The long-promised Playdate Stereo Dock is officially dead, at least for now. A few months later with a desktop accessory stuck in developmental delayThere is panic updated the product page doesn’t say it’s “coming soon” anymore, but instead it’s on hold indefinitely due to issues with the Bluetooth experience, the factory that runs it, and the rising costs to fix all of that. Stereo Dock, first announced in 2021Acting as a Bluetooth speaker (and pen holder), it was designed to be a charging device as well as a cute way to display your Playdate when not in use. But things did not go as planned.
The Playdate team said they ran into some unexpected obstacles when trying to bring the idea to life, and found that “making the Stereo Dock was almost more difficult than making the Playdate itself.” The statement explains:
What happened? Our first regret was assuming that our factory at the time – a factory that makes a lot of Bluetooth speakers – could easily design the electronics for us and save a lot of time and money. This went pretty well at first. But they in turn outsourced the Bluetooth software and chipset to another company in another country.
As a result, the Stereo Dock often crashes – quickly adjusting the volume would do that. The Bluetooth pairing/unpairing experience was difficult. When we played the music, it didn’t sound very good. Back-and-forth between the three companies trying to fix the mistakes has become a major challenge. And worst of all: the price of the Stereo Dock kept going up.
It goes on to say that the team has been working to improve the experience, even purchasing the source code of the Bluetooth chipset in hopes of fixing the issues, to no avail. While there were “a number of beautifully finished prototypes,” Panik says, “they weren’t very good to use.” The official update was announced in an exchange shared on social media Reddit Earlier this month, Panic’s Cabel Sasser responded to a question about the status of the Stereo Dock, saying it was “incredibly difficult for a lot of incredibly stupid reasons” and paused.
The team said it is now fully focused on the ongoing production of Playdate. There may still be a chance we’ll see a Stereo Dock at some point down the line, but don’t hold your breath. “Will one day come?” We still hope for that,” said Panik. “Is he coming soon? Hardly.”