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:
Shipping process postponed
over 3 years ago
– Fri, Dec 25, 2020 at 11:23:31 PM
Dear backers,
We are breaking our cycles of weekly updates because we've got some important news that we need to share right now.
As you know, the consoles began to ship last thursday and some backers in Asia received their orders as soon as saturday.
Fortunately you guys reached us quickly with feedback that some consoles had issues (blue LED not working, missing plastic part...). That should never have been possible since none of the consoles with the reported problems should have passed the final assembly tests during production.
For this reason we put onhold the shipping process as soon as we've heard of this situation.
This is not as bad as it sounds since as of now more than 600 consoles have been shipped and only 4 issues were reported. Regardless of this ratio, it is still totally unacceptable and we do not want our backers to receive a faulty console that should never have passed the final tests we designed on purpose to catch these issues.
We are talking with the manufacturers right now to understand how on earth this could have happened, and make sure this never happens again.
Tracking numbers
In total transparency, more than 2500 consoles were stopped during the shipping process, this is why most of you did not receive their tracking number. Our factory will check them all again and make the necessary corrections if needed.
If you are among the 600 that received their console and notice an issue, please write us an email at [email protected], or message us on Kickstarter, we will assume the repairs and send it back ASAP.
Also, if you're part of the majority of the 600 that received their FunKey S without any issue, let us and the world know as well. It's just as important to know and share. Some of you already did:
We want to thank our amazing community on Discordthat reported the issues very quickly. It's only thanks to them that we were able to stop the shipping in time to correct potential other issues and make sure they will not happen again. If you haven't yet, we encourage you and everyone to join the Discord channel: https://discord.gg/wRvWwRAY
Discord is a great platform to share your thoughts, experiences, ideas, anything about the FunKey you've received/not received, or any other topic really. Ou team always try to read and answer as much as we can, but one thing is for sure, this is the fastest way to get news by far, and the community is amazing.
A hard but necessary choice
We know you were all expecting to get your hands on your console soon and we are unbelievably sorry for this situation. We know the amount of consoles with issues is low but we have still taken this hard decision, knowing you would be disapointed, because we value quality above all.
This is heartbreaking for us, we somewhat believed our story to be a great Kickstarter success, and are painfully realizing we ended up disapointing our backers and ourselves. This is unacceptable, we know it, our manufacturer knows it, and we're currently working hard to make sure this never happens again.
We're aware this is not the most pleasant update to read (believe us, it's even harder to write) but we want to leave you with one certainty: we will. not. let you down, and will come back to you as soon as we have updates on the schedule.
Sincerely,
The FunKey team
What's up, FunKey? episode 17 - ship...
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 12:01:13 AM
New Friday, new update! 👻
Hello everybody, we hope you're doing great!
Only one week until Christmas, have you finished your presents? 🎅
Today's update will be short, as we do not have much to share, but it's good news.
- Production phase for the first batch is over ⚙️
- Developer gameblabla is doing an amazing job with his FunKey S 👨💻 Just look at this demo of SuperMario 64 running on the FunKey S :
- Some units are being prepared for tech reviews 🤝
- Shipping has started 📦
Wait...What?
That's right! Shipping has started yesterday! It's such a relief for us, we've pushed our manufacturers like crazy and they've assured us it is still in time for some of you to receive your FunKey S before Chrismas. Full disclosure though, they said that Covid19 might impact EU and US customers, so we're really crossing fingers but we prefered to tell you guys, in case you receive it a bit after Christmas.
You should receive an email in the next few days with your personal tracking number, so you know where your FunKey S is! ✈️ Be careful to check your spam, in case you missed it!
So, what does it mean? Is it the end of Kickstarter updates? We're currently brainstorming about how to keep using this media. If you have any ideas, you're more than welcome to share them with us 😄
We can't wait to read your thoughts, watch you unbox, discover, play with it! Feel free to message us, tag us, mail us, when you receive it, we may make a compilation and share some on our social media as a big thank you!
As it is our first Kickstarter adventure, we were really excited for this step to begin. Some of you have been following our work for months, maybe years ; and within the fortnight it will be in your hands. Our 3 years-work-and-development will be in your hands. And here is a preview of what it will be like😄:
Take care of you, take care of it 🎁
And happy holidays to all of you,
Vincent, Michel, David, Killian
The FunKey team
❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Note to our Japanese backers : we sent you a mail earlier today! The shipping company needs your shipping address to be in English. So please check your mails (if it has not been done already 😉 )
What's up, FunKey? episode 16
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Dec 12, 2020 at 09:16:46 PM
Hello Kick' community!
As you know, the closer we get to the end, the less we'll have to share with you here so today's update is going to be a bit shorter than usual, but we've still got some things to share!
First things first,
Production
Everything is going well! We're still on track for having the shipping step started mid December 💪 💪
These pics date from the beginning of the week, you can see the the factory team working hard for you guys!
BY THE WAY!
We've arranged with the shipping company to send you directly your personal tracking number when it starts. So keep an eye on your mailbox 😉
Development
Do you guys know about the Gmenu2X launcher? Some of you might since it's a well-know launcher among the retrogaming community. It's the one used in the last RG350 or PocketGo consoles.
As you know our FunKey-OS distribution uses RetroFE as a launcher by default since our primary focus is ergonomy and themes. This is all the more important on such a small device so RetroFE will continue to be our go-to launcher:
RetroFe on the FunKey S
However Gmenu2X is well-known among the retrogaming community and offers more powerful options for developers or tinkerers: you can access all your system, create your own links to apps, copy/paste/share new emulators on the go...
