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Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

#21

Post by covercash »

clewiston wrote: post #17
koichi wrote: post #12

I'd worry about this more if my WakeMate would actually arrive... :( This is pretty sad, though... I've been cheering for WakeMate since the beginning, but it's getting harder and harder... Are they at least sending new charger bricks at some point, perhaps a year or so from now (har har har)?

yes, but we will have to source new bricks first. We went with these black bricks because a) they looked cool, b) we could afford them, and c) samples of the bricks passed electrical surge and signal quality tests we had performed here in Mountain View. Maybe there's a reason Apple charges $29 for theirs...

Are the Apple bricks an acceptable replacement until you guys ship new ones?

Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

#22

Post by [deleted] »

covercash wrote: post #21
clewiston wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, but we will have to source new bricks first. We went with these black bricks because a) they looked cool, b) we could afford them, and c) samples of the bricks passed electrical surge and signal quality tests we had performed here in Mountain View. Maybe there's a reason Apple charges $29 for theirs...

Are the Apple bricks an acceptable replacement until you guys ship new ones?

[deleted]

Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

#23

Post by spydertennis »

covercash wrote: post #21
clewiston wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, but we will have to source new bricks first. We went with these black bricks because a) they looked cool, b) we could afford them, and c) samples of the bricks passed electrical surge and signal quality tests we had performed here in Mountain View. Maybe there's a reason Apple charges $29 for theirs...

Are the Apple bricks an acceptable replacement until you guys ship new ones?

Yes they are! In fact any Mini USB charger is. You can also plug the included cable directly into your computer.

Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

#24

Post by jackowayed »

covercash wrote: post #21
clewiston wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, but we will have to source new bricks first. We went with these black bricks because a) they looked cool, b) we could afford them, and c) samples of the bricks passed electrical surge and signal quality tests we had performed here in Mountain View. Maybe there's a reason Apple charges $29 for theirs...

Are the Apple bricks an acceptable replacement until you guys ship new ones?

USB power is standardized, so anything that plugs into the wall and has a USB port on the back should work fine.

I regularly charge my phone with my Kindle charger and vice versa (and they even both use microUSB, so I can use the same wire too).

Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

#27

Post by oasisbob »

bugsy wrote: post #6
noonespecial wrote: post #4

It's likely that the chargers that were tested and the chargers that actually ended up shipping are quite different inside. This seems to be a constant battle when going the Chinese route. You have to cut open a few from every shipment and check to see if inferior components have been subbed in since last time.

At a place I worked a few years ago we had to individually retest every single unit of our products. This involved opening up packaging and repacking and reshrinkwrapping afterwards. In between unpacking and repacking there was testing and finding about 1/3 of them always had problems. Some boards could be fixed by diagnosing to the component level, replacing components and even resoldering incorrectly wired interboa…

This type of testing sounds like a huge pain, but makes a big difference for customer satisfaction to the point where a company can differentiate themselves by doing it.

A company called Yongnuo makes some fantastic speedlights (photographic flashes), which are inexpensive alternatives to the fully-automatic Canon/Nikon standards for strobist photogs. Think $40 instead of $400.

The trade-off is that many of them arrive defective, they are known for not having good QA. There are sellers on ebay who make it a point to test every one before shipping. Guess who I chose to buy mine from? Not a bad way to make a profit and stand out on an otherwise low-margin item.

Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

#28

Post by jpcx01 »

donniefitz2 wrote: post #5

Man, this is big. What a bummer for Wakemate. I admire your honesty though. Thanks for not keeping quiet.

Not like they really had a choice here. It's spreading like wild on twitter already. If they ignored it, it would have been a huge problem for them.

At least they aren't crazy and are doing the right thing. I'm guessing someone really regrets trying to save a few pennies on the charger.

It's a tough business no doubt. I think they'll make it through just fine though.

Re: Important Safety Notice from WakeMate

#30

Post by rdl »

cookiecaper wrote: post #26
tlrobinson wrote: post #3

Man these guys can't catch a break. I really want to love WakeMate but they're making it hard.

This is the first issue I've read about. What else happened?

The 14 month shipping delay, delivered in 1-2 week bites: "we'll be ready next week, for real this time!". So, lots of little things which added up to one big thing.
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