FunKey S - the world's smallest foldable handheld console
Created by Funkey Project
Ultra-compact, foldable, powerful and comfortable, the FunKey S is the perfect handheld for playing retrogames anywhere, anytime.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
What's up, FunKey? episode 22
about 3 years ago
– Sat, Feb 06, 2021 at 09:36:43 AM
Hello there, retrogamers!
We hope you've had a great week!
We do not have much to share with you today, so this will be a short update.
THE SHIPPING & TRACKING NUMBERS
Before talking tracking numbers, we've seen that some backers in China and Hong Kong are already receiving their new consoles from this 2nd shipping!!! Based on how the 1st shipping experience went this means that soon everyone will get theirs😄!
Some of you already received their email containing the tracking number but if you did not receive it, don't worry! The factories in China are working like crazy right now to prioritize everything before the Chinese new year holidays. In our case this means that the priority is shipping the packages. For some countries, sending the tracking number will simply be done after everything is shipped. So it might very well be that your FunKey S has already been shipped but you'll receive your tracking number a bit later😄.
What's important is that your orders willbe shipped before Chinese New Year!
We know you've been patiently waiting to play with the FunKey S and let us put your mind at ease: everything is going perfectly now, everyone should get its FunKey very soon 😄!
THE DOCUMENTATION
The documentation space has been updated! Latest section added: How to change Gmenu2x wallpaper. This is something the first FunKey owners (and curious future ones) asked us, here you go!
We hope you appreciate this documentation space and that every tutorial that's put there is easy for you to understand!
SIDE POINTS
We sent Jutley (RGHandhelds) a FunKey S review sample for reviews and he received it a few days ago, you can check his unboxing video below. He already said that he'll be uploading new videos soon so don't hesitate to subscribe to his channel and join the Discord channel to check out the new videos as soon as they come out!
A new review video made by a Japanese backer caught our eyes this week :
We admit we do not speak Japanese, but he seems pretty happy about his console 😄 😄 and the quality of the video is amazing. It really shows how crisp and fluid the screen is.
Azu Kenichi, if you ever see this, 動画ありがとうございます！
Do you remember Dragonborne? We told you a few months ago about this new GameBoy game developed by Spacebot Interactive! Well, it will be released on Steam on 12th February! They also announced on their Instagram they had a new game in the works, it's called "Deadeus"! You can check their work over here : https://www.spacebot-interactive.com/. We're eagerly awaiting its release to play it on the FunKey S! (Just as a reminder, we are not affiliated to Spacebot Interactive and they did not ask us to talk about them. It's just we think that's incredibly cool that new games come out, full retro! )
That's all for today folks,
Cheers,
The FunKey team
What's up, FunKey? episode 21 - ship... (2)
about 3 years ago
– Sat, Jan 30, 2021 at 09:10:21 PM
Dear FunKey community,
Today is the day many of you have been eagerly waiting for...
Your consoles are on the way!
That's right, they are!
Repairs are over and your FunKey S have left the manufacturing assembly. They are now in the capablehands of the shipping company. This means that you should keep an eye out for future emails because you'll receive your tracking number in a few days!
Post repairs pictures
We wish to say one more time that we are very sorry for this setback, and we want to thank the 600 backers that got their consoles during the first shipping and shared their feedback so soon. The initial SD cards breaking over time was a crucial issue that passed through the cracks of our initial production tests, and thanks to you we were able to correct it early on.
To the backers whose first shipping got stopped: thank you for your patience and your understanding those last weeks. It has been some difficult days for everyone but your support truly made the difference. 🙏
The documentation space
Last week we introduced the documentation space, designed to give you access to step-by-step tutorials, both for software and hardware uses, and also for developers.
The FunKey adventure has been an amazing ride for us so far. We have learnt a lot from the Kickstarter, the production, the community and even the setbacks, and are now focusing on keeping things going and growing.
We can't wait to hear your feedback once you receive your FunKey S! Don't hesitate to tag us on the different social media when you do, we do not want to miss it and we'll reshare it! 😄 😄
What's up, FunKey? episode 20
about 3 years ago
– Sat, Jan 23, 2021 at 05:38:07 PM
Hello alland welcome to this 20th episode of our post-Kickstarter campaign 🙌
We hope you've had a great week, as they say: T.G.I.F. - time to relax now, and enjoy the 20th episode.
#1 - New documentation and tutorials space
For those of you who follow us from the start, you know we've always tried to share as much as possible about our work. This means that from the very beggining, we not only shared files in a completely open-source philosophy but we also accompanied these files with dozens of dedicated logs/tutorials/documentation so that you guys not only have all the keys, but also the explanation on how to use them.
