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Triggertrap, one of the pioneers in the area of smart camera triggers, has today announced that it will cease operations within approximately a month. Triggertrap was founded in 2011, following a successful Kickstarter campaign. The initial product offered a wide range of trigger options, including, sound and motion sensors and an intervalometer.
In 2013 the company launched another Kickstarter campaign, this time for the Triggertrap Ada, a modular and expandable follow-up version to the original product line. Despite the campaign being very successful, raising more than $ 500,000, trouble started when the cost of components was higher than originally quoted by some suppliers and in May 2015 Triggertrap had to admit the project had failed and the Ada could not be delivered.
The company has never been able to recover from this failure and today one of the founders, CEO Haje Jan Kamps, has posted an article on medium, announcing the closure of the company.
“Triggertrap, like any startup, had some big highs and lows. At one point, we employed 15 staff; a team of photographers, coders, support, marketing, logistics, and operations. Ever since we announced that our Triggertrap Ada Kickstarter project failed, we’ve been in a downward spiral. For the past 18 months, we’ve been operating with just a few team members, who have been working their asses off to keep the lights on. But ultimately, we weren’t able to claw our way out of the hole, and the company now owes the company’s founders around $ 60k. With no realistic hope of ever paying that money back, and after ten months in a row of struggling to make payroll for our remaining staff members, we decided it was time to give up.”
Technical support for Triggertrap products will end with immediate effect. Apps will remain available for download in the respective app stores but are sooner or later likely to run into incompatibility issues with updated operating system . If you are happy to keep using your current mobile OS and rely just on the Reddit-forum for support, you can still buy a Triggertrap device at a hefty discount in the online store.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)