The Fidget Cube hit with shipping delays as knockoffs flood market

The Fidget Cube is the tenth most funded product in the history of Kickstarter, bringing in a bit under $6.5 million after asking for just $15,000 in the initial goal. 154,926 people backed the project, hoping to get their Fidget Cubes by December of 2016.

But, like most projects that blow up on Kickstarter, the launch of the Fidget Cube has been delayed.

“We need to let you know that we discovered an issue that we had to make a tough call on,” the company said in an update for backers. “It’s an issue that many possibly wouldn’t have noticed, but it’s one that a person who uses their Fidget Cube often would probably notice over time and with heavy use. We had to make the difficult decision to briefly pause shipping in the name of quality. Typically this wouldn't be too big on an issue but with the holidays and a tight deadline it has made a greater impact.”

What’s the issue? They’re not saying. When are the cubes going to begin shipping? Soon, they hope.

“This decision was not made lightly — the temptation to forge ahead and ship some potentially faulty products was present but we never want to (nor will we ever) do that,” the company stated in bold. “We can confidently say now that the issue is remedied and the Fidget Cubes you receive won’t have this flaw. To reiterate, this has caused anxiety within us as we have always planned on delivery before Christmas. The glimmer of good news is that it won't be much longer before you have your Fidget Cubes.”

We contacted Antsy Labs to see if we could figure out what was going on, they were happy to answer some of our questions when the campaign was still raising money, but we received the following response:

Thanks for your interest in Fidget Cube and for reaching out!

At this time our sole focus is delivering Fidget Cube to hundreds of thousands of Kickstarter backers! Unfortunately we’re not able to fulfill interview requests at this time. We’ll do our best to reach out to you in the coming months!

Have an awesome day and fidget on!

The market has already been flooded with knockoff products that are available now, while the original Fidget Cube has yet to be shipped to backers. Antsy Labs posted a strongly worded update about this situation to backers in early December.

“At this time, ANY online store, retailer, or listing on platforms such as eBay/Amazon/etc. (with the exception of our official website: antsylabs.com) that is claiming to sell Fidget Cube is either selling cheap, nonfunctioning counterfeits, or accepting payments with no intention of shipping any product at all,” they stated.

So why have other companies been able to execute on the idea faster than the inventors? Antsy Labs has stated it’s an issue of quality.

“We want to take a second to reiterate … If we weren’t planning on sending you a quality product, we would have shipped you your Fidget Cubes within weeks of the campaign closing,” they wrote. “There’s the right way to test and manufacture a product and this process can’t be rushed, especially when it comes to how important the tactile ‘feel’ is. We’re proud to say that we’ve developed and executed FidgetCube even better than we could have imagined when we first launched the campaign.”

This update was of course sent out before Antsy Labs found an issue in manufacturing and had to delay shipment of the product.

“You know what this looks like, the Chinese manufacturer made the cubes wrong and Antsy wouldn't buy them,” one commenter wrote. “So the manufacturer offloaded them and they're now being sold online as knock-offs while Antsy and their backers are still waiting for the original product. I hope Matt and Mark and still move forward with their company and I'll patiently wait for another update.”

Other customers are a bit more impatient as they wait for communication about the cubes they ordered.

If you’re in dire need of a fidgeting toy right now, I’ve been enjoying this one. Reports of the quality of the knock-off cubes varies wildly based on reviews and comments on the original Kickstarter for the official Fidget Cubes, so order at your own risk.