There is still ZERO transparency. Why?

Community Support
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There’s still ZERO transparency whatsoever from the Glowforge folks. I emailed customer service and cc’ed @dan in my email. One of my questions was (verbatim) “Why is there a new delay? It’s ridiculous that the backers are essentially being told ‘oh it doesn’t work as well as we hoped.’ WHAT exactly is wrong with the current Glowforge batch?”

First, got a quick response from Dan, which was nice, but it was the same rubber-stamped response I heard in the email message and the forums, so aside from the personal email address from Dan, nothing was different.

Next, there was the message from @Rita , which said this (verbatim as well):

“I’m sorry that we haven’t provided a satisfactory answer regarding the reason for the delay. Unfortunately, the message in the letter below is accurate, “We are not ready to start producing in quantity yet.” There’s no single issue that stands out. If you’d like, you can see Dan, our CEO, speak about this directly in the recording of the Q&A we did on Friday: Dec 2016 Glowforge Q&A”

In other words, Dan and the folks at Glowforge are still REFUSING TO BE TRANSPARENT AND GIVING CONSUMERS THE RUNAROUND despite the requests from the consumers that (rightfully so) feel mislead and strung along.

• There’s NO explanation as to why the delay happened, aside from the same cookie-cutter explanations.
• There’s NO explanation as to why the delay wasn’t foreseen earlier than TWO WEEKS before the promised shipping date
• There’s NOTHING done to placate the consumers that are upset with the constant delays and lack of transparency: some freebie materials don’t exactly make up for the lack of transparency
• The phrase from @Rita is deeply troubling: “There’s no single issue that stands out.” Oh really? So seeing as there are multiple issues that are contributing to the delays and quality issues, why not LET YOUR CONSUMERS KNOW??? It’s deceptive and deceitful to promise a product, then realize you bit off more than you can chew, and keep stringing consumers along with promises and ‘freebies.’

I’m sure that myself and others would’ve felt differently if the process went something like this (for example):

Delay 1 happens, response from Glowforge is: “The issue was ABC, we fixed A and B, and we hope to have C fixed within the next 6 months.”

Delay 2 happens, response from Glowforge is: “Issue C is fixed, but it brought up the unexpected issue of D. We brought in the following people to help address and fix the issue. The unit will be delayed for another 6 months, and as compensation for the delay, all the consumers that preordered units (both US and international) will receive the following xxxxxxx as compensation.”

Etc, etc, etc.

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You sure are salty. They are not under any obligation to give us exact specifics as to what is going wrong. Additionally you are under no obligation to let them keep your money. Most companies do not give specifics of what is wrong with their products as they are trouble shooting them. Glowforge is honestly being a lot more open than most. They have units in the wild for testers to use and they are showing them at fairs publicly. If this isn’t enough for you, get a refund and stop complaining.

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Let me preempt some of the responses you will get from your fellow forum members. You can then chose which one you want:

  1. T&Cs! you agreed to get something at some point in time in the future.
  2. You can cancel and get a refund.
  3. Can’t take the time for a meaningful update because that takes time from getting you the best product.
  4. No obligation to give you anything else! Be happy you are getting a discount on the MSRP.
  5. You can cancel.

That probably covers what you’ll get. Good luck

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That was pretty succinct. Thanks.

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I feel your pain/complaint. Transparency is very tough for a technology company that is developing a revolutionary product. For the GF team, they are finding out how tough the technological problems are. I was upset at the delay too, but that was temporary. I hope you get a satisfactory answer to your questions. I know they are very busy trying to rectify problems and ship our GFs. The forum is a wonderful place for answers and support from great people. I hope you stick around. - Rich

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Pardon me, but I think you’ve repeated points 2 and 5…

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Thanks Rich. I think that lack of ANY info besides the generic responses is what’s most frustrating. And with all due respect to the few others that responded, cookie-cutter responses won’t do it anymore. I know it’s a new product. I know there are hurdles and problems. And I also see that they haven’t been completely forthcoming with information and why the delays happened. It just seems that they’re using the blanket statements as a CYOA method.

I’d like to think I’ll stick around too, but I’m actively looking for an alternative option, and even if I have to pay a bit more for it, I’m willing to do that if it IS a good alternative.

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Yes…because they are the most common ones…(and an attempt to put some humor into the list).

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Not salty, just expressing the many frustrations that everyone else is experiencing. And no, GF hasn’t been ‘a lot more open than most’…they’ve been quite the opposite.

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Dan said he knew in “early November” that things were not good. I wonder what took so long to tell us. Could be he didn’t want the firestorm before Thanksgiving celebrations…IDK. Evaluate where you are. I almost bought a Spark Laser SP4000 (I think). More money and Canadian company, but very high quality. - Rich

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I’m going to wait until there is 5 - 10 (currently only 2, but it’s early) “go get your money back” captions in the comments of this thread, then link them all in so you can see what the school yard bullies looks like every time a victim steps up to say something.

