To those looking for more concrete info on how this razor is supposed to work, here's the patent for it:<p><a href="http://www.google.com/patents/US9017322" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/patents/US9017322</a><p>As far as I can tell, the idea is to use evanescent coupling to transfer light into hair follicles. There's no free space laser beam, just an optical fiber that you drag across your face. They also claim that chromophores (color bearing molecules) in hair can be severed at relatively low powers with a mixture of several specific frequencies of light.<p>So, what this product needs in order to work is a fiber that's durable enough to survive being dragged across skin while having very little cladding so as to allow evanescent coupling. That could be very hard to do, so the heads on these laser razors may wear out after a few shaves just like a metal razor. Second, they need to pack a high power multi-wavelength laser source and the power reserve to run it into a very tiny handle. Again, this is probably going to be pretty tricky.<p>There's nothing here that looks outright impossible to me. Just very, very tricky.
The thing that is weird about this case is that one of the principals, Morgan Gustavsson, is actually the dude who invented the real laser hair removal that is used in clinics and has been involved in dermatology since.<p>I don't know if he was actually involved in this project or not, but that was the one thing that made me think that this maybe wasn't 100% a scam?<p>Anyway, the implication they make in their pitch isn't that it's an open laser, but that it is a laser confined to a fiberoptic wire which leaks into the hair when pressed against it. Gustavsson has published some papers on this a few years ago in which he refers to the concept as a TRASER.<p>Of course, if this really is such a revolutionary advance, why go to Kickstarter to bring it to market? Why not traditional investors. Gotta be easier to get funding for a significant manufacturing outlay, right? Just to not have to sell a piece of the company? To justify that there is a market?<p>I personally don't have the background to make any judgments about this and I definitely don't understand the article he published, but I just thought it didn't <i>completely</i> fail the smell test.
It's sad that people thought it was real, forget about lasers and stuff it's basic common sense.<p>A AAA battery doesn't store enough power to drive a laser capable of burning hair for any reasonable amount of time.<p>When the laser isn't interrupted by the hair it has to go some where which means that heat is produced, if it can get something hot enough to burn the hair off it would get hot enough that you won't be able to hold it yet alone put it to your face.<p>There's no way you would ever could get the laser beam close enough to the skin for a smooth shave without burning your skin off.<p>And most importantly burnt hair smells like shit....<p>P.S.
I assume that most people know at least 1 person that did laser hair removal, they should know it's a very painful and long process and it works only on dark hairs so again using this to shave anything but a fairly dark beard would never work.
Since we all check the comments first, here are some links:<p>KickStarter project page (suspended):<p><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skarp/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving" rel="nofollow">https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skarp/the-skarp-laser-r...</a><p>IndieGoGo project page (they re-posted the project there after being suspended):<p><a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving#/" rel="nofollow">https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-skarp-laser-razor-21s...</a><p>Demonstration video:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOLwNJ7TXWA" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOLwNJ7TXWA</a>
> Backers received an email from Kickstarter saying the Laser Razor was "in violation of our rule requiring working prototypes of physical products that are offered as rewards".<p>Interesting. Was this a recent policy change? Control VR never showed any working prototypes either, and their campaign was allowed (this was in 2014). Their demonstration video was later revealed to be using another company's significantly more expensive product ($10k+ vs the $600 pledge price), with zero modifications. They never demonstrated any prototypes of the product they were claiming to develop themselves, yet the campaign went through and now they have everyone's money (>$400k) without delivering.
hackaday.com had a good writeup that was skeptical of this.<p><a href="http://hackaday.com/2015/10/01/ask-hackaday-i-love-the-smell-of-burnt-hair-in-the-morning/" rel="nofollow">http://hackaday.com/2015/10/01/ask-hackaday-i-love-the-smell...</a><p>They have generally been good at writing up some of the more sketchy kickstarts.
Their prototype reminds me of concept car designs that look great but don't have enough internal space for an engine. You'd maybe fit a AAA battery in the handle but I haven't even seen a torch that works without more juice.<p>Also, I was kind of suspicious when I noticed that more than half of the team have beards.
