FloJack DOA

[JonParticipant]

Order 3360 UNIT DOA – no flashing lights, no write/read. No installation instructions. Nada.
Poor build quality (battery door, once off, doesn’t want to stay clicked in) Unit tilts off axis from phone (not vertical)

VERY disappointed for a product that took way too long to get a prototype out. When the Kickstarter campaign began, I was EXTREMELY interested and excited. Now, not so much.

Kinda want my money back. Or at least a working unit.

[RichardKeymaster]

Hello Jon, sorry you are disappointed. We’ve worked really hard to make the Flojack the best we could make it but we may have more work to do. It’s very likely, however, that you’ve missed a few key steps to getting the device setup. First, you need to install a battery that should have been included with your Flojack (taped to the upper side of the box). Instructions on how to do so were printed on the front of the box and linked here: https://flomio.com/flojack/

Note: We took this approach of hosting instructions online instead of including a printed manual because it saved on printing costs as well as the risk of needing to make last minute changes. Plus it’s eco-friendly.

Once you’ve installed the battery and gotten through calibration, the Flojack will go to sleep. To wake it back up you need to use an app that’s been built with our Software Development Kit. We’ve developed two such apps, NFC Actions and Flojack Example. The first is available on the App Store while the second is included with the SDK. Nevertheless, the current SDK is only supported on iOS6 since iOS7 introduced some new issues. Only once we’ve corrected these issues imposed by iOS7 will we be able to push out an updated SDK and NFC Actions app for the App Store that successfully wakes up the Flojack. In the meantime you can work with iOS6-based devices and a Flojack Example app you’ve built with the SDK.

Below are a few more questions that may help understand how the Flojack was meant to operate.

– How can I configure my Flojack to stop sleeping?
The Flojack needs to be put into *Standalone* mode in order for it to operate without a host device (iPhone). You need an iOS6 device with FlojackExample app to send the *Standalone* configuration to the Flojack.

– Why do you deliver the Flojacks in a sleep mode?
Flojack defaults into sleep mode as a way to conserve battery life. Otherwise, batteries would only last a few hours.

– My Flojack flashes 16 times and now nothing.
Refer to this post: https://flomio.com/forums/topic/the-flojack-flashes-16-times-and-now-nothing/

I hope that helps get you setup. Please let us know if you are still having issues. We are doing what we can to listen to our customers and learn from our mistakes.

thanks,
Richard and the Flomies.

[JonParticipant]

The lights NEVER went on when the battery was inserted.

There were NO instructions printed on the box or link to a setup website — unless the shipping label covered them. Good packaging.

The fact that I cannot test under iOS7 makes it completely useless, as only 4% of my base is still on iOS6.

[RonaldParticipant]

Hey Richard and Jake, my thread and inquiries were never addressed since the last message I sent to you guys. Please see Tagged: （# flo10002）. I pretty much waited for a YEAR (all paid up in advanced which now I think is an incorrect practise by you guys) and still not get any respectful reply and your failed promise of delivering the FloBLE. If this project is way above all your team’s skillsets and ability to produce and deliver to the market, you guys have to be totally honest with it and refund the money to customers. I didn’t place your order via kickstarter. I placed it directly in your website which in no way was I being told clearly that it was a non-existent product during the time of placing the order (or kickstarter driven to deliver kind of project). If you see my thread, I actually have a person who was working in your Flomio team telling me after placing my order I would get it after a week. I ordered the scanner and also the NFC stickers, which I really don’t believe you guys can’t ship out the NFC stickers because it is still in development when they are not even the so called innovative core part of the hardware things you guys are making. If you guys keep basing replies with one lie after another, and disregard giving me proper options like actually shipping a piece of hardware that works or refund the money back to me since you guys can’t deliver, and yet you guys still don’t own up to the problem you guys created for me and refuse to respectfully follow up with me within this week, you literally force me to make the next move which is to file a criminal report to the police, inform my lawyers, alert my credit card bank about this transaction fraud to also file an investigation, and also alert all kinds of tech media organizations like Techcrunch and all relevant people who had given public marketing exposure for your product about this incident and your business practices which includes failing to deliver and show absolutely no respect to me in following up my order (and I am sure all the people in the same situation as me with you guys will definitely voice out to the public). You have my email and contact and there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to not follow up with me and rectify the PROBLEM YOU CAUSED! I am posting this to ALL YOUR THREADS SO YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE TO NOT SEE THIS MESSAGE. I hope you understand that if you guys keep running the business like this in the dark (absolutely no weekly or monthly updates on development /shipment progress), you risk tarnishing your brand and respectability and even if you guys deliver the promised project after another 2 more years because it seems like its your hobby project funded by innocent victims like us, the product will basically be D-O-A when reached to the mainstream market regardless of how amazing it will be.

