On July 28th, 2016, I purchased a Glowforge Pro for use in my basement workshop/maker space. Because I don’t have access to a window in order to channel the exhaust fumes, I also ordered it with the air filter. It is now two and a half years later and I am still waiting. Approximately every six months, the delivery date gets pushed back to a later time. A few weeks ago, I was on schedule to receive my Glowforge with air filter by the end of March (after five or so previous postponements). After logging in tonight, I discovered that, once again, my delivery date was extended – to August 31st, 2019 (over three full years after placing my order). I’ve hung on for so long, debating whether or not to throw in the towel. It’s like a cruel joke and, at this point, I don’t ever expect to receive it. Each week, I get the email that features so many cool projects that many of you have made and it makes me jealous that I don’t have the luxury to create the countless things I’ve planned for so long. I’ve already written to support voicing my disgust, but all I get back are canned responses with no concern to my plight or others in the same situation. It is outrageous that a business can operate like that, stringing along customers who’ve already paid for their equipment several years ago with nothing to offer but flimsy excuses, empty promises, and meager “bonuses” to appease us temporarily. My patience has run out. I am disappointed, frustrated, and angry. The $4,870.00 I paid could have been earning interest in my bank account all these years. I’ve also missed out on who knows how much money I could have been making with the things I had planned to make and sell. I will never recoup those losses, but most of all, I can never get back all of the time I lost by waiting. My experience has been nothing but negative. Shame on you, Glowforge and Dan…you lost another hopeful customer. Your inaction to fulfill the commitments you made early on speaks volumes. There is no consideration or courtesy for those who’ve supported your venture and allowed it to grow. Best wishes to the rest of you who have been able to fulfill your artistic visions.
I suppose you didn’t get the update about the compact filter?
No…that is news to me.
If you want one, you have to sign up for it here:
And at the bottom of the thread there is quite a bit of discussion of it and pictures. I’ve been testing one, and they work great. No smell while the jobs are running.
Thanks for the info, Jules. However, I feel that they should have offered that directly to those who have been waiting for years. I wasn’t even aware of this option, because I never got the update. I see it as additional lack of consideration on their part. For me, it’s too little, too late.
I picked up a Purex Alpha 400 two years ago when I got my first Glowforge and have been using it everyday since. it’s the same one Glowforge was using at all the makerfaires and events. works great in my makerspace with no outside windows.
Well, your choice of course, but it was only announced a couple of weeks ago, and people are still signing up for it. If you held off on delivery of the machine until the filter was ready, they will probably allow you to accept delivery and take one of these instead.
It’s your choice, but you do have another option.
It’s not a lack of consideration. You should check your spam folders. I’m pretty sure that was sent out via email as well. From the beginning they’ve tried to keep only major announcements, like that, sent out as emails.
I check my spam folder daily…I never received the update. It is a lack of consideration to those who are on a waiting list several years long. They know who we are. They’ve had every opportunity to notify us directly.
Not to be presumptuous… it seems to me that your post was a final call for a solution, and that at some level you don’t want to give up.
There are options, the compact filter or third party filters that can get you going. The time you’ve spent waiting is unfortunate but also a sunk cost, if you change your mind and go with a currently available filtration option, we’d all love to see what you create.
You can definitely cancel/change the filter portion of your order and move forward.
It’s not your fault that you didn’t know what was going on with the compact filter. The updates are posted on the forum, and if you opted in for an email forward of those, you also get them by email. When those updates address the question at all, they are usually anodyne statements that “it’s not done because it’s not ready”, so frankly it’s probably a healthier choice to not pay close attention.
The new compact filter actually looks to me to be the better of the two filter options. It’s being produced by a third party (Glowforge, typically, won’t say who), so that may give you more confidence that it will be produced in a timely fashion. Glowforge is saying basically nothing about how quickly we can expect them or what the process is, naturally, but there are reasons to cautiously think that it might be relatively imminent.
So if you still want the thing, you might consider signing up for the compact filter (see if you can remember what your credit card number was three years ago) and waiting another month or two for news. If you’ve just totally lost confidence in the company – who frankly, you’ll be relying on at a minimum for their cloud-based software and filter media forever – it’s perfectly sensible to cancel.
