realistic possibility is that we were sold a product, a level of performance and, most importantly, a level of readiness that simply wasn't there when our money was taken.
That is what worries me.
HeyGears has raised roughly $17.8 million from more than 4,000 backers. This isn't a tiny Kickstarter where a few hundred people funded an inventor working out of a garage. This is a massive hardware campaign involving thousands of expensive machines.
We are now roughly two months from December, yet people are still asking questions that I would have expected to be answered months ago.
Has mass production actually started?
How many G1X units can HeyGears manufacture in a week?
How many are expected to ship in December?
Are they shipping in backer order?
Which countries go first?
When somebody directly asked whether the G1X was in production and when production would start, HeyGears didn't give a date. Instead, the answer was that the G1X is "progressing according to plan" and that they are continuing with "remaining development and production preparations".
That wording bothers me far more than a simple delay would.
If thousands of machines are about to start shipping in December, I would expect the hardware to basically be finished by now. I would expect production to be running or at least visibly ramping up. Firmware should be close to final. Software should be close to final. Packaging should exist. Manuals should exist. Support teams should be preparing for thousands of customers.
Most importantly, I would expect HeyGears to be proudly showing all of this.
Instead, we keep hearing that more information will be shared later.
Then there is the prototype issue.
This is probably the biggest thing that changed my opinion of the campaign.
FauxHammer recently showed G1X prints, but according to the discussion around that video, some of the models were actually printed by HeyGears and sent to him. At the same time, HeyGears says the production machines are still being improved in areas such as colour saturation and print quality.
So what exactly are we looking at when we see these amazing examples?
That matters.
If I buy a printer because I see an incredible full-colour miniature, I want to know that the machine I receive can produce that miniature. I don't want to know that HeyGears' engineers, using their own carefully controlled setup, managed to produce it for a demonstration.
Those are completely different things.
The test I care about is incredibly simple.
Give FauxHammer, Uncle Jessy or another independent reviewer a final production G1X. Give them the same model used in the marketing. Let them prepare it themselves, press print and show us what comes out.
If the printer is as good as advertised, that should be the easiest possible way to shut everyone up.
Instead, people specifically asked HeyGears for production-machine comparison prints and high-resolution photographs. The response was that they would take the suggestion into consideration and include it in their plans "where possible".
"Where possible"?
Why would showing what the final printer can actually produce only be possible under certain circumstances?
We are supposedly weeks away from production shipping.
That answer made my confidence worse, not better.
The December wording is another problem.
During the campaign the message people took away was basically "December 2026 availability". Now the language has become "estimated", "targeting December" and, most importantly, "first shipments".
Those phrases might sound similar, but they aren't.
"Available in December" gives me the impression that the product is launching in December.
"We are targeting the first shipments in December" could mean almost anything.
They could theoretically ship 20 machines on December 30 and say, completely truthfully, that G1X shipments started in December. The remaining thousands of us could then be waiting until January, February, March or later.
I am not saying that is definitely what they intend to do.
I am saying we currently have no numbers that rule it out.
That is why people keep asking how many machines will be produced each week and how shipping batches will work.
Those questions still don't have proper answers.
The refund situation makes this even worse.
Backers have said that the FAQ previously stated that a full refund could be requested until a tracking number was issued. Now there appears to be conflicting information suggesting refunds are no longer available because the pledge period has closed.
One backer says he has screenshots and timestamps of the previous wording.
If that is correct, I think HeyGears needs to explain it properly.
Because think about what that looks like from our side.
You back an expensive machine because you believe you can still cancel before it ships. The campaign ends. Your money is collected. Questions start appearing about production readiness and delivery. Then suddenly there is uncertainty about whether that refund option still exists.
Maybe there is a perfectly innocent explanation.
But it looks awful.
And this is why I no longer think the important question is whether HeyGears will literally disappear with our money.
I don't think they will.
The scenario I am worried about is much more believable.
They had an extremely impressive prototype and an exciting concept. They produced excellent demonstration pieces. They marketed the machine heavily and attached a December date to it. People, including me, looked at what was being shown and assumed the machine was much further along than it perhaps really was.
Nearly $18 million was raised.
Then the language started changing.
"December availability" became "estimated December".
December became "first shipments".
Reviewers were still using prototypes.
Some showcase prints were being supplied by HeyGears rather than produced independently.
The final print quality was apparently still being improved.
Questions about mass production received vague answers.
Requests for final production comparisons were met with "where possible".
And now there is confusion over refunds.
Maybe every single one of these things has an innocent explanation.
That is possible.
But eventually you have to stop judging each thing in isolation and look at the whole picture.
For me, that picture is now very difficult to ignore.
There is also something else that really bothers me: HeyGears could disprove most of this tomorrow.
They don't need to reveal proprietary engineering information.
Show us the production line.
Walk through the factory with a camera.
Show us 100, 200 or 500 finished G1X units.
Tell us how many are being manufactured each week.
Show us the final packaging.
Show us the machines being quality checked.
Give final production machines to independent reviewers.
Let those reviewers reproduce the exact prints used to sell the product.
Upload the original high-resolution photographs.
Give us an actual shipping schedule.
Clarify the refund policy in one unambiguous paragraph.
None of that seems unreasonable for a project that has collected almost $18 million.
And if they did all of it, I would happily admit that I was wrong.
I actually want to be wrong.
I backed the G1X because I think the concept is incredible. If the machine arrives and genuinely does what was shown during the campaign, I will probably be one of the first people praising it.
But I can't base my confidence on what I hope happens.
I have to base it on what I can actually see today.
What I can see today is a company saying December is still the plan while apparently still carrying out development and production preparations, reviewers using prototype hardware, unanswered questions about manufacturing volume, changing delivery language, company-produced demonstration samples and confusion over refunds.
That isn't enough for me anymore.
The question isn't even whether a G1X eventually arrives at my house.
Suppose it arrives six months late and its colour quality is significantly worse than the campaign examples. Suppose the advertised workflows aren't finished. Suppose features shown during the campaign take another year of software updates to work properly.
Would I say "well, technically I received a printer, therefore nobody was misled"?
No.
For me, the real question is whether the product and its readiness were accurately represented when HeyGears asked us to hand over thousands of dollars.
If HeyGears already knew that the final machine wasn't close to reproducing the marketing results reliably, or that meaningful December delivery wasn't realistic, but continued presenting those expectations because they helped bring in pledges, then I would consider that being scammed regardless of whether a printer eventually turns up.
That is why I put it at 99%.
Not because I have proof of criminal fraud. I don't.
I put it at 99% because I increasingly suspect that what we thought we were funding and what actually existed at the time were two very different things.
There is still one very easy way for HeyGears to prove people like me completely wrong.
Stop reassuring us.
Stop telling us everything is "progressing according to plan".
Show us.
Show us the production machines.
Show us the factory.
Show us the numbers.
Show independent reviewers producing the same results.
Show us exactly what is shipping and when.
Our money wasn't "estimated".
Our payments weren't "targeted".
They were real, and they were collected.
I don't think asking for equally real evidence in return is unreasonable.