If you want to dive into our previous works, you can check out:
To continue this philosophy, we're very proud to announce we've just published the new canvas on which we will add all the future FunKey S documentation and tutorials: https://doc.funkey-project.com/
Some of the sections are still empty of course, but now that we're starting to have some more time, we intend to fill them as soon as possible.
This will contain everything from user-friendly tutorials to much more in-depth hardware choices, and a whole developer section to use/compile our SDK and build your own programs for the FunKey S !
Already some of the user-friendly tutorials are accessible, and we finished the whole Hardware reference section in the Developer's guide. We plan to finish most of the user-friendly tutorials this week.
For instance, accessing the tutorial to add ROMs is as simple as navigating:
"User's Manual" -> "Tutorials" -> "Software" -> "Add new ROMs"
Of course we'll also add new sections/tutorials along the way and since our philosophy is to share everything, do not hesitate to tell us which tutorial/section you would like to see added!
We want to stress out that this documentation space is different from the FunKey Wiki developed by Coolie Coolster in many ways. While it is of course possible find a little information overlap, both medias are dedicated to different purposes.
Updating your console is very easy, no need to reflash your SD card, it can be done with a simple USB file transfer in less than 5min. We've made a dedicated tutorial over here in the Documentation space: https://doc.funkey-project.com/tutorials/software/update
This release packs many improvements, including better overall performances, the addition of the gmenu2x launcher, a better management of the sound for power efficiency, an improved Instant Play implementation...
See the whole list for yourself :
Changelog FunKey-OS V2.0.0
#3 - Production
So... the topic everyone is most anxious about: how is it going on the production side ?
Well, it's going pretty well. First of all: the new U3 micro SD cards have been fully tested in factory AND have been flashed with the brand new 2.0.0 FunKey-OS.
This means that backers whose shipping was unfortunately stopped will receive an updated FunKey S (micro SD card and software).
Now for the most important news: the last repairs are meant to begin early next week. This means end of next week - if everything goes well -, the consoles will be sent to the shipping factory, and the week after that, well - again if everything goes well - shipping could be very seriously considered🤫🤫🤫.
We still use the verb "should" because, as you know, China is in an extremely complicated situation with Covid right now and factories might very well close earlier this year for the Chinese New Year holiday (which lasts 2 to 3 weeks). We're really crossing both hands and feet fingers here 🤞.
That will be all for today guys, as always thank you for your incredible support, and see you next week with more good news!
The FunKey team
What's up, FunKey? episode 19
over 3 years ago
– Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 06:01:54 PM
Hello Kick' community, hello retrogamers! How are you doing? 😄
It's time for our weekly update and this week we have some important info to share with you.
U3 Micro SD Cards > U1 Micro SD Cards
Last week, we described how our efforts were now dedicated to finding the perfect new SD card for the FunKey S. We especially mentioned that one lead was very promising: the U3 Micro SD Cards.
Turns out they're more than promising!
The installation we set up last Friday is still running here! The U3 cards have now passed the hardest stress test (abruptly cutting the power while they're still writing data) for more than 28000 times and are still going.
That should give you some joyful hours with your FunKey S without ever having to worry about breaking the SD card 😉 😎.
Given these results, we went ahead and already ordered the new U3 SD cards.
In fact, your future cards are passing the final tests in the factory at the time we're writing these lines, see for yourself :
Oh and again, thank you @PhanMaxime1 for helping us testing!! 😃
Everything is running smoothly! It's still a bit too soon to estimate a date for shipping to restart, but we're taking the good path for it to happen soon🤞.
As always if you're among the 600 who received their console and notice any issue with your FunKey, please send us an email directly at [email protected]
Software upgrade
Thanks to thefirst FunKey owners' feedbacks (for which we are very grateful), we were able to add many improvements to the software. The official release will come this week so stay tuned for the next week's update.😊
One unexpected perks of this delayed shipping is that, besides faster U3 Micro SD card, the reworked consoles will automatically be flashedwith the latest software including the GMenu2x launcher, better performances and improvements.
We want to reassure all the backers who already received their FunKey though:
You won't have to reflash the Micro SD Card to update your FunKey S with the latest software ! A single Drag&Drop over USB will do the job 😎
It'll be like adding a game😊.
The best community there is
It's clear now: no matter how big it grows, this community keeps getting better. You're always growing more active, suggesting improvements, giving remarks, sharing your excitement... and now even live streaming your experiences of your FunKey!
