Bitten with the swordfish bug we couldn’t get enough swordfishing - night and day. Fishing with a mix of anglers it was always hard to communicate metrics - distance in feet, line speed, or drag in lbs. Why could these features not be displayed on the reel?

Initial proof of concept where we combined a conventional reel with off-the-shelf electronics. Low-level field testing doing some bottom fishing. From the design aspect, it gives us a feel for size, layout, and direction for our Beta 1 unit.

Our first full system integration - drive board, software, and mechanical system. We start testing our design assumptions and find ways to improve the system. We start to design for manufacturability. We shopped the design around to local fishermen to get feedback on the direction.

We added spool swapping, a level wind, refined the UX, and improved parts for manufacturability. Several small but critical tweaks were made in this phase - bearing sizes, a few drive revisions, several iterations through the software, the list is extensive. Fatigue lab testing and 3rd party corrosion/environmental testing were run as well. These both help us"

Production units delivered. This is a further refined design for quality, robustness, and performance. Happy customers in the field are critical for feedback on how to share our story. The response has been great with Captains making the switch to KOBO. Whether it is spool swapping, versatility of 12V/24V in the same reel, performance, or the digital metrics - they are having success."

Join & Follow Us on this jouney