WaterWar.net

It works really well now that we have integrated the pump. You just hold the tip into the water and it sucks the water in. Pressure is also built up this way, which is why there is no other way to refill it. It takes less than 15 seconds currently to fill up the entire tank, which we are definitely happy with.

Rike,

Is there a screen on the intake to mitigate clogging of internal components from relatively large debris in the water?

What if the water has a high calcium content (aka hard water)? I imagine the calcium would precipitate and scale inside the blaster. Can you run vinegar through it like you would when cleaning a coffee maker?

Hi Tim, there is a screen, yes! We wanted to make sure both the internals and the person being hit aren't hurt by sand or other particles when using Spyra One, even when the water comes from a natural source.

Good question about the hard water. Let me check with the Tech Team and get back to you...

Now that I've seen the initial price...I am...not quite...sure...about pledging to the kickstarter...umm...that price...yeah...

It's about twice as much as I expected the product to cost. I do want to support this and obtain one, but if that's the lowest price offered...yikes. It is a sleek, innovative, cool product, but it's also not a top-level primary / CPS killer. I could only justify that price point for a truly high performance, 50ft shooting, high output soaker.

I wish you the best of luck with the Kickstarter, but I'm not sure how an MSRP anywhere in that ballpark will fare in the US market (would be very concerned in all honesty). I may have to back out of pledging, it's that much higher than expected

I find the price reasonable, particularly given the electronic components and higher build quality. Unfortunately parts are becoming more expensive now. Personally, I'd rather the blaster not have the electronics as I don't mind pumping. But maybe this is a killer feature, I don't know.

One strategy I've seen when building businesses is to start with the high-end market and slowly bring the costs down. Tesla is one example of a company taking this approach. I wouldn't be surprised if Spyra was trying this, or if the costs simply are that high.

Definitely will be pledging tomorrow.

I like the auto refill option. That is a game changer in and of itself. Can someone post this on our facebook page? Rike, feel free to advertise there. I can't post the link because I am at work, so someone else will have to.

I backed the Kickstarter basically as soon as I got the email and I was still only backer 254. Their Kickstarter is already 67% funded after 10 minutes! This seems like great news to me.

Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ri ... water-guns

RIP my inbox.

200% funded already. I'm not going to back it, but I am glad they are doing so well.

You can expect a detailed review on Hydrowar as soon as I get mine. Really looking forward to this. The stock offerings have sucked so much lately that it's nice to have something fresh. Not only fresh, but completely different.

"Yolo" I ended up pledging. RIP my wallet, but hey I'll be getting something that doesn't happen very often. Kinda historic, really. 238% and counting!

Thought I'd compare the 25 tap shots per tank vs my own tests of some well known soakers -

CPS 2000: 19
Spyra One: 25
CPS 1000: 65
XP 150: 88
Gargantua: 104 (burst), 149 (N5), 288 (N1)

Pumping isn't really a problem for any of us here, but I realize that we are in the uber minority on that issue. For battle purposes I am most excited about the refilling ability and the overall mobility. It should be super easy to move with. Not sure how effective it will be for our wars. I expect it to be competitive, but the output and field life are rather small.

I am very intrigued by this because it is like nothing else we have used before, and I mean functionally/pragmatically, not just because it is battery powered and doesn't need to be pumped. We have a blaster with good range, excellent ergonomics, and no pumping but at the expense of field life and output. That doesn't compare to anything out there as of yet except... maybe the Splashzooka? But even then, the Zook has greater capacity but can't refill anywhere like the Spyra. This will definitely be interesting to use.

But more than that, I am just glad because someone is finally doing something about the dearth of quality blasters on the market. Even if this ends up being mediocre for community wars at least it's brand new and not 20 years old. I get that this was designed for adults, but I think this is the perfect blaster to lend out to kids and less experienced players. We have always had a problem with that. Many new players either can't pump very well or aren't strong enough/experienced enough to carry large CPS blasters or they aren't quick enough or aware enough to properly use a smaller blaster and end up getting destroyed. This has both the range and ease of use for players of all skill levels.

Also, completely unrelated, looks like the perfect cosplay accessory if anyone here is into that.