For all these reasons, we decided to also include it in the FunKey S! No worries, it has no consequences on the storage 😊.
You guys will be able to choose between one or the other, and this will be a great tool for developers to share new apps/emulators! 😍
Talking about developers, some are already hard at work! The well-known gameblabla from the emulation scene has received a prototype and already ported new emulators/apps on it like VBA-next (for a better Gameboy advance experience, and legally useable without Bios!).
This is a video showing his work, you can also see he's using Gmenu2X.
This is really amazing given that he's received the console only a few days ago! This shows the true power of Open-Source!
Community
The awesome Wiki page created by Coolie Coolster keeps getting awsomer! Currently it's even being translated in Polish thanks ZnowuCośZepsułem 😁. Don't hesitate to thank them on Discord.
Witajcie polscy przyjaciele! 👋 👋
As always, thank you for your endless support. Wether it's here on Kickstarter, Instagram, Twitter, Discord.. we might not answer everything but we read all your comments and they're really heartwarming.
Soon in YOUR hands
We leave this 16th episode with a new picture of our dear FunKey S (Retrogaming Gray edition), hope you like it!
See you next Friday for, who knows, the final update? 👀 👀
Retrolove 🎮,
The FunKey team
What's up, FunKey? episode 15
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Dec 05, 2020 at 10:24:06 PM
Episode 15
Hello Kickstarter! Hello dear backers, how are you doing today? 😄
Here we're doing good, excited to be entering the last steps! 💪
Everything is running smoothly as the factory is assembling the first units!
Who ordered 100 Retrogaming Gray editions??
We take this opportunity to thank our suppliers and manufacturers! We know we have not been easy with you but we're very grateful for you great work! 🙌
As you can imagine, the next step in the process is the shipment! We're hoping to get started mid December. Naturally we'll let you know on our social media and here in KS updates!
One more picture and then let's move on to another subject 😊
Screens
Open-Source electronic design
The FunKey S only exists because it is standing on the shoulders of giants: even if we put ourselves countless efforts and a lot of energy in it, nothing would have been possible without the shared work coming from many Open Source / Open Hardware projects:
the hardware is inspired by the LicheePi Zero, sharing with it its CPU
the software is based on such projects as U-Boot, Linux, Busybox, Buildroot, SDL, and many more others
As a tribute to all these great projects and because we strongly believe in the free access to knowledge, we are committed to disclose the FunKey S design as Open Source / Open Hardware too, so that in turn YOU can benefit from the same gift we were granted. During the past weeks, we provided the source for the FunKey-OS firmware, as well as the mechanical 3D files for the FunKey S enclosure. This week, we present the electronic hardware design in source format, including:
schematics in KiCAD editable format
layout in KiCAD editable format
HTML interactive BOM for easy manual part pick & place
As you can imagine, the closer we get to shipping day, the less elements - regarding production - we'll need to share with you guys. If everything keeps going ok this might even be one of the last updates... (snif 😢)
Have a nice weekend and see you next week😉
Cheers,
The FunKey team
What's up, FunKey? episode 14
over 3 years ago
– Sun, Nov 29, 2020 at 06:51:00 PM
Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, everybody!
Friday already, rhyming with a new update for FunKey!
Today we'll be talking
Open-Source 🤝
Prod ⚙️
Assembly 🙌
Gameplay 🎮
Let's go!
OPEN-SOURCE (Hardware & Software) 🤝
Last week we shared the software, this week, it's the hardware! You can find it on Grabcad.
FunKey S : 3D drawing
For those who are not familiar with engineering (which is my case, as a community manager haha), we made public the STL files but also the Full assembly STEP files.
Basically, if you have a Word document and a PDF document, there's only one you can modify: the Word document. PDF docs are mostly to read/print. That's a bit the same here : STEP files offer, in terms of possibility, the same as Word files (and STL can be seen as PDF files).
With STEP files, you can modify ANYTHING you want, using your favorite CAD software. You are able to look at every details of our mechanical work, make changes, and even print it for your own! 100% TRANSPARENCY.
FunKey S : exploded view
This is the result of months and months of work. We promised during our Kickstarter campaign to share it with you, and we keep our promises 😊
PROD & ASSEMBLY ⚙️ 🙌
Lately some of you asked about the state of the new screens, well don't worry they arrived on time. 😃 😃
As you know they were the last awaited components, and this means the assembly factory has received everything to start the assembly. Which is what they are doing right now 😎 but...
Small bumps along the road
Since a production without hiccups would not be a true production, and since we make a point of telling you everything, well guys here it is:
As you may remember from 2 updates ago, one of the included games with the FunKey S was Cave story, or at least a port of Cave story on Sega Genesis (Megadrive). It was all wel and good until this happened yesterday:
We invite you to read the article for more details but basically, putting Cave story in the FunKey S would be a very serious legal risk for us. A risk we simply cannot take right now...
So what's the link with production you might ask ? Well we had to urgently reclaim all assembled products in order to reflash the SD cards to remove the game.
At least we will make the most of this issue and benefit from this hiccup to update all FunKeys to the latest software 1.1.0 that you can alredy find on our Github.
We've pushed hard our manufacturers but this will still cause a week of delay (that's the very best we can achieve, and believe us it's hard for the manufacters to respect these delays). To speak the truth, we're really sad to announce this delay, but if we had kept the software with this game, it could have lead us to many troubles, legally speaking. We're confident you understand our position and excuse us for these extra days.
GAMEPLAY TIMEEEEEEEE 🎮
As a sorry, this time we went all the way (or we started playing and couldn't stop, either one of them) so enjoy a 7 minute-long video of a PS1 classic : Medievil 😍 💀
