My apologies - I spoke in haste.
Yes - I got my refund. I'd only glanced at my CC statement - and noticed wakemate in passing - and assumed it was a new charge.
(On a somewhat related note (and I'm not holding this against you at all) -- technically I'm down 30 cents on wakemate. Paypal initially charged me $5.61 AUD and then refunded my $5.31 AUD. I realise that it's $5 US both times - just thought it was worth mentioning)
I browsed through half-a-dozen pages, including "How it works" and "Product Tour" looking for the phone hardware and software requirements. No sign of them. I am not going to buy something without this information, and you have not made it easy to find.
Come on. Hardware is hard. They've clearly made a huge amount of progress recently, and I'm glad to see them update the blog. That doesn't excuse their pretty bad communication over the past few months, but they're a small startup and they're learning. They're improving. They're iterating.
If any group of people should be able to give a company like Wakemate some slack, it's HN.
"If any group of people should be able to give a company like Wakemate some slack, it's HN."
I'm really surprised by a lot of HN'ers reactions on this Wakemate thing indeed. What is it that makes many HN'ers so upset about this? What makes this so different than, for example, the Diaspora guys, who generally get sympathy from the HN community?
The Diaspora guys, so far, haven't taken pre-orders and then had a half-year delay.
But the thing most people are annoyed with were the lack of updates. Delays are o.k. if you know there is progress. Except we didn't know for a long, long time.
They are doing much better right now, and I'm still as excited to get my Wakemate :)
"I'm really surprised by a lot of HN'ers reactions on this Wakemate thing indeed."
It's difficult to tell why the reaction is so strong. Frankly, I never expected the January ship date to happen when I pre-ordered. My theory: Most of us sleep pretty poorly and the product is interesting. Excitement, anticipation, a few teases sometimes leads to incredible frustration.
I'm among the group screaming SHIP IT SHIP IT! But that's more out of anticipation than anger. Of course, if they ship it and it doesn't live up to the expectations of each of us who have been waiting patiently, expect a backlash that dwarfs the sentiments expressed today.
As someone who has struggled with insomnia for years, I'll be writing a full review after a good period of testing.
I gave these guys money based on a set of expectations. They haven't even come remotely close to meeting those expectations.
I think the reason I'm not being more vocal is because I feel bad for these guys and just assume they are in way over their head. I don't think they are really con artists. But, I'll sure feel dumb if that's what this turns out to be. Let's be honest, the pictures they are posting of the "new" product are wildly different from the pictures of what I bought.
Whether or not they give updates is completely irrelevant to when they ship. Many customers asked for more regular updates, they are responding. Chill out.
yeah exactly, not long ago the only update anyone ever got was to tell them that their Wakemate was delayed longer. People complained, and the company improved their communication. I think its great, especially from a HN readers point of view, we get to see a little bit more about the process.
