I asked Jason on email about an update as there was just no response on here from EZ. Jason said that they would be shipping initially the orders dating back from mid 2013 which makes sense - there are a lot of people that made purchases early on way before me. I believe they were mainly controllers and no revolution robots in those orders (which at the time of Jason's email they were still being tweaked so not quite ready). They were then going to start shipping one month of orders at a time - which he estimated would take about a week to ship each. I asked him for confirmation of what that meant to my order as I figured it would double/triple the 5-7 week lead time they had stated when I placed the order. He didn't want to answer that as understandably he thought it best for DJ to make an announcement himself rather than trickle info out individually which makes perfect sense. I think they were trying to get an announcement out this week (ideally Thursday) but it hasn't happened yet.

I know that they like to do fab videos for the announcements - which was really great for us before as it meant we got sneaky peeks of the kit each time, but at this stage for me I just want a simple post that gives me an idea of the schedule they are working to. Videos are just teasers lol - I just want a straight answer now.

I did try emailing Jason 2-3 times since but I'm not getting replies so I'm guessing he's mega busy (or has no news).

Jay

jayceekeys.may i ask what you ordered.i oreder the ezb-4 on 11-28-2013. if thats what you oredered too later.maybe we can swits iff thats possible.

Well I am looking for a straight up answer myself, I know how things work when getting a product produced, with money being tight like it is these days, I just want to get what I ordered, my robot needs the brains and heart to get going :-}

Next week for some EZ-B V4s. DJ mentioned in another post how they have had a batch made up closer to home rather than using the manufacturing facility in China.

It is unclear if this is just the V4, the revolution robots too or what. It's also unknown how many will be sent out. The Pre-Orders are being sent with the first ordered ones sent first. These date back to mid last year.

You will receive an email when your order status is changed from processing to shipped. Just wait for that email The forum will explode when people get this email too so if others have it and you don't then chances are you will need to wait a little while longer (not much longer from the sounds of it).

People keeps saying pre-orders that are going to start shipping go back to mid year 2013. I ordered Sep 18th and thought I had ordered the first day pre-ordering opened. Are you guys considering Sep mid year or are there orders sitting out there before the day pre ordering opened?

Well.. There goes almost 7 months (!) since I ordered! And.. Despite of the kindness coming from the guys at Ez-robot , I received no sign of getting my stuff. Please, can I have a reliable information? Thanks!

I actually feel "bad" even asking what's happening now - despite being beyond the agreed shipping date and having had no revised date . I'm not going to even bother anymore as it only causes me frustration. The way other posts all get read and get EZ replies yet anything shipping related is ignored feels contemptuous. As mentioned before though, the team can't read all posts - which is why I also emailed - to no avail too.

Maybe it's just me.

Jay

wooh 7 months and no parts.thats way too long. jayceekeys i agree whit you.they cant read all post but e-mails chould always be answered by dj&team. anyway some day the parts will arrive and bad feeling will make room for joy. thats the problem whit pre-orders.you have to pay in front whits is normal but anything can rapidly go wrong.

I honestly believe that when you pre-order, you should be ready for a wait no matter the product. But hey, on the bright side, shipping is only a week or so away!

I honestly thought that when it said delivery 5-7 weeks that that was how long the preorder was for. I agree with expecting a wait although if the delivery estimate is accurate you shouldn't have to. I've got approx $5k tied up in kick starter schemes alone but it's the silence and lack of communication when the shipping deadline has now passed that's frustrating.

As for the shipping next week, that "might" happen but only only for some people and only for certain things ..... Oh and no confirmation from EZ of who those people are or what will be shipped (although I believe it's just controllers) ..... And if you're not one of the lucky ones then you will have to guess the duration of your wait because we don't want to commit in case we miss the date given. That's pretty much paraphrasing what I've been told so far.

I honestly wish I didn't even have to second guess what is happening and given the number of questions and frustration I'm clearly not the only one feeling like I'm being let down. Customers shouldn't have to guess where their orders are. What's wrong with a simple shipping update DJ it's not unreasonable to ask for given we're past the agreed shipping date.

Please !

:D

Just cancel and get your money back... I for one am getting tired of people whining about it... stress Shipping was to begin in March and by my calendar, March has another week left... Sheeesh...

