I agree that charging for eye tracking is outrageous.
We TRUSTED them with OUR money as backers, and in return they stab us in the back.
I bought the 4K and was quite satisfied so far, so I backed the 8K believing in Pimax, this won’t happen again. When you promise something free as a backer goal, you MUST give it away for free.
Backers didn’t get it free for 2 reasons:
Yes, you could argue Pimax broke their promise, however how can they send Backers 1/2 a module? Cut it in half with a saw?!
Conclusion:
In response to expected negative feedback, Pimax offered Kickstarter backers a 50% price reduction in the cost of eye tracking, which is a pair of modules (2) - IF they commited to keeping their stretch goals. Technically speaking, this 50% off deal meant the original pledge of a single Eyetracking module WAS automatically met, and therefore no one was cheated out of anything.
Pimax are rather clever in my opinion.
The eye tracking module was always going to be produced by a 3rd party.
Lots of people at the time of the kickstarter said it was too good to be true, so if people outside of the company could predict this at the time, it should have been totally predictable on what the final costs were going to be for pimax. There is no excuse, they said a thing which they predictably knew to be a lie at the time and it turned out to actually be a lie. Still, pimax got lots of extra funding out of it and therefore “they needed the money to stay in business” so that makes it all ok.
I’m not sure what part of a bait and switch is “clever”.
@geoffvader You gallantly ignored the major part about 2 vs 1 module regarding the eye-trackers’ cost.
So did Pimax when they launched the kickstarter 
I forgot the part where backers held a gun to their heads and said “tell everyone it will be free or else”.
I didnt respond to it because its irrelevant, it was predictable in many ways that whatever cost they guessed at during the kickstarter was going to go up considerably.
Considering 7invensun (same company that’s doing the ones for pimax) is selling addon eye trackers for all of Vive’s HMD’s for $149 you’d figure that Pimax would just eat the cost and give what they promised. (Add eye tracking to your HTC Vive headset for $149 7Invensun reveals high-quality eye-tracking VR accessory for only $149 - The Ghost Howls)
They had to figure at the time it would cost around $99 for one when they deiced to give it away free.
Not sure what their custom ones cost them but I’d doubt its more than the $149 msrp of vive ones.
Oh cool, yet another round of repeateing arguments. 
One side argues that promises are to be kept no matter what.
The other side points out that they could have easily kept the promise but then we would now get an eye-tracking solution for free capable of selcting menu items but not much more.
I am in the latter camp - I prefer a better technological solution over being served to the letter of the agreement at the cost of adding to the pile of limited use stuff. I have some Kickstarter crap lying around my house which kept their promises if you take it literally but didn’t really provide added value at the end - the ads made it seem greater than it was at the end, and we would be saying the same about a limited use eyetracking solution.
But I understand there are many backers on this forum who would have preferred to get some kind of eye-tracking as long as it was for free, not caring about the added value.
I suppose most of them only want to resell it together with their headset and that of course is advantageous because you can sell it “with eye-tracking” and the actual disppointment about its limited use will only affect the buyer. I can follow this logic it’s just not my cup of tea. I am genuinly interested in VR and have no use for this low end kind of eye-tracking and do not care about the couple of extra bucks it could deliver if I sell it off.
No, I’m saying they told a lie and knew it to be a lie, that they never had any intention of providing eye tracking for free.
I’m past the point of having any interest in what Pimax do in the future, I am basically waiting for my headset so that I can sell it and get an index.
The whole idea that they were planning on doing single eye modules is nonsense, its just a cop out excuse apologists are using.
Have another read of what you typed down here, will ya.
Firstly, I can understand frustration and don‘t buy all explanations Pimax are giving for their actions, but claiming that they deliberately lied at the time of the KS campaign with ni intention to deliver right from the start is plainly nonsense, and you know it.
Why do people so often in their anger, disappointment or whatever else it is kill their own valid points of criticism by combining them with outright pointless claims ?
Pimax had secured the funding and more at the time of adding eye-tracking, neither sane nor insane people would add a stretchgoal with the intention of a no show at that stage for no good reason, and I even have difficulties bending my thought process to the degree required to try to fugure out how one can even come up with this idea. No matter how I look at it, it doesn‘t make any sense. Unless you believe they are masochists keen on adding lots of obstacles on their own path for absolutely no good reason.
Secondly, just because you don‘t remember or didn’t pay attention to what was being said about eye-tracking at the time shouldn‘t be Pimax issue but rather yours, don‘t you agree?
Even for real high-end eye-tracking there were hopes for very affordable solutions (once volumes would be reached, i.e. Oculus or HTC would have kicked eye-tracking support off in their own next iterations of their headsets):
„The total cost of all the hardware at scale is in the single digits,” says Villwock, “a few dollars.” “
And plan B for Pimax could very easily have been to opt for an eye-tracking solution which would be cheap but less capable.
So you might understand why I find it difficult to appreciate your claims. At least if they should be taken at face value and not only as an emotional outburst of general dissatisfaction with everything Pimax.
The team was told a single eye without custom manufacturing for high fov would offer a high quality experience. In testing however they found you could use it for very basic functionality but not more advanced uses. The internal question was would people be happy with that and we came to the conclusion that only a highly custom version that included 2 devices instead of 1 would satisfy most people.
So an article about a completely different supplier 2 years before the kickstarter proves something?
I’m not sure I would use that as my supporting evidence if my opening gambit was accusing the other person of mis-remembering something and my actual core argument was based entirely on post rationalisation.
In fact if anything your article and quote supports the position that eye tracking should be free to backers, as the SMI one was said to be “SINGLE DIGIT” dollars each, so a pair would still not break $20 total, at $200 for the pimax one that is one hell of a markup.
Geoff my friend, would you agree with me that this matter has been discussed enough?
I would say it has been discussed a lot, and rightfully so. It’s obvious people are still upset about it.
As it seems now the only way to get the eye tracker (at reduced price) is to give up your stretch goals buy a new HMD and give Pimax extra $50 for them.
I’m not exactly happy with the backer plans&discounts either.
so do we just give up? I mean its pretty obvious that’s what Pimax wants us to do
Do you know a better way to wait for a new iteration of a Pimax headset!? 
Thanks PimaxUSA.
Is this information described in the progress update?
It takes a lot of effort to get information from long time YouTube videos.
Many backers are stubborn because they don’t have information.
In order to gain understanding, we should provide honest information in advance.
The fact that the upgrade program has been extended is also not reported in the project update.
Including these, we need a formal statement to gain understanding.
I agree. The months long stonewalling on requesting a backer option that does not include forfeiting stretch goals makes it very clear what they want.
What Pimax fails to comprehend is that they’ve created an avoidable ‘pissing contest’ where they will have to pry backer stretch goals “out of their cold, dead fingers”.
Another missed opportunity to re-gain backer good will.
Come on, don‘t pretend you still don‘t get it - so I will spell it out for you as you apparently find pleasure in this game:
the quality yet cheap solution never materialized.
Clear enough??
Hi, I am sorry for your bad experience, I guess because of that a different person in the shipping department and there is a lack of communication, so they shipped the parcel to you. Otherwise, they should do the way as you wish, would you please provide your order information or ticket, so we can see what we can do for you which should be based on your choice. Thanks.