I’ve never had a problem dealing with bullies, so have at me all!

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Much appreciated jdodds!! I’m currently ignoring those comments, as I’m simply a frustrated customer who would like some answers and who isn’t going to get into a bickering war with anyone over it.

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I hear you. . . :+1:

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I know what you mean. Its hard to get any real detailed info regarding whats going on. Ive had to piece together an idea of whats happening from all of the small responses weve been given.

From my understanding here is what is happening:

Glowforge has finally gotten to the point that they are pretty much finalized with their hardware. However as they havent produced a large quantity of machines yet, and are still seeing small issues here and there, they want to increase their sample size to see if those issues scale up with the sample size. If they do, then they have a problem, and if they dont, it was just a fluke and they can continue to scale up production.

I think the threshold that they met with random problems was just enough to make them wary of going full bore right out of the gate, as that could potentially lead to a recall down the road if there really is an issue in production somewhere.

It really does seem they are ready to get these shipped to everyone, they are just taking the the necessary precautions to make sure none of those small issues theyve seen in the initial test batch propagate into the the 15k+ units that they need to ship.

Im super frustrated by the extra time its going to take, but Id be even more frustrated to have to ship my unit back and them go bankrupt because they made 15k+ defective lasers. I think were really close to getting them…

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I get your reasoning, @takitus, and I’m trying to convince myself of this as well, but it is a third delay, a last minute announcement, little more than copy/paste responses and answers, and lack of information that’s pushing me more and more into the ‘I better get my money back and find an equivalent or better product while I still can’ category.

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The elephant in the room is regulatory approvals. In the video Dan stated CE was started, not completed and was a long lead time item. My guess is it only just started as we know pre-production machines have a different metallic coating to production. Production samples would need to be submitted as the coating would affect EMC and probably safety.

He was also asked a direct question as to whether UL and FCC have been granted here: Schedule update (December '16). He didn’t answer but he answered some other questions in the same post. From that I assume they don’t have UL and FCC either as if they did it would be easy to say so. That means they can’t sell any yet and until they can be sure of passing they can’t manufacture in bulk.

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I’m not really sure that’s any more helpful than people repeatedly making those arguments. It would be a shame for the reverse to be done to people like the OP, who are also just voicing their feelings and opinions, no?

Everyone is allowed to say what they think, at least until staff steps in and says otherwise, and everyone is angry and frustrated and sad.

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to be fair, -on this point and this point alone- there are only so many different ways to apologize for the same thing.
If I had to apologize to ten people for the same thing, I might start sounding like copy/paste. Dan is responding to… more than 10.

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It’s unfortunate there is a contradiction between the people who want more information and those that are quietly swallowing the news while gritting their teeth. Those that want more information about the delays are clashing with those that feel they have heard enough information and feel that more information gathering will only delay things further.

If you are a member of the first group and you can find the time to read the forums, hopefully you’ll glean the answers that resolves any misgivings. Some people don’t have time for that and want immediate answers, but that would come at the expense of the second group. As a personal opinion, I think perhaps 90% of the Regulars are in the latter camp because keeping up with the forums has been more reassuring.

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Yeah, Im really not too happy with the way they handle these issues either. Last delay I made post after post about the need for better communication, for them to show us these features theyve promised since the beginning (3d engraving/raster engraving), and to work with the community a little more.

None of that seems to have changed in terms of how they interact with the public. They seem to have their need for moderate secrecy about certain things. I dont think anyone online really knows why. Dan has been pretty excited to show us the new features when he’s been allowed to (im assuming thats the case… I dont know whos calling the shots).

But from what we have seen, the featureset has finally been filled out for the most part, and it looks like its down to software tweaks for the most part. Thats great news. The 3D engraving stuff is finally being shown and its amazing! I cant think of anything else that would really keep them from delivering at this point. The 3D engraving seemed to be the most monumental hurdle.

Having seen that the hardware has reached the place it needs to be gave me a pretty good sense of relief. Im almost 100% positive they will ship. We cant really do much but wait to see if all of the small components pass the stress tests which is what stage it seems theyre at.

It could be something as small as making sure the hinges they are using can withstand opening and closing 100,000 times and still have the lid camera be in the same place. Itll take a little while for those robots to churn through the units they give them for testing, and we’ll be the better for it.

If you decide to stay in, I think youll be happy in the end. If not, lasers are fun in general and im sure you will enjoy using whatever you get. I got a k40 in the meantime and its been a lot of fun. It also makes me realize how much better the glowforge will be when it gets here because its not some hacked together plugin for a pirated version of corel draw lol.

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