Ive seen some of Waydo’s gear in the shop. I think Waydo will produce an OK product at an OK price. You get what you pay for and the waydos Ive seen are not a premium product.
However, I would never ever purchase one on the Kickstarter platform! No accountability!
For what I understand … eu reseller:
No more money to put in Efoil for the moment ( but in my house ) otherwise I would have give it a try …
I´ve seen the waydoo one as well. The board is EPP soft construction which does not look as glossy as carbon fibre, but in my opinion it has to big advantages
+super lightweight
+durable (the dealer even let it drop to the floor from 50cm on concrete… Nothing happened. The foam edge went in about 1cm and got back to original shape (teh material looks to me like the one used on protector vests)
The rest of the efoil is high quality in my opinion, Electronic looks a bit like DJI engineered and it is set together in 2minutes out of the board bags…That is super cool!
yes the above shop in Amsterdam/netherlands www.flyingfishfoils.eu has it for demo and the german distributor www.waydoo.one has it already as well for demo.
I must admit I never bought anything on Kickstarter:
1 - are Kickstarter and Paypal incompatible ?
2 - are the Kickstarter pledgers usually considered as beta testers ? A price discount in exchange for a (limited) Kickstarter warranty ?
Other questions since late July will be two weeks after the KS campaign end.
3 - why could be the reasons why a South Carolina so a US registered company could not open a PayPal account in a few minutes, hours, days ?
4 - what is most feared by a company of goodwill in securing its customers’ purchase with a trusted third party ? Paypal, Credit Card…Repaying the 1.5% fee on the selling price or taking the risk of having to reimburse the customer because of a malfunctioning product ?
Kickstarter pledgers have zero rights. You give someone money and then pray that they deliver what they promised. There have been lots of high profile campaigns that raised millions of dollars and never delivered anything.
Usually people are pledging small amounts like $20 so it’s not a huge deal. Throwing $4,000+ at Kickstarter is just crazy to me. Might as well blow it all at the casino.
I’m backer #2. Here’s how I see it:
They have shipped a carbon version of their eFoil - called just the “Flyer”, looks similar to Lift with a battery compartment and prop above fuselage (doesn’t look like in large quantities, but there are people using them)
They wanted to use the Kickstarter platform to guage pre-order interest and ramp up production. Interestingly Kickstarter takes 5% of the funds raised by July 16. Plus another 2-3% for Credit Card processing fees
Kickstarter doesn’t provide any guarantee - technically you have your credit card protection through it but I’m not sure how that works if the KS backer doesn’t deliver. I don’t think you can charge back
Waydoo is using their affiliation with DJI to build goodwill. I think this has been effective.
They have shipped pre-production Flyer ONE’s (EPP foam, no battery compartment, prop inline in fuselage) to various “brand ambassadors / affiliates” around the world - they are effectively the beta testers. Again some good footage of them in use out there but no long term reliability reports yet
Waydoo has hired a company that specializes in launching and marketing new products via crowd-funding platforms like Kickstarter. They are about to clear $1mm USD in presales in less than a week. It’s possible they’ll do $2mm by the time the campaign closes July 16.
You can always pledge and then cancel your pledge before the July 16 deadline if you change your mind. No money is charged to your card until then
Kickstarter is a gamble yes, but this is a company with a track-record. I backed a $1500 self-inflating Paddleboard on Kickstarter 3+ years ago that still hasn’t shipped widely to it’s backers. I was fortunate enough to get one of the first ones, but it has reliability issues
If you aren’t sure, then wait until the campaign is over and buy one at full MSRP, I suspect via a credit card with all the protection that offers. Personally I’m willing to take a bit of risk, knowing it has a 1 year warranty (plus technically additional warranty coverage via my credit card) to hopefully receive it this season (or possibly early next if they end up having production delays…)
Oh oh, someone needs an advocate.
It doesn’t make things more serious.
Greetings Frank
I am backer #51. I have been following Waydoo for some time. I met the team at CES 2020 in Vegas and saw the carbon board and a prototype of the Flyer One. The team seems serious. They have been selective in choosing their partners, they have set up distribution via a 3PL company in the US and they have boards on the water. The ship date of August 2020 seems aggressive unless they already have begun production. The Kickstarter campaign clearly validates the market for a more affordable mass produced eFoil. I am optimistic and look forward to doing a full review once I receive mine hopefully in August.
I’d be interested to read your review. Keep us posted then, thx !
I just spoke with an owner of a surf shop. He has a Fliteboard. He said he had a chance to ride the waydoo recently and stated that it’s not up to par. Plus it failed when he was riding it. He said to save your money and build one.
I’m glad my build worked out well…
Who cares about the foil? The training wheels is genius!
I wonder how durable is EPP foam? Anyone had experience with it on products like surfboard?
I just spoke with an owner of a surf shop. He has a Fliteboard. He said he had a chance to ride the waydoo recently and stated that it’s not up to par. Plus it failed when he was riding it. He said to save your money and build one.
I’m glad my build worked out well…
Interesting - I’ve heard the opposite. I’ve spoke to several Lift owners who have tried the Waydoo. They were all shocked at how close it is to riding the Lift. The build quality is obviously not as high, but I wouldn’t expect to to be for half the price.
Curious to hear more impressions - anyone else had a chance to try it out?
I doubt that very much! Where have these riders tried the Waydoo?
Just looking at the video reviews you can see the quality of it is far below that of Lift and Fliteboard!
I’m just passing along what they told me. There are several locations that have pre-build models you can try out. There’s only one review at the moment (in one of the comments above) and it’s mostly positive.
I haven’t tried it yet but I highly doubt DJI would invest in a project that would tarnish their reputation. I heard DJI was interested to enter the stock market last year, this is far to be “just” a 1B$ company…
Do you mean the bumper for the board? Unfortunately the board is the least dangerous part on an eFoil, so that won’t do much good.
No! The floaty thing that keeps you from edging in and crashing is genius! I havent ever efoiled for more than about 5 seconds out of 4 hours of trying, so something like this would really help me learn.
What foil do you have? This will most likely be the cause.
Curious to hear more impressions - anyone else had a chance to try it out?
I tried the Waydoo Flyer ONE yesterday. I’d say the quality is 1/2 of Lift while the ride experience is 2/3. HOWEVER at 1/3 the price it opens up a huge part of the market, myself included since a $12k eFoil isn’t in my realm. I’m Early Bird backer #2 of the Kickstarter because at that price I can take a bit of a risk - even if it means I’m replacing or buying new parts for it in a couple of years…
I definitely have some reservations about long term reliability, but from what I saw/experienced, this is an excellent eFoil experience. As long as they can back it up with their 1 year warranty and post-sales/warranty parts/support I think it will do well.
The EPP foam on initial glance was cheaper looking than I expected (kind of like a dense styrofoam with a bit of give) but it seems quite durable and is softer for any contact with the board during learning.
I understand the concerns about Kickstarter and a sub-$5k commercial eFoil in general, but I think Waydoo has the ability to pull it off. Fingers crossed mine will ship by August as they’ve indicated - however even if it’s delayed until 2021 I’d be ok with that, especially if it means further refinement/reliability etc.