Vessyl

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For the record album, see Golden Vessyl of Sound.

Vessyl was a crowd-funded project for a proposed intelligent drinking glass announced in June 2014 by Mark One, but which never actually existed. The cup was to have embedded sensors and the capability of linking to a smartphone to provide its user with nutritional and other data on the beverage in the cup.[1][2][3] The designers convinced backers that the Vessyl would help make better decisions about their health and overall consumption. The cup was expected to recharge via inductive charging on a proprietary base station, to be included in the product packaging. Industrial designer Yves Béhar and his design firm Fuseproject were involved in its creation.[4]

Originally, the device was expected to ship in "Early 2015". However, in March 2015, Mark One announced via blog update that the shipping date would slip to "Q4 2017"[5] once it has reached a satisfactory level of performance. Direct email inquiries as of July 2017 were returned with information from the company stating that they had "isolated the existing issues and have completed a plan to move forward with and that we are confident in."

As of 2018, Mark One, the company behind Vessyl, was no longer operating.[citation needed] At the time the company closed its doors, early backers of the Vessyl were left without any formal communication as to the shutdown of the company, with the company no longer responding to inquiries from backers, and backer investment money disappearing along with the company and founder, Justin Lee.[citation needed] As of December 22, 2017, the company's website www.myvessyl.com was operational, though backers could no longer log into their account, and before the month ended the website ceased to function entirely. As of February 2, 2019, the domain was available on the domain registrar Namecheap,[6] with the domain being purchased by a 3rd party on March 23, 2019, and by April 5, 2019 had become an idea board completely unrelated to the Mark One company.[7]

Pryme Vessyl[]

With the announcement of a production delay claiming dissatisfaction with the sensors in the original Vessyl, and to ensure the quality of the product, the company announced that refunds would be issued to those who opted not to wait out the long delays, though many backers never received their requested refunds, and many who did receive a refund waited months at times, only receiving refunds after long and numerous emails with the company. In addition to offering refunds, for backers who remained invested and hopeful of receiving their initial Vessyl orders, the designers introduced a secondary product, Pryme Vessyl, released to the public in November 2015 along with the false promise that early supporters who chose to resist requesting a refund on their initial orders could take advantage of a free opt-in program to receive a Pryme Vessyl as a reward for being patient and maintaining their investment with the company.[8] Orders for the free Pryme Vessyl were never fulfilled for the opt-in program, with the company choosing instead to ship fulfillments to retail partners, rather than making good on their promise to their backers.

References[]

  1. ^ Kyle Vanhemert (June 12, 2014), "This Cup Tracks Exactly What You're Drinking With Molecular Analysis", Wired
  2. ^ Katy Steinmetz (August 4, 2014), "The Vessyl Cup Can Tell Exactly How Many Calories Are In Your Drink", Time
  3. ^ Don Clark (June 12, 2014), "Vessyl Cup Knows What You Drink", Digits blog, The Wall Street Journal
  4. ^ Nick Statt (June 12, 2014), Vessyl smart cup can tell Coke from Pepsi, CNET
  5. ^ Justin Lee and the Mark One team (March 13, 2015), "Vessyl Backer Update #5", Vessyl Blog
  6. ^ "namecheap.com". Namecheap. Retrieved 2020-09-02.
  7. ^ "myvessyl.com History". Waback Machine. Retrieved 2020-09-02.
  8. ^ "Vessyl Backer Update #9 | Vessyl". myvessyl.com. Retrieved 2017-02-16.


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