In light of the recent actions of the Washington State Attorney General, it takes balls to try and pull a scam like this. The AG ruled against the people behind a kickstarter campaign for a card game when they did not ship rewards for two years. The original campaign raised 25k and the judgement was for 56k. The ruling was on behalf of 31 residents out of 810 backers. The company is slowly shipping units and it looks like the AG is backing off.<p>But this whole thing brings up many interesting questions. The fine was 1k per WA resident + reimbursement + legal fees. Knowing that the AG has your back if things go south should undoubtedly embolden WA residents, which may lead to a higher percentage of backers coming from that state, which in turn would mean a higher fine if things fall through. I honestly was going to have my sister, a WA state resident, back this for me for my birthday, if it survived to the last day of funding.<p>Links:<p><a href="http://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-makes-crowdfunded-company-pay-shady-deal" rel="nofollow">http://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-makes-crowdfunde...</a><p><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/213177064/asylum-playing-cards/comments" rel="nofollow">https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/213177064/asylum-playin...</a>
As soon as I saw that Kickstarter kicked them off I was wondering how long it would take for them to get onto Indiegogo. Then, of course I see it only took 4 hours.<p>If you're unaware, Indiegogo has shown that they're more than willing to be the platform of choice for scammers and nonsense products.
I really want a Kickstarter review site, where people can post projects. Since non-backers cannot post comments there is no way to let people know that 'this project is probably not going to work'. Snopes for Kickstarter?
This current phenomenon about crowdsourcing products is similar to the GroupOn/flash sale phenomenon, and as the products get shittier and shittier, and as more and more get disillusioned by it, the entire space will die.<p>Kickstarter and IndieGoGo need to do a much, much better job policing this, otherwise they will be out of business in 2 years. There are too many shitty products with great marketing videos that are taking a lot of money, and they will likely all be disappointing as hell.
I don't like what has become of kickstarter, but I think it's more of it's users fault than the company. They are really trying to stick to their values and principals, and mission despite having the possibilty to go the usual 'lets raise bazillions and get some flippin growth and extinguish the competition' way
<p><pre><code> "They have been incredibly helpful and they believe in the
Skarp Razor as much as we do," the firm said of Indiegogo.
</code></pre>
is a very polite way of saying "Yeah, we don't believe in our own product either"
How can you prove to potential buyers that you're able to produce the product you're selling them if you can't create a prototype demonstrating that it works?<p>Let's say we take everything at face value and believe 100% they can do this and that it is not a scam. If there is no prototype it's still possible that it could not work as it's unproven.
Reminds me of that hologram device scam - bleen. It was so funny I couldn't tell if it was a scam or a parody trying to make fun of crowdfunding. Unfortunately it was flexible funding so people lost their money and whatever you think no one deserves to be scammed.
I couldn't help but wonder if this would ultimately produce the same result as the "No No" shaver which, from what I read, is just a hot wire that burns the hair at the root.<p>The reviews make it sound like its a rather slow and smelly affair shaving this way.
What made me skeptical of this is that it looked like too much of a polished system, you'd expect it to look more like a braun shaver than a gillette fusion, with more battery space. The AA battery was also a dead giveaway.
The name "Skarp" -- possibly in conjunction with "Kickstarter" -- immediately made me think of "scarper", i.e. the process of fleeing, ideally with the big bag of crowdfunding money.
Anything that heats a hair to the point it burns off, no matter what the heat source is, will give out a bad smell. Good luck if one has thick beard, and no, I am not convinced this will work cleanly.
Unpopular opinion, but I think parents should be assigned based on actual working models of something. Not just an idea, but something that is actually been tangibly created.
lol... what I found funny and somewhat ironic is that most of the people in the video seem to wear a beard? (or lack of shaving) Maybe they're waiting until they can get their hands in an actual working prototype :P
Um, folks, you're missing the obvious.<p>Optic fiber glass is <i>SHARP AS HELL</i>.<p>So, make the thing light up with pretty lights and colors and expose a sharp glass edge for cutting.<p>Works like a razor, cuts incredibly closely, and has <i>ooh shiny</i> for marketing.<p>I'm not seeing a problem with this.