Didi anyone happen to download the last (or not factory) firmware or editing apps for Offgrid before the Birdkids wesite went down?
Even the Wayback Machine site doesn’t have that stuff cached on it - just some help files.
I would like to second this question. I tried to ask Birdkids about hosting these things but received no reply.
What a missed opportunity to have opensource their stuff, so their controller is not useless anymore and can have a life of its own. I’ve spent a minute going through the KS campaign comments and it seems they failed to fulfill a lot of orders (I got mine) and also I understand now that the minute they file for bankruptcy they lost control of the assets, as explained here, which explains a little bit things. But hey, sometimes there are leaks, right? and nobody blinks twice when that happens, in fact, it could be a good gesture to people. Pinging @MikeBeim for thoughts.
Nice resume. What a shitstorm to read.
We all have our sh*ts to deal with and starting an ambitious project amidst a global pandemic with only 2 people and required skills you don’t possess was not the best idea to be stubborn with. I guess it taught us how to “empower our story”.
I found out last month about this… I was wondering why nobody wants to buy mine.
I managed to configure it using the beta editor, but it sucks that I can’t do that anymore.
Honestly I didn’t use it as much as I thought I would. It’s a dope controller though.
It was cool if they used a teensy or arduino… you could’ve repurposed it somehow.
To be fair, back in March 2020 it wasn’t obvious yet how bad things were going to be. And they did have the skills.
That said, communication sucked (well, it was quite obvious it wasn’t his strong suit from the beginning), and the shipping queue had nothing to do with the backer order (as one of the first 10 backers, I never received mine). I still supported them from the first failed campaign to the end.
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I was pointing at what Mike said in this forum:
We had no clue that KS is all about 3rd party marketing companies boosting ads etc…
One cannot know everything and I don’t doubt they have skills to make good products but marketing and such is whole new story. It seemed like a heavy burden they started and despite commitment you always have blocks on the road and if you are only 2 for R&D, updating, selling, communicating, etc. and you are a couple with a child… Add a pandemic on top of it and I would have post poned the thing TBH.
Communication and transparency are keys where you ask people to trust you.
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I really don’t know how to navigate on this thing. Is there a wiki somewhere with instructions? I feel like enough people know 1 or 2 modes / key combinations to get decent documentation together… right?
Same I just bought one on a whim on offerup without doing much research and when I get home to configure it I find out about the company going under and basically wiping any existing official documentation firmware editors etc. and so far these are the best resources I’ve found:
So far I’ve easily paired it via bluetooth to koala but what I really want to do is have a wired midi connection to ableton but I can’t seem to get the PC to read it. It’s probably stuck in bluetooth mode … If anyone knows of a way to switch the device to a wired connection it would be of great help.
My next plan is to call perfect circuit and see if the fine folks over there can help me out since they are still selling these units. I’ll keep yall posted
peace
To me this is really bad. The unit is almost a brick at this point…This should be mentionned !
The editor is still online and can be used:
https://offgrid.birdkids.io/#/editor
Curious, people were complaining everywhere that there were no online resource avaliable anymore.
The site seems to be badly configured though, I gave up after the third warning alert I had when trying to access the page… 
If it’s loading for you, please grab a copy. As mentioned above, it probably is a frontend webapp that can work offline or in another domain.
This is what that link is loading for me at the moment:
Edit to add: Managed to find this in the Internet Archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220515123547/https://offgrid.birdkids.io/#/
Tried with my controller and pairs well but only allows for firmware update and renaming the device (no editor).
Edit 2: Apparently appending /editor to the URL loads the preset editor:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220515123547/https://offgrid.birdkids.io/#/editor
But while I can pair fine it says that my firmware needs an upgrade (the firmware upgrade link says it’s up to date, v1.05) and I’m reluctant to brick the controller by clicking “upgrade”, so…
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The firmware update worked on my device (via bluetooth) but the editor still does not load properly using Wayback machine.
I still don’t know how anyone is getting this to work with their DAW wired over the USB-C port…
Quite the Mystery…
Here are some manual pages I saved from the Birdkids site, if they are any use…
birdkids OffGrid-DefaultPreset-Overview.pdf (2.0 MB)
birdkids OffGrid Scale Mode.pdf (120.8 KB)
birdkids OffGrid Factory presets.pdf (1.0 MB)
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It still works OK as a bluetooth MIDI controller for Koala on iOS. I would say its perfect for Koala but it does disconnect pretty fast if you leave it idle… Not what I intended to use this MIDI controller for but at least its not a total brick
Compared to what retailers are selling them for, I’m glad I only dropped $100 bucks and even that seems like too much
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This is very useful. Thanks!
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