A small team in Hangzhou has developed an "AI walkie-talkie", and its related crowdfunding campaign has reached 1000% of the preset target in only 3 days.
By Liu Shiwu
The screen of GENiEX lights up, with a line of English reading: "THE FUTURE IS ALREADY BROKEN. WE'RE SENDING A MESSAGE BACK."
GENiEX
As of press time, this AI trendy toy hardware "GENiEX" has raised 134,500 US dollars (about 1.05 million Hong Kong dollars) on Kickstarter, the world-renowned crowdfunding platform. Compared with the target of 12,700 US dollars (about 100,000 Hong Kong dollars) when it was launched, the completion rate has exceeded 1000%. 429 supporters are willing to pay for it, and the crowdfunding will be closed in about one month.
It is worth noting that GENiEX completed the initial crowdfunding target of 100,000 Hong Kong dollars only about one hour after its launch.
Source: Screenshot of Kickstarter page
The creator of this cyber walkie-talkie is "METAPEX", a studio based in Hangzhou. GENiEX is the first physical product under its original sci-fi IP "SEIVOID".
Will this be another hit AI hardware product?
01
Over the past three years, most players in the AI companionship track have been stacking computing power and parameters. Investors compete on the length of the context window, and consumers have been trained to "buy whichever AI is smarter". The result is obvious: hardware is constantly updated, but there is no barrier to experience, and the sense of freshness fades very quickly. Any chat AI — Doubao, ChatGPT, Claude — can replace them at any time, or develop new companion products based on these large models.
"No matter how strong AI conversation is, in the future it will only be provided by several major manufacturers," Zhou Baixiang, founder of METAPEX, said in an interview. "What we want is not a smarter AI, but a reason for users to come back to it tomorrow. This problem has already been solved in the game industry in the past, and the solution is continuous content supply."
In his view, the real barrier does not lie in the dialogue capability itself, but in whether the content can continuously bring the freshness of exploration.
But SEIVOID's path is almost reversed: It is not that AI comes first and then a character is created for AI, but that a sci-fi world that has been built for many years exists first, and then AI becomes the way for this world to connect with reality.
Founder Zhou Baixiang himself is not only a science fiction novelist, but also has been deeply engaged in the animation and game industry for more than 15 years. He is also the founder of "EDC", a high-end metal trendy toy brand. Before the GENiEX project was launched, Zhou Baixiang spent nearly ten years building a complete original sci-fi universe, including three core novels and more than 4 million words of sci-fi settings, behind which is a complete world view, cosmic view and operating rules.
Zhou Baixiang has built a complete original sci-fi universe
According to him, in this universe, humans have left the earth, and silicon-based life has established its own new civilization. The AI character in GENiEX is not a new character generated by prompts, but a virtual character derived from this world view. She does not know whether the weather today is sunny or rainy, and does not remember which apps are installed in your mobile phone, because "she does not belong here in the first place".
"Two worlds that were never supposed to meet unexpectedly established a connection." This is a setting that Zhou Baixiang repeatedly emphasized.
Based on this IP, SEIVOID has created the eponymous AI animation series "SEIVOID: Unclassified Us". The first season has 11 episodes, each 23 minutes long, positioned as post-apocalyptic sci-fi + road adventure + group portrait of characters + suspense exploration. The script has been completed and the feature film is in production.
"SEIVOID: Unclassified Us"
In Zhou Baixiang's view, the core audience of this set of IP content may not be children or female users targeted by the current AI companionship track. "Most of them are male," he said, "more inclined to adult user groups who love science fiction, animation, games and nostalgic collections."
The consumption power of such users has also been verified by the market. Whether it is the long-term operation of two-dimensional game companies or the development of high-end figure and collection markets, it has proved that users are willing to invest in their favorite characters, worldviews and continuous content.
GENiEX is exactly targeting this user group that has been cultivated by the game and collection culture for many years. It does not try to be an ordinary AI assistant, but hopes to become a new collection carrier that carries worldviews, characters and interactive experiences.
This also directly affects the design language of GENiEX.
GENiEX
GENiEX does not have a rounded home appliance style, nor the minimalist style of many smart devices today. It is an alloy body device in the shape of a walkie-talkie, with exposed mechanical buttons and a speaker on the side of the body. The overall appearance is retro and sci-fi. Of course, Zhou Baixiang himself is a heavy sci-fi fan, and we can see the shadows of 90s handheld game consoles, Tamagotchi, and Casio retro watches on his products.