We have had an update, shipping in March was the update. Again, it's still March. We have had many many updates prior to the last one too.

Yes there have been some EZ-Robot staff post answers to other questions but not the shipping questions. This is likely to be because the member of staff has not known the answer or it hasn't been their department to comment on. They have many staff, each with their own role within the company.

It has been explained that there have been delays for one reason or another which has impacted the estimated shipping time. As with anything, the expected shipping dates are approximate and nowhere does it say are guaranteed. You have also been given warning that some items are in pre-order status and have high demand.

Perhaps it's just me but I don't see it's reasonable to be constantly asking the same questions and pretty much demanding updates to what's happening when the latest announcement claimed March would be when shipping begins and March is still not over yet.

If you are not happy with the pre-order delays you are still able to cancel your pre-order and wait until the pre-order phase has ended. And let's be honest here, EZ-Robot have provided many many updates to the pre-order situation and have been upfront and honest about the delays, I cannot ever remember any other pre-order I have been a part of giving anywhere near that much information, most give no information, not even estimated expected dates.

All anyone wants is an update - I'm not asking for a refund - just the courtesy of knowing what is happening. I don't need to know when shipping will "start" - I asked if it would be possible to let me know what is happening with "my" order as they have already told me it definitely won't be shipped this month. They just won't tell me when it will be shipped. So I'm sorry if you find that to be whining.

The only people that respond to customers asking for shipping info is yet more customers ! When I email EZ direct I get nothing.

Customers shouldn't be left unaware of what is happening with their orders - that's just plain unfair.

I'm staying away now and unsubscribing from emails because its just frustrating.

Thanks,

Jay

this is what you get when you produce fabulous robots. jay has not a problem whit chipping or updates,he just wants his new friend. if a member is drowning other chould rescue him, not hold his head longer under water. this could have bin easly avoided by respond his e-mail by saying.sorry no updates.

I can only guess that this is the first pre-order item a lot of these people have made. Quick tip. If pre-order delays erk you, DO NOT COLLECT TRANSFORMERS. The delays TF collectors on pre-order items from Japan is constantly changing and they can decided to scrap the whole thing out of nowhere. That's right, they'll keep your money in limbo for 6-9 months then just go, "We decided to cancel this item. Too bad for you. Please spend this money on our other products instead." Well, they're not quite as rude about it but, the results are the same.

Also as far as TF's go, avoid pre-ordering a domestic release. Any time I've done so I've ended up seeing the items on store shelves before I get mine in the mail. It's a catch 22. I'll pre-order because there have been items that just never seem to hit my market. My local vendors will skip out on ordering release waves or what have you. So I pre-order because I don't want to miss out on it and I'll end up seeing it in a store 2 weeks before I get mine. I know that's Hasbro's model of stocking storefronts before individual orders even through their own website. But it sucks @ss to pay for shipping and everything just to end up getting the item at walmart and having to cancel the pre-order if time still permits.

I'd also like to point out that Hasbro/Takara-Tomy are HUGE companies that do this so, for a small company like EZ Robot to be as on top of the delays as they are is quite impressive. Their whole company has half the staff of just one division of those big boys who can't keep it together so, from my experiences, EZR Co. is doing alright.

I won't even bother to mention delays in the video game/software business. Those guys seem lucky to get anything out period, more or less "on time". And that's their industry's fault, not any specific company's. Delays are so standard in that industry that most games getting 2 or 3 release dates is pretty much guaranteed.

I do understand the frustration all of you must feel because I've felt it many times before. I guess I'm so used to it now it doesn't bug me. My stuff will get here when it does, at least I know for sure it's coming, more than you get with a lot of pre-order items.

I think mine was ordered in November so I'm not sure where that falls in the Mid 2013 calendar but I'd be surprised if mine is sent out in the first wave so from my perspective, I still don't have a date. I'm not complaining. I knew it would be like this.

I recently bought a Solidoodle 2 and it seems a lot of people hate the company. Not the products but the company. I'm just getting erked myself by people bashing these little 2-5 year old companies for not being able to offer the support structure that the bigger companies have in place. The Solidoodle team seems to be just scrambling to keep it all together and their customers are constantly bashing them. Once again, I did the research so, I guess I just knew what I was getting into before I spent the $600 and have been very happy with the product.