Good comments, marauder. Makes me think that one accessory I would like to see is some way to extend the water capacity. Perhaps a bottle or bag that can be attached to the nozzle. A ziplock bag would work, but seems unlikely to stay closed in all but a casual battle.

Might be too late in the design cycle to make this possible, but it's something to keep in mind in future blasters.

Right now the Kickstarter has over 1000 backers. I can't find the post from isoaker right now, but I recall that he said that over 10,000 units are needed for profitable production of water guns. I guess that is for blasters under $20. More expensive blasters like the Spyra One would presumably have lower requirements in terms of units to manufacture.

Overall, I am very happy with the success of the Kickstarter so far. They are at about 3 times their funding goal right now.

I have backed them to, I expect the performance to rival a 1000 and I am hoping that it can be modified for a separate backpack instead of using the refill station every 25 shots

I'm pretty late on this... The most interesting part to me is the possibilities that come from the refilling mechanism. Battlefields could have buckets scattered throughout the middle, and teams securing and using up these refills buckets would be key to winning games. Especially since each gun only has 25 shots.

Also it would be so easy to find some sort of spare ammo container that you could put on a belt or bag, it pretty much can be anything with a big enough mouth.

SSCBen wrote:Good comments, marauder. Makes me think that one accessory I would like to see is some way to extend the water capacity. Perhaps a bottle or bag that can be attached to the nozzle. A ziplock bag would work, but seems unlikely to stay closed in all but a casual battle.

Might be too late in the design cycle to make this possible, but it's something to keep in mind in future blasters.

Right now the Kickstarter has over 1000 backers. I can't find the post from isoaker right now, but I recall that he said that over 10,000 units are needed for profitable production of water guns. I guess that is for blasters under $20. More expensive blasters like the Spyra One would presumably have lower requirements in terms of units to manufacture.

Overall, I am very happy with the success of the Kickstarter so far. They are at about 3 times their funding goal right now.

He was referring to waterguns sold in normal stores or sold by online retailers. By going through kickstarter they bypass stocking fees, extra shipping costs, middle man markups, etc.

My favorite band (MxPx) just crowdsourced their most recent album on kickstarter rather than going through a traditional record label. They needed $55,000 to produce the album... they got $300,000.

While it sucks that we aren't seeing good blasters in traditional stores it is great to still have them available in some form. To us, whether it is available on kickstarter or at a chain store makes no difference in terms of being able to purchase. But what is missing by not being at normal stores is the mass exposure that the product would get. By no means am I saying this product should or could even be sold in normal stores. This whole thing is great. I'm just saying that it's a different model with different pros and cons.

Hi guys, it's been some busy days since the launch of our Kickstarter a week ago. I am excited to read that many of you have decided to back Spyra One, wow! Thank you so much!!!

We are enormously happy to see that much positive response to our campaign, both in terms of backers and funding and in terms of media interest. In the upcoming days, we expect more coverage from a wide range of media such as tech portals, but also viral sites. Whether it's the heat wave in Europe or the summer news hole or actual interest in a new type of water gun, we'll see, but it surely helps a lot.

By the way, are some of you also active on Reddit? It's something that by chance, none of us founders is involved in... But if you'd like to share Spyra One there, that would mean a huge push for the campaign. Just a question, I don't want to extend marketing efforts to this community :)

Regarding your comments on features and changes in functionality you would like to see... We hear you! As always, there are so many features that could be added and extended... but as you have figured out and discussed in the other thread, a lot of things eventually come down to costs. We wanted to keep these as low as possible for market entry, so keeping it simple is a way to not over-promise from the start. A lot of Kickstarters fail because of that, we don't want to be one of them!

In any case, I'll keep you updated through our Kickstarter updates and again, thanks for your support!

My Spyra One should be coming soon! I got an email from Spyra today saying to send them a shipping address. I paid them through Kickstarter a while back. I won't be able to test the blaster any time soon but am looking forward to receiving it. I'll post here when I get it. Anyone else order one?

I didn't have money at the time, but I do now, so I plan to buy at least one. I am really excited to try this out.

Oooh, you'll definitely have to give us a full review. I've been very curious about this whole project, and I'm glad to see that it's still going strong.

I also got my claim email and sent in my address! Very excited to see what it's like.