I can only imagine

I can only imagine how the people who ordered with the initial orders feel. I ordered after seeing the I LIKE TO MAKE STUFF video and to hear that there is another set of delays that will probably put my delivery into to 2018. I ordered a pro unit so GlowForge is holding onto $6000 of my money while I wait. I think there needs to be an added variable in the free stuff, meaning a multiplier. You could have asked for a 25% deposit, open up the software for us to play with, open the store so we can see what types of things we can make. Something to help us kill time until we get our units. Perhaps shipping us our free materials up front or examples cut from your test units, Instead of the monthly, we’re behind even further emails.

Maybe you should have embargoed people from making videos with pre-production units.

I plan to post an honest review video when I get my unit but due to delays you are starting off at a 5 out of ten.

Just my 2 cents.

2 Likes

In my experience honest reviews of things don’t start out with a handicap, be it positive or negative.

10 Likes

I understand, I am just frustrated. This lack of communication is not good business practice. We should be receiving a weekly email with how many they shipped last week. I foolishly made plans expecting that I would have it in time to make some gifts for Christmas and with every “Sorry we are late again” post, that is less likely. All the cool features in the world are just vapor ware until we get our units.

1 Like

I have to get a bit pointed, but you have read less than 350 posts in this forum (look under your profile for that info). Just read through the Announcement alone to get communications from Glowforge.

2 Likes

I don’t have the time to sit and sift through forums. To me, when you spend more than $1000 and especially more than $5000 with a company, they should communicate with customer directly not in blog post at least monthly. Customer perception is all there is. I hope that this is an amazing product that I love but given the delays it is cautious optimism.

1 Like

I’m not sure the amount you paid is a fair barometer of the communication amount.

If the product cost $100 to produce and they were sold for $1000, then very much yes. But if they cost $900 to produce and sold for $1000, I could see why direct communication would be low on their priority list.

2 Likes

How often should they be sending out 10,000 emails when the Announcement category is where the company is posting monthly or more often updates?

I agree with you that reading ALL the forums is time consuming, but just reading the announcements (not even the discussions that are separated from them) would let you know what you would get from direct emails.

3 Likes

I am not necessarily looking for direct updates, just updates I don’t have to hunt for. Much like a i referenced earlier, we shipped X basic and Y pro units last week. But if they told us this information we would be able to tell whether or not their projections are realistic.

I promise you that you are not as good at design as you need to be. there are literally hundreds of tutorials here and thousands more on youtube to get you on your way whether your chosen tool is ai, Corel, Fusion 360 or several others.

I have personally offered and am offering now. If you come up with something truly interesting I will cut it and send it to you. I have done this for about a half-dozen people now. I see this as part of paying back for having a Pre-production unit.

Why? Most people love seeing what is coming and kill the “they don’t really exist or work” thing.

someone already said it but honest reviews don’t start off with a handicap or a plus.

6 Likes

Thanks everyone. I am just frustrated. As I said in my original post, I can only imagine having to wait 2 years. I am sure that I will love it when I get it. Just eager to play with it.

7 Likes

Sorry everybody’s jumping up your butt here. You have fair points. Six grand is a lot of money to pay in advance and then wait and see how many more delays there will be before it arrives.

I can only say, as one of the lucky few who has gotten theirs (I ordered on the first morning), that it is a fantastic piece of gear. I’d say “worth the wait”, but that’s a personal decision. For me it absolutely was. It would still be if I’d had to wait another six months.

The good news now, as I see it, is that we were waiting a long time for production to even start. That was the real danger zone: the hardware wasn’t finished, the software may have been unbearably buggy, and the end result was a huge unknown. This is a completely different kind of delay now. You know exactly what you’re going to get. There are tons of detailed forum posts, YouTube videos, appearances at maker shows, and invitations from some of us crazies to come to our house if you want to see one in person. It is simply a question of how long it takes the factory to build them all. It’s still waiting, but for me it changed a lot when they moved from development to manufacturing.

12 Likes

They do when the review is for the entire purchase and not simply the product itself. I’ve seen numerous reviews of 3d printers and other maker tools that review a product relatively well but with a heavy caveat of “it took way to long to get here” or “the order process was buggy” or “the support was terrible” etc. This really wouldn’t be any different. Those reviews all started out behind because of the negatives that came before the product even came out of the box.

3 Likes

Hey there, I got mine from a guy on Craigslist and it’s well worth the wait. I personally didn’t have the patience to buy and wait for who knows how long. This is a pretty amazing tool!

9 Likes

Congratulations on being either the only or one of just a few to find that particular backdoor.

4 Likes

Hey @john.ramminger, I hope it’s a moot point at this point, but you can always jump over to the announcements thread and “subscribe” to the thread then you will get an email any time Glowforge makes an announcement, because you’re right, there’s a lot of stuff to sift through on here. And for the record, your not alone, the most common complaint has been Glowforge’s communication style (or lack there of), but that has been a decision made by the company to use this method, and though it’s hard to wrap our brains around, I believe they believe they are doing the best they can balancing transparency and what’s good for the company. Since I’m not privy to those meetings, I’ll just give them a little good faith on that one. I will say, as frustrating as it is, all that seems to melt away once your unit arrives, and you’re sure it snuck past UPS’s 800 pound gorilla intact. You have every right to be frustrated, but I hope that frustration is replaced by excitement in the near future.

Also, the suggestion to study up on design software is always a good one. My first thought when I set mine up was, “why in the heck didn’t I already learn Fusion 360! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:”

5 Likes

For me it was Inkscape. The funny thing is that I saved a bunch of images I wanted to engrave from Pinterest and other sites and I think I’ve only done 2 or 3 of them over the last few months since I received my Glowforge. For the most part I’ve either created something from scratch in Inkscape or I’ve modified someone else’s design.

1 Like

If the company was going to use the same process again and then not learn a thing from the mistakes and such, that might be a useful exercise. Otherwise I believe it’s just another overly-sharpened ax that doesn’t benefit from the grinding.

Thanks Mark, I suggest to anyone to use IFTTT.com and setup a search on Ebay/Craigslist. You’ll get an immediate text or email that someone is selling a Glowforge. That’s how I got mine. It was pretty great.

5 Likes

Ditto. Although I don’t need it to be particularly interesting :slight_smile: I just need to have the time.

1 Like

Right, I put that in so people will ask themselves “is this worth someone else’s time?” I haven’t turned anyone down so far.

2 Likes