This week's shoutout goes to Havok who spent hours on Twitch showcasing his FunKey S. We watched some of it (in the background) and are so happy to see people appreciating our work. If you're interested, definitely go check out Havok's channel : https://www.twitch.tv/havokversuseverything
And if you missed the show, you can catch it back here:
How can we thank the community without mentioning the Discord channel? Yeah, we know, it's starting to become a recurrent thing now but how could it not be? You're now over 300 people talking, debating, giving each other tips, sharing experiences...
It's been created by the community, for the community (that's right we are simply chatting there as well as anyone) and it's grown to become something we would have never anticipated. Thanks Reno for creating it and administrate it alongside Coolie. Here's a permanent link for the curious : https://discord.gg/5gca7BFf!
That will be all for this week folks!
Enjoy your week-end, and neverstopretrogaming!
The FunKey team
What's up, FunKey? episode 18
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Jan 09, 2021 at 09:24:18 PM
Hello retrogamers!
We took a small "update-break" but we're back.
First things first, happy new year to everybody!
We wish you all the best for 2021, hoping this will be a better year than 2020!
Now, what about the FunKey S?
You've always praised us for our communication skills, and we apologize if last week was not up to the standards. We dedicated our time to the coordination of repairs with the manufacturers and the whole team also went to spend some time among their families during the holidays, we hope you can understand🙏.
As mentioned two weeks back in the last update, the vast majority of products were stopped during shipping in order to go back to the factory to get reviewed and fixed.
If you received your order and encountered any issue, please let us know at [email protected]
If you received your order and encountered no issue, thank you for letting us know as well! It's very comforting to hear good feedbacks😄. We've seen some of you already enjoying the console and we couldn't be happier.
Many of you have been asking about the restart date of the shipping. Naturally, you want your FunKey, and we want you to have it as soon as possible. This is why we're pushing the manufacturers very hard right now to solve any reported issues.
However,we do not want to rush things and end up having to stop the shipping once more😑. We're going as fast as we can while taking the time to review every unit, and for every reported issue, making sure all of them work perfectly and can get you the best experience the FunKey S can provide.
Mechanical issues: solved
These two last weeks have not been idle, we took some time to develop testing banks for testing the mechanical issues reported so that they could be done in parallel. In the video below, you can see the bank testing the flex and hinge designed and printed by @maximephan. It's awesome and saves us a lot of time, thank you Maxime!
It turns out that the percentage or mechanical issues is low (we're still around 4%) and the manufacturer already opened all the consoles and is correcting them.
SD Card issues : ongoing
Mechanical issues were scarse but the number of messages we receive about SD cards breaking over time had us worried so we decided to change ALL of the SD cards in the console for better ones. We are dedicating all our time now to solving this last issue.
So what's the issue ? Well it turns this is related to the instant action feature. As you know the console turns itself off after being closed. We've managed to get to the bottom of the issue this week:
Turning off the power while writing can lead to bricked SD cards
From what we can tell, when the power cuts off while the microcontroller inside the SD card is still performing operations, the provided card tends to break over time. "Operations" does not necessarily mean when you are writing something onto the card.
In fact, what's going on inside SD cards is always a bit of a black box. Every manufacturer has its own chip inside, with different ways to behave and no documentation online will tell you exactly what's going on inside a specific card. We won't dwell on this but sadly this is not something solveable in software on our side, since we do not control the wear levelling process of the MCU inside the card.
What we can do though is make sure to get a new source of SD cards (with ARM chips inside) impervious to breaking when turning off the power.
During these 2 weeks, we talked to our manufacturer and got many new cards from multiple sources. It was too much to test by hand, so we got to work and developed other testing banks with electro-magnets that permanently turn on/off the consoles while writing data non-stop. This allowed us to test multiple cards at once and well...
Not only they do not break but it's even U3 standards instead of U1 previously (U1 means it's 10 MB/s writing speed; U3 means it's rated at 30 MB/s). There's obviously no cost for you guys whatsoever, it's all for us. It's the very least that can be done do after what you endured.
We'll keep you informed about the state of the cards but they seem like a great candidate for now🤞.
Shipping 2.0
As of now, everything is still too new and unsure to provide a new date for the shipping. We do not wish to deceive you again. It's even more difficult with COVID-19, Chinese New Year coming... It might be in march, but it might also be in february, it really depends on this new SD cards.
We understand it has been a long wait for you, we really do. Know that there isn't a day without us working for your delivery to happen, and again we're sorry for all this.
To end this update on a good note, one lucky FunKey owner already designed a leather pounch for his console, and it simply looks amazing 😍 😍.
ready to go!
If you wish to see more stuff like this, join the discord, it's really the best place to share with the community: https://discord.gg/KWnEtEVkV3
We'll get back to you next week for more info, promised !
