Last week WakeMate was part of an AppSumo bundle. I was excited thinking they were finally available and bought the bundle.
Confused as to how I was going to get the device without being asked for my address, I e-mail AppSumo and am told to buy one at wakemate.com. What the bundle will include is not the pictured WakeMate, but 3 months of premium service for it.
Problem? WakeMate doesn't exist yet, I can't buy one, and neither does a premium service for it.
My money was refunded and WakeMate was pulled from the bundle on the site.
I don't hold a high opinion of WakeMate anymore, and probably shouldn't have fallen for the deal. There are wristbands that track your sleep and your fitness now from companies that actually ship things when you pay them.
[Edit: Should note below that WakeMate says they never approved this bundle. Blame AppSumo, perhaps.]
I'm a co-founder of WakeMate and this is the first I'm hearing of an AppSumo bundle involving us. Also as of right now there is no premium service. All analytics services are currently free.
Not trying to be pessimistic, but they're so far off what has been promised when I placed my order that I completely lost faith and trust in this company.
I could understand a delay of a couple of months, but what has it been now... over a year?
I feel like it's easy for the vocal minority to overpower the conversation here; the people who don't really care about the delay probably don't feel the need to say anything.
So, for what it's worth. The delay isn't a huge deal to me. When it finally ships it looks like it will be the cheapest and yet most well designed product in the space.
I was excited by WakeMate when it first appeared and signed up but it's been so long in shipping that I no longer have an iPhone that I can use it with. Talk about disappointment.
I've been part of the Wakemate beta program. I was told to not post a detailed review but that I could give my general opinion. It's a great device, and I would pay $50 for it. I understand why those who pre-ordered long ago might feel burned, but for others who may be considering getting one, I would urge you to ignore all of that drama and evaluate the finished product as it stands.
If you've been following the blog lately you'd know we have been updating quite frequently with important information. I think that everyone is going to be very happy in the very near future.
This update is really good though. They address pretty much all of the open issues. The only thing they have to watch out for is people who respond to the email faster skipping the queue, but I'm sure they've sorted that.
Some very negative comments here, which surprises and dissapoints me. I would have thought the HN crowd would be a little sympathetic to troubles a startup faces early on. And remember these guys aren't throwing together a rails app, they are working with hardware, which involves more factors out of their control. It's not like they can just drink more coffee and code longer to get this thing shipped.
They have an exciting, innovative product, which is something recent articles on the front page have asked for.
They perhaps shouldn't have taken cash so early, but lets cut them some slack.
I doubt any of the negative comments are coming from hardware entrepreneurs -- in fact I would go one step further and say most of the negative comments aren't from entrepreneurs. They're from whiney consumers who expect the world and don't create much.
Maybe I'm going insane and what's on my monitor is not what I'm reading inside my head, but I just spend a few minutes going through their compatibility checker and they don't list a single phone that it's compatible with. Just a whole bunch of unsupported phones.
I think the idea is that if your operating system is listed as supported, and your specific device isn't mentioned as specifically unsupported, you just hope for the best.
If you go digging through the support forums, they do actually have a more detailed list of devices supported. It's just the front page that most potential customers will see first that's badly designed, and as we all know, if a customer doesn't find out what she's looking for quickly, she will always go on to devote extra time and resources to digging through support pages.
I just looked up all the smartphones in both my family and my girlfriend's family, and they're all compatible (BlackBerry 5 (9650), iPhone 3GS & 4 (iOS 4 for both), and Android 2.1 (Ally, Droid, Droid Incredible).
I noticed under the first pic it says "Designed and Assembled in the U.S.A."
My first thought in reading that line was "hmm... so they wasted a whole bunch of money by not outsourcing it to China where they could get their PCB assembly done for 20% the cost."
That's not necessarily true these days. Fabrication costs have been steadily increasing in China. For something on the run-level their doing it's probably more like 50% and rising fast.
