Typically April Fools pranks are pretty transparent and short lived, but this may be one of the longest “fools” pranks. What would you say if we told you if we said nearly 2,500 have pledged close to $1 million on and Indigogo campaign that has no possibility to be a valid product? For all you Star Wars: Phantom Menace fans looking to get your mitts on the A99 aquata breather or James Bond fan looking to get a Thunderball rebreather, you might be better off spending your money elsewhere.
The Triton dubs itself as the “World’s First Artificial Gills Re-breather.” But we’re calling bunk to this product. After reading about this at the Nerdist, we hopped over to the Indigogo page expecting to be Rickrolled, but sadly we saw the truth that people were lining up their hard earned dough for this bit of plastic that reminds us of the old Eco Aquilizer.
So what is the Triton? The Triton’s creators claim the device filters water through tiny holes in the “gills” that extract oxygen. But scientists have been poking holes in this theory since the Triton first appeared on the scene in 2015. According to Dr. Al Dove at Deep Sea News this device would need to move as much water as your 1/4 horsepower return pump. Another theory to test is ram ventilation — the same approach sharks use to force water over their gills — but we just can’t swim fast enough.
“You’d certainly have to swim so fast to supply the needs of 15 breaths per minute [the average resting breath rate of a human diver] that you wouldn’t be breathing 15 bpm anymore,” notes Dove.
A few other red flags the Nerdist pointed out were the lack of any engineers on the team (a top notch marketer with a slick beard and sleek suit though!). Then there is this demo video that is conveniently edited and shows no evidence of this thing working.
If you pledged some dough to this campaign hoping to wow your friends at the next MACNA, sorry about that! Looks like you’ll be out of luck.
[via The Nerdist]
https://youtu.be/obqxzmmv7uM