Hate to see you throw in the towel after enduring the long wait. I can imagine the frustration, I still remember the years long wait although that pain vanished as soon as I got the machine and was replaced by the thrill of exploring the creative possibilities.
I am fortunate to own my home and could modify it to my needs for the exhaust. The thought of having to replace filter media forever never appealed to me at all.
@rpegg punched a hole in his cement block foundation wall and did a very clean job of it. As I recall it took him an afternoon for a professional job, and no need for the additional expense of the filter and perpetual filter media replacement.
If that were a possibility, I would strongly encourage you to consider it.
I don’t think that’s a good solution for him. His issue is the delay & uncertainty from the original filter dates and signing up for a new filter option that also has no fixed or firm commitment is just asking him to continue the same waiting that has led to his decision.
I’m not trying to convince him to hang on to it, just tell him what his options are. The decision has to be his. He’s the one who has to live with it.
And you’re completely correct, there aren’t going to be any personal communications for this sign-up method either, until the filters are ready for shipping. Checking on the forum occasionally is going to be necessary to know how things have progressed. Dan does a monthly update on the forum, in the Announcements section, and we have to read it if we want to know where things stand.
We’re talking ten to fifteen minutes or so once a month to catch up on the Announcements section.
(And honestly, If that’s too onerous, you shouldn’t be buying a laser, you’re too busy to use one.) 
This is literally the second time someone in this position has had an opportunity to make a decision in the more than 40 months since preorders became available. I don’t think it’s less reasonable for Chad to have thought that maybe someone would have reached out to him to let him know that than it is to expect he would have spent 8 hours of his time since then checking the forums for information that is, largely, not forthcoming anyway.
The Compact Filter announcement is perhaps the most mind blowing thing to me in the whole long, strange Glowforge trip. The original air filter is behind schedule by an unknown amount, and the company’s “solution” to the problem is offering people a chance to buy a different filter which also has an unknown date.
Still, it may be the best option for @chadbrader.
He like lots of people seem to feel that is too much to ask. They want to be spoon fed via email and if it goes into spam folders they want someone to find it for them and move it back to their inbox 
Yep. Some people never learn.
Each person needs to make his/her own judgement call on what they consider acceptable or not. If it’s a deal breaker to not have personal emails for all the announcements, that’s only something that the individual can decide.
And should the answer be that someone has to have personal emails to consider purchasing the product, then the correct answer (for that person) is to not purchase the product.
It’s usually a good idea to have all of the facts before making a decision though. Know in advance that the status updates are provided monthly in an Announcement in the forum, not emailed out individually, then decide whether you can live with it.
Yeah, I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t want to spend more time on the forum.
The company has demonstrated that it is unable to reliably communicate in any other way. We can all (I think) agree that’s not adequate for most people’s expectations. But that changes nothing.
So I can choose to either continue with a vain insistence that they do something else and then complain when they don’t (that was how my mother used to be) or I can decide that if I’m going to play in their ballgame, I’ll play by their rules. In this case it means I should either set the announcements section to email me with updates or check in a couple of times a month to see what they’re telling us. I don’t have to look at any other part of the forum - just that one.
People who choose the former are letting someone else control them whether they admit it to themselves or not. That’s why there’s not often a lot of sympathy anymore. GF is not going to change their business practices for whatever reasons they have so accept it or move on. They will not change - they’re executing to a business model & practice that makes sense for them, they’re consistent so it’s almost certain they will continue that way even if the rest of us are left scratching our heads wondering why.
Personally, if I were thinking of or trying to run a business, this would not be the machine I’d buy. I can’t operate a business with the uncertainty inherent in their model.
For hobby and personal use I find it pretty darn good. There’s still nothing out there, even on the used market, that I’d switch to.
I honestly don’t think it’s the right choice for most of the people who continue to be frustrated by the delays to continue to wait. But my expectation is that most will and they will continue to be disappointed until one day when they won’t be. But it’s going to be awfully hard for them to then erase the years of disappointment and dissatisfaction.
(End if soapbox rant)