That's at least what I'm hearing from a couple of startups in my area working on physical products.
50 bucks for this is still a very good deal, they probably are not actually making money on the USA produced ones. They will probably offshore later to get the profit margin back. Just a guess.
Sure sure. Sorry for the negativity but I'm super unimpressed by the whole wakemate saga. I really wanted one but being led around like this is too much for me. I won't be buying anything from this company.
Everyone seems to be very negative here. I will still definitely buy one of these. It's an absolutely unnecessary product that had many alternatives already when announced a year ago. And none of that has changed.
I see this whole process as a fun learning experience of how difficult it can be to ship a physical product (fun because i'm not on their end).
I don't need the product so who cares if I have to wait for it...
[+] [-] dangrossman|15 years ago|reply
Confused as to how I was going to get the device without being asked for my address, I e-mail AppSumo and am told to buy one at wakemate.com. What the bundle will include is not the pictured WakeMate, but 3 months of premium service for it.
Problem? WakeMate doesn't exist yet, I can't buy one, and neither does a premium service for it.
My money was refunded and WakeMate was pulled from the bundle on the site.
I don't hold a high opinion of WakeMate anymore, and probably shouldn't have fallen for the deal. There are wristbands that track your sleep and your fitness now from companies that actually ship things when you pay them.
[Edit: Should note below that WakeMate says they never approved this bundle. Blame AppSumo, perhaps.]
[+] [-] spydertennis|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noahkagan|15 years ago|reply
We love the WakeMate product and pulled them because the service they were offering was not public as expected.
Here's our emails confirming WakeMate wanted to be in the bundle: http://cl.ly/3p3u3T3I3e3p3e231c31
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cmer|15 years ago|reply
I could understand a delay of a couple of months, but what has it been now... over a year?
I have moved on, I'm sorry.
[+] [-] acgourley|15 years ago|reply
So, for what it's worth. The delay isn't a huge deal to me. When it finally ships it looks like it will be the cheapest and yet most well designed product in the space.
[+] [-] geedee77|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kylec|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mlinsey|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] staunch|15 years ago|reply
Like whether you qualify for the senior citizen discount now.
[+] [-] AdamGibbins|15 years ago|reply
Glad to see stuff progressing though and the update is hugely appreciated.
[+] [-] jlgosse|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nodata|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] david_shaw|15 years ago|reply
WakeMate and Sleepyti.me are two different approaches to the same problem, so it's cool to see a product based around similar principles.
[+] [-] rodh257|15 years ago|reply
They have an exciting, innovative product, which is something recent articles on the front page have asked for.
They perhaps shouldn't have taken cash so early, but lets cut them some slack.
[+] [-] adammichaelc|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EliRivers|15 years ago|reply
http://wakemate.com/compatibility/
[+] [-] MoreMoschops|15 years ago|reply
If you go digging through the support forums, they do actually have a more detailed list of devices supported. It's just the front page that most potential customers will see first that's badly designed, and as we all know, if a customer doesn't find out what she's looking for quickly, she will always go on to devote extra time and resources to digging through support pages.
[+] [-] mattyb|15 years ago|reply
I just looked up all the smartphones in both my family and my girlfriend's family, and they're all compatible (BlackBerry 5 (9650), iPhone 3GS & 4 (iOS 4 for both), and Android 2.1 (Ally, Droid, Droid Incredible).
[+] [-] axiom|15 years ago|reply
My first thought in reading that line was "hmm... so they wasted a whole bunch of money by not outsourcing it to China where they could get their PCB assembly done for 20% the cost."
[+] [-] enjo|15 years ago|reply
That's at least what I'm hearing from a couple of startups in my area working on physical products.
[+] [-] acgourley|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] muppetman|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Devilboy|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ique|15 years ago|reply
I see this whole process as a fun learning experience of how difficult it can be to ship a physical product (fun because i'm not on their end).
I don't need the product so who cares if I have to wait for it...