[RichardKeymaster]

Hi Ronald, many customers -Kickstarter and pre-order alike- have asked for refunds with the same reasoning as you have posted. Our position has remained consistent ever since the FloJack campaign began: in order to achieve a price point the market could bare we need to place a bulk order of at least 1000 units. We achieved that goal with the Kickstarter campaign and placed the order with the factory, assembled all the units, and developed the iOS SDK for most of the Apple mobile devices (iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, iPad Mini). This was of course for iOS6 and below. There is plenty of evidence to corroborate that claim. When iOS7 was released it became clear that porting all the SDKs to the new OS was more effort than we had the resources for since we spent all the pre-order dollars developing everything for iOS6. That’s when the FloBLE idea came about and a willing enterprise to fund it’s development and bulk order. That effort is still ongoing.

Flomio has restructured time and again to try and deliver something our customers can use. We have FloJacks in stock but stopped shipping them because customers complained that it didn’t work with there iOS7 devices. If you want your FloJack hardware, we are more than glad to ship it to you since that is what you paid for. If your order contains other items we sell, we keep the whole order on hold. We don’t ship partial orders because the shipping charge does not cover two separate shipments, only one.

We welcome customer feedback like this. That’s why we setup this Forum to being with. Positive or negative, it’s the reality of our situation. Something we have no intention of hiding. The Flomio brand is, at the end of the day, a reflection of what we can deliver based on the resources we have. Today, that isn’t much but we are not giving up. We are a competent and capable team and have shown it many times. The FloJack history may not reflect it, but iOS7 was a challenge we did not foresee or plan for.

[RonaldParticipant]

Richard, as a capable person you claim to be or being part of this capable Flomio team, how can you put all backers and actual customers like me in such a risk when you guys make a new decision to pursue the FloBLE path which requires you guys to completely rebuild the product when you guys don’t even have the resources and capital to do such an action. You guys announced the new direction since the beginning of this year like January. It is now more than 7 months and almost heading towards Christmas and still no signs of a finished FloBLE product. Didn’t you guys take into account that a new iPhone is about to come out in September this year with iOS 8 and there is going to be a more radical change which will render your development work useless again if you are building really boiler code or hack type of hardware? Honestly, Apple is probably aware of startups like you guys that are building iPhone hardware add-ons/accessories that are not conforming to the iPhone hardware and software protocols, so will even modify newer iPhone hardware and software to ensure you guys can’t hack their hardware to deliver NFC capabilities (after all, Apple did not buy into the NFC technology and refuse to offer it after so many subsequent iPhone generation launches or otherwise they would have added it themselves into the phone in the first place). Third party NFC add-ons to iPhone will only work if companies deliver and fix issues quickly, which in your case is no where near this kind of capability level. If you are still just presenting a believe and no real solid proof that your continuation with the current development and business practices will work, you really need to stop giving false hopes to all your involved backers AND customers and actually put your team on the path to salvage what is left in your project and liquidate to return funds to customers and move on to a new idea (and PLEASE STOP using Kickstarter as your shield and excuse to fend off any wrong-doings you guys committed). So far the last most substantial update you guys broadcasted out was a change of direction to produce FloBLE. There is no substantial follow up or blueprint/demo prototype of the actual device being build and on any final step to launch it. This is a very strong disappointment and I would be terribly shocked if you guys are actually Silicon Valley based talent kind of startup. One simple solution to your iOS 7 problem was really building the bridge hardware to bypass the jack input and link Bluetooth to the NFC detector hardware of the FloJack. If resources and capital was limited your capable team should have dismantled the existing FloJack inventory and modify all of them with the bluetooth bridging fix which suppose should be a small micro chip solution to integrate into your existing FloJack hardware and re-create the casing with newer, cheaper and faster manufacturing processes like 3-D printing instead of completely re-manufacturing a new batch of inventory. It takes you guys more than 7 months to create such a fix?? This is a joke… REALLY!! Before you procrastinate onwards with your repeated and lame excuses, you better think hard how you and your team are going to explain all these flaws one after another continuously to the panel of judges in a court hearing which they are most likely going to give precedence to suppressing fraudulent businesses and setting a strong example to curb future potential frauds.