There are three core gameplay modes of GENiEX: In single-player mode, players cultivate favorability with the character through dialogue, and unlock upgrades, skins, and gacha draws.
GENiEX
In two-player mode, when two GENiEX devices are placed face to face and in contact, exclusive content that cannot be seen by each other will be unlocked (similar to the "dual-device physical contact" design of Tamagotchi); in multi-player mode, more than three GENiEX devices can access the room to play an offline script murder or TRPG-style adventure game.
GENiEX
"Just like playing online games when we were kids, we want to give friends a reason to meet," Zhou Baixiang said.
As for the definition of the AI character in GENiEX, Zhou Baixiang said, "She is not here to accompany you, she is an existence from another world." In terms of design, the character of GENiEX never takes the initiative to ask about the user's real life, nor does it answer questions such as "What is the weather like in Beijing today". "We deliberately excluded all these real-world things," Zhou Baixiang said in an interview. "It's like playing a game with very attractive content. The content itself is very immersive, and the characters in it won't suddenly jump out to tell you what time it is or that it's time to eat."
GENiEX
For Zhou Baixiang, behind this is actually a larger attempt: Whether we can use the content consumption logic that has been verified for decades in the game industry to replace the computing power subscription logic commonly adopted by AI products.
Users do not pay for "continuing to use AI", but because this world is still moving forward: new stories, new characters, new skins, new voices, new areas and new events continue to appear. In other words, what GENiEX wants to solve is not "how to renew the AI service", but how a fictional world can continue to grow.
Zhou Baixiang said in an interview: "Our vision is that we don't want users to pay for computing power every month. We hope that like a game you really love, you are willing to keep investing just because you want to know what will happen next in this world."
GENiEX
02
Of course, GENiEX's business logic does not only come from games.
On Kickstarter, GENiEX's price system covers versions from the ordinary experience version to the collector's edition: the lowest early bird price is 1,471 Hong Kong dollars (about 187 US dollars), and the highest-level Founder's Set is priced at 5,191 Hong Kong dollars (about 661 US dollars). Some supporters have already chosen the highest-level plan. This pricing is not the traditional consumer electronics logic, but closer to the consumption range of the high-end trendy toy, model collection and game peripheral markets.
Screenshot of Kickstarter page
"It has the trendy toy attribute similar to Pop Mart, and at the same time has the continuous content supply and update of two-dimensional mobile games; then it also has the fashion accessory attribute like Casio watches, for example, it can be worn as a bag charm; finally, we also hope to build an ecosystem with collection value based on this," Zhou Baixiang said.
Zhou Baixiang admits that there is still a long way to go to realize all these visions, but he hopes to serve the precise user group well like manufacturers such as Nintendo, so the product must have its own personality.
In addition, GENiEX is not the only final carrier of the character. From the subsequent updates of the project, it can be seen that the team has previously invested in and incubated game and related technical teams. The game "101 Lingling Road: The Time With You" based on UE5 is planned to be launched in Q4 2026. While developing the game, the team is also exploring technical directions such as PC-side character experience and cross-device interaction.
"101 Lingling Road: The Time With You"
This means that when users go out, they can interact with the character through GENiEX; after returning home, the same character may appear in a higher-spec image in a PC game or other carriers.
Zhou Baixiang calls it "cross-media continuation of characters". If this idea comes true, what changes will be more than "the same character appearing on more devices, just like in Blade Runner, that's really cool".
The animation, games and figures of traditional IP are essentially different products produced around the same worldview; AI and long-term memory provide a new possibility for the first time: Stories can continue to happen across media, and the relationship with users can also continue to exist.
The experience that happened in GENiEX during the day can be extended to the PC at night; the world in the animation no longer stops when the end credits appear; the physical collectible may also become an entrance to the next part of the content. "The medium changes, but the world keeps moving forward."
The global delivery time of GENiEX has been locked in March next year, and it will take some time to experience the mature product. "Our teams across China and overseas are working intensively to improve the software and hardware products, and content production has not been interrupted."
At present, what GENiEX has proved is only one thing: hundreds of users are willing to pay real prices for this experience that has not been clearly defined. But the question it is really trying to answer is obviously much bigger.