Indeed. I am highly skeptical of kickstarters (and their ilk) outside of a small subset which is mainly forms of art. Art is something you ought to know for sure if you can achieve it before launching your kickstarter. (And even if the album/photo book/whatever doesn't turn out exactly how you imagined it, you can still give the backers some art of equivalent value.)

Electronics are the exact opposite. Coming up with an idea and getting some renders done is at least 1,000x easier than the remaining work from idea to shipping 10,000 units, therefore it's reasonable to expect that at least 90% of kickstarters for such products will fail to deliver, leaving backers holding the bag, since all our money has been spent already on the failed attempts.

Furthermore, I tend to think that if, due to some combination of their existing reputation + the amount of the work they've already completely finished, the project were a safe bet, then they'd be able to get investors to front them any further needed startup funds the normal way.

Because of their existing product lines, I look at this more like marketing or market research. I'm pretty confident that this will actually be made. For one, the company actually has experience making and selling devices. This is a bit more ambitious than an accessory keyboard, but it's at least experience making something. Second, the pre-order reservation is about half of the full pre-order price. Unlike most Kickstarters where you have to front 100% of the money.

At some point, Kickstarter (et al) campaigns switch from high-risk speculative products to marketing pitches (get in early!). I think this is one of the later. You're right that they could probably have (or have already) funded the product development themselves. I think this pitch is trying to build a market early in the year before potential competitor products are announced.