Micro Phone
Micro-Phone

The Micro-Phone was a quad-band credit card sized mobile phone designed in Australia with an emphasis on being a “small, light and practical” device. It was just 5.5mm thick and weighed less than 40g. It had a 1.8" LCD screen, lithium-ion battery (with up to 21 days standby) and a full sized keypad. It also included a phone book, messaging support, an alarm, calculator, calendar and tasks app. In addition to these functions a “tracker” capability was also offered which used Bluetooth and provided tracking within a small radius. The phone was offered as part of an Indiegogo campaign led by an entrepreneur, apparently called Ethan Hunt, which raised $182,580, massively exceeding the initial goal of $50,000. The company informed backers that 10,000 “test houses” has been manufactured in August 2013 and the first units were shipped in the same month. By October 2013 2,500 units had been delivered to project backers, but problems soon emerged. The company reported that it was having issues shipping lithium batteries from Hong Kong. Later in October 2013 it emerged that over 3500 had been seized by Hong Kong Post and it was claimed that some of them had been destroyed. In January 2014 the company started shipping devices by sea mail rather than airfreight and in February 2014 it was reported that 3000 phones had been “safely delivered”. By May 2014 the venture had run out of money to do any further shipping – it was then reported that the Micro-Phone team has been victim of an “extortion attempt” from an individual asking for $50,000 in return for not starting a campaign to say the venture was “running a scam and that the phone would never be produced.” At this point the founder, Ethan Hunt, posted a message saying he had been detained by Hong Kong Police for interrogation for five hours on two occasions. He went on to report that he “was able to provide the police with evidence to prove the claims were false”. The saga ended with a note stating “Micro-Phone was a great concept and a product that had the potential to enrich the lives of those who choose to use it. Law changes in terms of battery technology made the product obsolete and that is in a word was devastating in terms of all the hard work we put into developing it”.