The Facebook debacle & other issues

12 minutes ago, Yumeiro said:

He said that it wasn't feasible. No surprise there. - I sure as hell am not surprised that it was just another thing he hyped to high heavens.
He showed a decent prototype...
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10151727748851789

It seemed promising. But making it stable enough to stand for example, I just don't see how he'd be able to accomplish that with the smartdoll body.
But movement for just the upper torso, and tech stuff (such as charging electronics) is obviously doable. Probably too expensive (even though he "doesn't care for money"), and a higher risk of parts breaking/malfunctioning, which as it's become apparent, something he'd rather not deal with.

I don't know where he made the statement of having scrapped the whole robotics thing. Could have been swiped under the carpet, or it's to be found in a wall of text on instagram.

I wonder if he lost interest after he saw Volks Dollfie Honey project... 🤔

Yeah thats part of my problem though. It wasn't feasible shouldn't he have known that prior to launch if he really had all the "research" claimed? Hence why I feel the launch feels a little scammy to me? There were so many promises at launch it was feasible even videos he had with the movement (Can't find them anymore if anyone had the old launch stuff backed up please could you toss me the links). I have no real issues with the current dolls as dolls but I think its weird it was built on essentially what I'd say was a lot of lieing? 
If he wanted to just do the dolls then why wasn't the first launches all just doll advertising? Why focus a campaign on robotics if he didn't know it would work and had no assurance it was feasible?
Also that dolfie honey gave me mega doll envy there to whoever has one. Thats what I was hoping the real robotic smart dolls might be like but they never came to existence. 

2 hours ago, DreamsicleDollAqua said:

Also that dolfie honey gave me mega doll envy there to whoever has one.

AFAIK Dollfie Honey was strictly an exhibit only project and not something ever planned to be a commercial product. It was fun to see in person though.

Apparently it was too difficult to do what he originally wanted to due to the costs and limitations of the motors at that size (and I think issues with heating?), but the fact that there was never any formal acknowledgement of this does leave a bad taste. In the early days, he would call the regular doll version 'manual' and the robot version 'automatic' - smartdolls were referred to as 'smartdoll manual version' for quite a while. It's understandable, but at the same time probably not a good idea to have talked so much about how the sales of the manual version were to fund the automatic version.

It's also kinda unforunate that so many early news articles about smartdoll are specifically about the fact that they are going to be robot dolls, and I still see people today think they are robotic due to finding those articles/the name. (...I also do think calling them smartdolls was a bad idea to begin with for that reason, and also because there kind of already was a major 1/3 doll with the abbreviation SD. I know the official shortening is SmD but I still see newbies assuming SD only ever stands for Smartdoll (the fact that its also used as a size indicator for 1/3 dolls doesnt help either...cue people buying stuff in 'SD size' and complaining it doesnt fit perfect on their smartdoll)

4 hours ago, Yumeiro said:

I wonder if he lost interest after he saw Volks Dollfie Honey project...

I think the robotic frame thing was already cancelled well before volks brought out their first animatronic presentation at a dolpa, but extra troll points to Volks for making the first one out of a Mirai

But both that and the miku one are pretty much window mannequins, the miku especially having that sturdy brace from the back to the floor so it wont fall over when the head twiches (We all know how fun its trying to balance a miku with those twintails to begin with...), where I also suppose the cables run for the servos.

As I mentioned already there is a japanese robotics engineer on twitter that has a slick moving Obitsu 48/50 bodyshell, but all movements are controlled from a computer beside the doll. it does move its legs wich is impressive but it did have bigger feet for stability.

you are still going to have to take my word for that since searching for anything specific on twitter is the proverbial needle in a haystack.

I've only developed an interest in vinyl dolls at the beginning of this year, so personally I never experienced the beginning era of Smartdoll, although I am aware of it's 'animatronic' roots. 

The first time I read about it, I thought it was impossible 😂 Honestly, I am surprised even the prototype and the Miku worked so 'well', although their movements are still very janky. I haven't seen any videos of the moving Obitsu, so I can't talk about that, but I feel like a robotic doll is very much limited to be a 'one off display' or 'hobby project' - at least for the time being 😉

So, hearing that CJ indeed found the venture to 'not be feasible' didn't come as much of a shocker to me, although it's certainly different for people who witnessed his advertisement etc. back in the day. 

Personally, I don't think Danny did it out of malice. I assume he really believed in his vision, he has prototypes to show for it, but eventually he had to realize that he bit off more than he could chew. He could have folded the company then and there, but I assume he saw the love people found for even his non-robotic dolls and yeah.. why burn it all down if people are happy to pay for those dolls? The life of an entrepreneur is filled with set backs. Products fail, ideas have to be re-worked, sometimes so much so that the final product barely resembles the original vision. 

