

WakeMate Blog - In Production - spydertennis
http://blog.wakemate.com/2010/12/16/in-production/

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dangrossman
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.]

~~~
spydertennis
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.

~~~
dangrossman
That's strange...

"Healthy Holidays Bundle Part 3: Bigger Brain" on December 13th was WakeMate
and FitBrains.

<http://i.imgur.com/AGMW8.png>

~~~
spydertennis
I can tell you that was never approved by us. Not sure what was going on there
but that might be why it was pulled.

~~~
noahkagan
Hey Arun.

Shot you an email to see where the disconnect happened.

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cmer
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 have moved on, I'm sorry.

~~~
acgourley
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.

~~~
CJefferson
After a year, people who don't care about the delay don't care about your
product any more either.

~~~
acgourley
I suppose you may be right, people who have been thinking "I'll have this very
soon" for an entire year are right to be annoyed. But you also have to realize
you're a tiny tiny slice of the devices these guys are going to move, and by
that definition are also a vocal minority.

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kylec
Wake me when these things finally ship

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mlinsey
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.

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staunch
_...this is where you’ll get to update any of your information that has
changed since you pre-ordered)._

Like whether you qualify for the senior citizen discount now.

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AdamGibbins
Sigh, yet another _almost_ ready :(

Glad to see stuff progressing though and the update is hugely appreciated.

~~~
jlgosse
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.

~~~
davidu
too late for this audience. maybe the mass market that has never heard of them
will be kinder. but I doubt it.

too little, too late.

they didn't have the right people to execute on this, and from what I can
tell, they still don't.

~~~
johnrob
I disagree. The product concept hasn't changed; it's still the same idea that
all these boo-birds loved a year or two ago. Maybe they've burned bridges with
some early adopters, but the other 99.99% of America will never know about
that.

~~~
eclark
The other 99.9% of the world will never hear about it because their early
adopter friends aren't going to recommend this.

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david_shaw
My November project <http://sleepyti.me> attempts to achieve a similar state
of restful awakening by timing your bedtimes around your sleep cycles.

WakeMate and Sleepyti.me are two different approaches to the same problem, so
it's cool to see a product based around similar principles.

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rodh257
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.

~~~
adammichaelc
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.

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EliRivers
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.

<http://wakemate.com/compatibility/>

~~~
MoreMoschops
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.

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axiom
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."

~~~
enjo
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.

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muppetman
I'm waiting for the Wakemate Forever edition before I buy this.

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Devilboy
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.

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ique
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...

