Panic halts development of Playdate Stereo Dock amid challenges

Recap: It's been much than 3 years since Playdate shaper Panic first teased a multi-purpose docking position for nan quirky handheld. The aptly-named Playdate Stereo Dock was meant to service arsenic a charging position for nan console, and double arsenic a Bluetooth speaker (and a pen holder), but now it's unclear if nan accessory will ever spot nan ray of day.

An update connected nan dock's merchandise page highlights nan numerous challenges nan squad has faced during development, which started by assuming their manufacturing partner – pinch plentifulness of acquisition making Bluetooth speakers – could easy creation nan physics connected their behalf. Had it worked, it would person saved Panic tons of clip and money.

Things went smoothly astatine first, but nan mill ended up outsourcing nan Bluetooth chipset and package to different institution successful a different country. Unsurprisingly, value suffered.

Panic said nan dock would clang often, particularly erstwhile quickly adjusting nan volume. Pairing and unpairing was besides a symptom constituent and erstwhile euphony was played done nan speaker, it level retired sounded bad.

Attempting to robust retired nan bugs while moving done a middleman was a struggle, but Panic pushed forward. The institution took complete audio development, tweaking nan equalizer to amended sound quality. They moreover bought nan root codification for nan Bluetooth chipset, but nan codification turned retired to beryllium a mess. All nan while, nan costs of nan task kept climbing.

As it stands today, Panic has "a number of beautiful vanished prototypes" that look awesome but are not very bully to use. Realizing that it was costing them much to make than they would ever get backmost from it, nan squad yet decided to deed region connected development. Bummer.

The dream is to 1 time reboot nan task and bring nan dock to nan decorativeness statement but for now, location are different matters to thin to – for illustration focusing connected their caller mill and resuming accumulation of nan Playdate. Perhaps a Kickstarter to rework nan dock could beryllium an action down nan road?