I wouldn't really hold it against him. At least he can say of himself that he tried 😅 That being said, I think the idea of dolls with USB-storage or Bluetooth speakers is very fun! I'd love to see him go back to those kind of funky ideas. Maybe there's a way for him to cram a Raspberry pie into a doll lol. Just yesterday I found a doll line called 'Libidoll' (yes, that name is very much intentional). I couldn't find a whole lot of info about it, but apparently the dolls were supposed to have a motion/pressure sensor inside their heads, as well as some speakers. You could pat the doll's head and it would play back a sound/voice line! Revolutionary adorable! 

1 hour ago, RetroKanojo said:

The life of an entrepreneur is filled with set backs. Products fail, ideas have to be re-worked, sometimes so much so that the final product barely resembles the original vision. 

And that is understandable. But how you handle it matters. Not properly announcing that a project is cancelled, or suspended, leaves a lot of people annoyed.
Especially since, in this case, robotics was such a huge part of Smartdolls as a whole.

He's good at setting up expectations and then not following through... One would think he'd learn.

7 hours ago, Monty said:

It's also kinda unforunate that so many early news articles about smartdoll are specifically about the fact that they are going to be robot dolls, and I still see people today think they are robotic due to finding those articles/the name. (...I also do think calling them smartdolls was a bad idea to begin with for that reason

Yeah. I hardly think "Social Media Art"-Doll.

1 hour ago, Yumeiro said:

And that is understandable. But how you handle it matters. Not properly announcing that a project is cancelled, or suspended, leaves a lot of people annoyed.
Especially since, in this case, robotics was such a huge part of Smartdolls as a whole.

He's good at setting up expectations and then not following through... One would think he'd learn.

Very true. While I can understand the situation, his supporters deserved a proper announcement. Setting expectations is definitely something CJ could do better..

6 hours ago, RetroKanojo said:

why burn it all down if people are happy to pay for those dolls?

The big question of those start-up days is that did the community just let him off the hook, because of how the market was at the time - which was very different that what it is now. Because if you wanted this type of doll, you didnt really have much of a choise.

Now times are different, and as the markets changed dramatically even, I think there are more and more efforts in SmD-land trying to stay relevant with various ideas, either good, bad, or somewhere in between.

Take DollBot as an example, they only needed to release a sought after product (Tan 1/4 scale thing) to an open market without restrictions, and they sold out fairly quickly and there is still demand for the thing without any apparent shinenginans over the subject -- still waiting for restocks if I had the money...

6 hours ago, RetroKanojo said:

I haven't seen any videos of the moving Obitsu

I searched around for as long as I deemend prudent, which was all five minutes, and came up with this:

Its not what I recall exactly, but similar form factor and movements.

a few years earlier showing off this its actually standing on its own two feet:

The jankyness is going to be a matter of programming, anybody who has dabbled with MMD will know what im talking about. Its possible, but it takes time to make movements more natural looking, also depending on are you going to make a pre-set programme, or have the thing move via an input device, like those fancy-pants spider robots that Adam Savage had one of ...

But when the actual smart doll was proposed, it just didnt seem feasible at all given the technology at the time ... now with arduinos and whatnot mass produced mini robot bits, its a totally different thing.

 

EDIT: Found the "obitsu shelled" one (in quotes since it was apparently a custom shell) ... was more impressive than I remembered:

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by finnleo

13 hours ago, finnleo said:

I think the robotic frame thing was already cancelled well before volks brought out their first animatronic presentation at a dolpa, but extra troll points to Volks for making the first one out of a Mirai

But both that and the miku one are pretty much window mannequins, the miku especially having that sturdy brace from the back to the floor so it wont fall over when the head twiches (We all know how fun its trying to balance a miku with those twintails to begin with...), where I also suppose the cables run for the servos.

As I mentioned already there is a japanese robotics engineer on twitter that has a slick moving Obitsu 48/50 bodyshell, but all movements are controlled from a computer beside the doll. it does move its legs wich is impressive but it did have bigger feet for stability.

you are still going to have to take my word for that since searching for anything specific on twitter is the proverbial needle in a haystack.

twitter be quite the haystack.

On 6/9/2022 at 2:17 PM, Katsudon said:

For real, at this point I'm surprised Danny hasn't brought back the smallest bust option as a way to sell Smart Dolls to breast cancer survivors who've had to have a double mastectomy! Think of the marketing opportunities!

My sense of humour over these dolls is getting really dark. (Obviously, sympathies to anyone who has dealt with cancer.)

 

On 8/31/2022 at 12:51 AM, Oculae said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

For those who missed it...hopefully the spoiler works. The scarring's a bit prominent and I don't wanna squick anyone. 😅

It's super cool though, I like it!