[RichardKeymaster]

Ronald, I think you missed this blog post sent out in March, 2014 with FloBLE progress and working proof of concept. BLE is a standardized interface and not something any device that conforms to the specification can block. The pace of our development is slow because we have to work on other consulting projects in parallel to keep the business running. The FloBLE solution is in fact a bridge implementation that bypasses the jack input with a BLE chipset, but in no way is it “simple”. BLE doesn’t support serial UART emulation as a standard profile so aside from the laying out of a new PCB, new power and antenna front end design, and bootstrap firmware development, there was the BLE ramp up work and serial driver work that has taken the longest. In fact there are still challenges in the broad BLE community to achieve consistent serial data throughput across BLE.

Again, this feedback is helpful. We stand by what we have done and continue to work on. If legal action is taken against us, we will present the facts as we see them.

[RonaldParticipant]

You are still in denial of the problems you are causing customers like us. The fact that one of your employees or representative promising my order will be filled after 1 week of placing of the order (solid prove shown in the forum page that involved my question) and not meeting the delivery time for more than a year is a serious breach of contract of sales. An involvement of a court hearing will be multi-dimensional (i.e. not just why your kickstarter project keeps delaying and delaying). You charged my credit card quickly (i.e. solid prove of establishing the contract of sales) after placing my order and failed to satisfy the delivery period promised to me (i.e. fundamental breach of sales of contract), you even have the guts to refuse answering my last message for several months until today when I have to initiate a following up response and now you have absolutely no idea or even tell me when you can deliver the product to me (i.e. no intention of warranting the contract of sales). This is a lot of stuff on your plate at the moment. If you honestly think you can serve all your backers and customers right now without a solid deadline (something you guys supposed need to work hard and commit to) and you guys are still getting new orders and only taking in new capital (regarding whether its investors or product buyers) you guys are seriously running a scam closely comparable to a pyramid scheme which is an undeniable fraud. Do you guys still need another 6 months holiday in Miami Beach before you can come up with a deadline delivery date which is gonna be another 5 years later just because you guys suddenly become full time third party contractors to other non-related companies and demoted yourself to being casual time flomio developers which has an important legal duty of trust and responsibility to your backers and customers?
This is not a feedback to support your continuation of procrastination. This is a request to resolve my issue now and give me (the victim) respectable and acceptable options to quit this scam that you are running now.

[RichardKeymaster]

Hi Ronald, we apologize that you were misinformed by our customer service representative. He should have followed up with you directly about the non-shipment of FloJack orders late last year. The issue was that we were learning about the problems with iOS7 at that time and didn’t know what to do about it. I will ship out your order #4232 as is but be warned that it will only work as designed on iOS6.

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