Oh my god, did sempai notice my sarcasm from June? I'm gonna stop joking around. 😨

Apologies for being behind the times.

did this thread die?        miss seeing notfications for this forum.  

1 hour ago, DollyDearest said:

did this thread die?        miss seeing notfications for this forum.  

No? Just nothing notable has happened to warrant any posts or criticism.

Silence in this thread is actually a good thing in my opinion! I don't think it's healthy for there to constantly be controversy. 
You know the thing like... No news is good news? Something along the lines of that.

--

That aside, I feel like this thread would be better suited for accurately documenting criticism and things that are happening to the Smart Doll brand.
Even though I haven't exactly been active in this thread, or have contributed much to the discussion, I am starting to feel that this thread has become bloated with comments that barely contribute to the conversation. 

I am not sure how to correctly articulate this, and I truly don't intend to be rude to you @DollyDearest. I know you are trying to add something to the conversation, or lighten the mood. However, I think I don't think adding commentary like your recent "twitter be quite the haystack." really contributes anything to the thread.

For archival sake of this thread, I think side-commentary like this should be kept to a minimum to avoid bloating the thread. This thread is already quite long, and a lot of important points are being buried, which makes it difficult for newcomers to research information about this particular brand.

I sincerely apologize if I'm coming off harshly, but this is something that has been on my mind for a while. I hope you understand where I am coming from.
 

Edited September 16, 2022 by Subaru

34 minutes ago, Subaru said:

Even though I haven't exactly been active in this thread, or have contributed much to the discussion, I am starting to feel that this thread has become bloated with comments that barely contribute to the conversation. 

We could potentially go through and hide posts that are off-topic. Anything outside of removing posts that violate the rules would be censorship imo, so we'd need to be careful of that. Off-topic is a rule, and it probably covers most of what shouldn't really be here. 

4 hours ago, DollyDearest said:

did this thread die?        miss seeing notfications for this forum.  

Like Subaru, I don’t want to come off as confrontational here, but the thing is this is actually the second time you have asked for updates to this thread. It seems like you are trying to will drama into existence rather than just wait for it - and it makes me think you might be misunderstanding the point of the thread itself. Again, really don’t want to sound rude here but it’s starting to come across like you are just hungry for drama and opportunities to clown on Danny Choo, whereas this thread only updates when things of note happen that need to be discussed.

I keep getting the impression from you that you are treating this thread more like it’s some kind of chat room to hang out in, to the extent you want notifications. I really don’t think this is the best thread for that (ie hanging out and chatting), as like Subaru has pointed out, facts and anecdotes are being buried under quips that seem to have little relevance to the actual discussion. This isn’t the only thread on this forum, but it seems to be the only one I see you in. I’m also not trying to be harsh here but this is something I have been noticing for several pages now.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Monty

We have tried to gently suggest that this thread is for discussion and not a stream of quips targeted at Danny. The off-topic nature of those things is becoming disruptive, and that's a big part of what the rules are there to prevent.

We are trying to be nice about it and not target anyone for reprimands.

39 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

We have tried to gently suggest that this thread is for discussion and not a stream of quips targeted at Danny. The off-topic nature of those things is becoming disruptive, and that's a big part of what the rules are there to prevent.

We are trying to be nice about it, and not target anyone for reprimands.

sorry.   i wasn't lookin for drama.   i apologize for my strangeness.    may please delete my account?    i do not believe i belong here any  longer

14 minutes ago, DollyDearest said:

sorry.   i wasn't lookin for drama.   i apologize for my strangeness.    may please delete my account?    i do not believe i belong here any  longer

No one is saying you aren't welcome here, we just want to keep the thread on-topic, and we don't want to come off as existing to attack Danny. The idea is constructive criticism of things people see and don't agree with. What folks here want is for SmartDoll to create great products as opposed to unending controversy. Sadly the owner seems to thrive on controversy, and we don't want the forum sucked into it.

24 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

No one is saying you aren't welcome here, we just want to keep the thread on-topic, and we don't want to come off as existing to attack Danny. The idea is constructive criticism of things people see and don't agree with. What folks here want is for SmartDoll to create great products as opposed to unending controversy. Sadly the owner seems to thrive on controversy, and we don't want the forum sucked into it.

ik.  but my therapist told me to socialize more, an it seems to have failed.   so i need to delete my account,  am unable to understand social que's    i apologize     i do not thrive on bad things. i just try to be light hearted & happy     

There are plenty of other parts of this site to socialize in, browse through the other areas of this forum and I believe you will find lots of things to discuss!

1 hour ago, DollyDearest said:

ik.  but my therapist told me to socialize more, an it seems to have failed.   so i need to delete my account,  am unable to understand social que's    i apologize     i do not thrive on bad things. i just try to be light hearted & happy     

I don't think you're failing at socializing, but part of learning to socialize involves trial and error in learning what is and isn't ok in various types of relationships. Making mistakes is normal, but you'll never learn if you give up when you make them. 

There are lots of people here who have issues socializing, and I'm pretty sure many if not most people out there would think the whole lot of us strange.  

On 9/1/2022 at 7:51 PM, finnleo said:

but extra troll points to Volks for making the first one out of a Mirai

I only just read this. I think they probably did this because their Mirai has a special place in their hearts, but it's hard not to see that as a very subtle dig at Danny in the decorous Japanese way too. After all, they could have used Candy, and they didn't! 🤣😂🤣

Kudos for making that connection. 

17 hours ago, DollyDearest said:

ik.  but my therapist told me to socialize more, an it seems to have failed.   so i need to delete my account,  am unable to understand social que's    i apologize     i do not thrive on bad things. i just try to be light hearted & happy     

Okay- uh.

I don't know what you are in therapy for, but do know I don't intend on invalidating your social experiences.

However, it's not really following your therapist's advice if you just yeeted yourself off a site permanently just because a small disagreement happens, no? 

When you socialize, you will learn that sometimes no matter how polite or nice you are, you will not always say the right things for everyone in a group. And that is perfectly fine, there is NOTHING wrong with mistakes, or explaining if you're being misunderstood, or even just shrugging it off.

The thing about conversations and socializing is that you will meet all sorts of people, and every person speaks and socializes differently. But the best part about an internet forum is that you have time to read what you're gonna say before posting, and that you get to try again.

Thinking that there is something wrong with YOU just because a little kink in communication happens isn't the best, because it's usually not true. Even the most experienced extrovert has probably worded something awkwardly in their life at least five times, ya know?

Just rest your wings and then when you're ready, try to try again. Stumble, and keep stumbling until you find your footing, because you're still learning afterall. Though it might be hard, allow yourself time to learn, allow yourself time to look at conversations in a different perspective and allow yourself time to deconstruct your own conversations first, rather than thinking you 'failed' something, or that you're strange for not grasping every single social que. 😄

Edited September 17, 2022 by freakie-oppa

14 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

I think they probably did this because their Mirai has a special place in their hearts

A bit veering off topic, but it is a intriguing thing by itself, because Mirai and Candy are sort of the last vestiges of Volks'es Lost angels story, something that they have since pretty much erased from their perspective. (yes, there were actual LAS character DD's, Ragla, Sanjie (0G tan girl), Shino and Marya, but I always saw the original shiny PVC and gothic styling as a contiunation from that series.)

On 9/16/2022 at 2:08 PM, BeyondTime said:

I don't think you're failing at socializing, but part of learning to socialize involves trial and error in learning what is and isn't ok in various types of relationships. Making mistakes is normal, but you'll never learn if you give up when you make them. 

There are lots of people here who have issues socializing, and I'm pretty sure many if not most people out there would think the whole lot of us strange.  

Thanks for ya kindness.  even if others weren't so nice.    i tend to misword everything, i have reading & writing dislexia

1 hour ago, DollyDearest said:

Thanks for ya kindness.  even if others weren't so nice.    i tend to misword everything, i have reading & writing dislexia

Kiddo, I think everyone here is trying to couch things as kindly as they can, even if the words sting a little. It's always reasonable to ask for clarification. I'm sorry if others' words hurt, but they were trying to tell you, gently, that they were concerned. 

I hope you stay. This is one of the nicest forums I've ever had the pleasure of frequenting. We may disagree, but all disagreements I have seen here have been respectful. If you want to keep trying to socialize, this is probably the best place to be.

And I apologize for taking this off topic, but I do think it's good it was addressed. 

I might also suggest creating a sort of meta-thread, separate from this one, with all of the wonderful summaries that others have done. I'm happy to help. I can copy and paste with the best of them.

1 hour ago, MaleficentMrsofEvil said:

Kiddo, I think everyone here is trying to couch things as kindly as they can, even if the words sting a little. It's always reasonable to ask for clarification. I'm sorry if others' words hurt, but they were trying to tell you, gently, that they were concerned. 

I hope you stay. This is one of the nicest forums I've ever had the pleasure of frequenting. We may disagree, but all disagreements I have seen here have been respectful. If you want to keep trying to socialize, this is probably the best place to be.

And I apologize for taking this off topic, but I do think it's good it was addressed. 

I might also suggest creating a sort of meta-thread, separate from this one, with all of the wonderful summaries that others have done. I'm happy to help. I can copy and paste with the best of them.

thank ya. but am no kiddo lolz       i apperciate the good vibes 😊