My advise to anyone buying anything over $50 is to do some digging. I knew Revolution was gonna blow up and it did. No one knew it would blow up like it did and that's why we are where we are today. Because of research, I knew my SD2 was gonna need a mirror and some leveling when I got it. So, I had my mirrors and filament and everything I needed when my printer came. (Except Glue Stick, I will eventually make my 3d printing post and that info will be included. I got some stuff to do today but I'd like to get the bulk of it up and started.)

Waiting sux but we should be proud to be on the list of people who got ahead of the curve. Instead of "I'm still waiting for some product I ordered in 2013." we should be in the mind set of "We're getting 'The Hottest Christmas Gift of 2014' 6-9 months early." That's right, I called it, right here right now. EZ Robot products are going the be THCG of 2014. Especially after we all show the rest of the world how awesome they are.

That's just my $.02 USD. Thanks for reading.

good post.i learn a lot.thanks anton

Friends, we are around here because we trust and suport Ez-robot. Ok. But, in any business to be in touch with costumers is primary. We understood the "pre order" deal, ok. We decide to bet in the revolution to raise our knowledge - pro or amateur builder - but, again, all this delay is more than sufficient to cause frustration. Nobody is asking for money back. We just do not want to receive another delay note.. I'm shure people at Ez-robot understand that we, the early costumers around the world are valuable resources when comes to spread the brand goods. So, I like to think that our orders will be shipped as soon as possible, and in a fair basis. And, finally:

Jayceekey is absolutely right. We should receive a date. Not only the vague month. That would help to understand what is goin on.

Shipping starts around next week, as stated more than once. What some need to realize is that this is a small company and they cannot- excuse my french- pull the ez b v4 out of their arse. They are pretty much spending every waking moment trying to get everything in order, and they still try to communicate with customers the best they can. As said before, there's still more than a week left in march, so no need to start acting like shippings never going to happen.

I respect your concerns We haven't been ignoring you - we have been working 12-16 hour days to get the first shipment ready - do not worry, we're not stressed. It's quite the opposite when you spend the days designing such an amazing and fun product!

You wouldn't believe the amount of "stuff" we had to learn over the past 7-8 months while designing and manufacturing components. We are determined to complete everything we claim to 110% of our ability... So we sure won't give up! Even though some times were quite challenging. As stated, the EZ-B's and Developer Kits are the first to ship starting very soon (within the next week or two).

The biggest challenges we have experienced have nothing to do with technology or functionality... It's been 100% manufacturing. We designed the pieces on our MakerBot Replicator 2 3D Printers with SolidWorks. Not having any idea how injection molding works and not having funds/time to hire a large industrial design firm to help us - we have been slowly receiving feedback and tests from manufacturers which result in changes to the mold designs.

As the mold designs continue to change, it has added more time to the delivery date - keep in mind, the changes to the molds are required for the product to work correctly. Anyone who challenges that our EZ-B v4 isn't what we claim it to be can talk to Anthony who has a beta board - the technology is ready - the manufacturing is almost complete.

Jason has been putting together a short news letter which will be sent to all pre-order customers - like we do monthly. Every month you have received an update from us, and it also included videos of me verbally explaining where we are. There is no reason for us not to be transparent through this process. As pre-order customers, you're part of the reason why we're able to create this amazing product in the first place. Frustration aside, you can only imagine how we feel as well!

I'll expose a little information here that the news letter will detail... As I stated earlier, the main hold-up has been manufacturing of the plastic components. This was a huge learning lesson for us, and we have achieved some amazing results without needing to spend a million dollars to do it! It sure did take a little more time than expected, but that's the risk we took. The process to manufacture a plastic component is quite elaborate when you start getting into it.

There are so many materials to chose from! It's not as simple as saying "ABS", there are thousands of compounds and derivatives of each. Many of these materials are owned by different companies with patents which result in royalty or licencing costs as well. Now here's a kicker, each manufacturing facility only has access to certain materials. So if you have some parts being made at one factory, the chance of other factories having the same material is slim. Taking time to ensure every part is selected with compatible materials is important. Why does the material matter so much? It has to do with the properties of the material during the injection process and the quality after. Once heated and injected at a billion PSI into the mold, the material shrinks when cooled.

Our clips require high resolution and accuracy to work correctly. There is only so much "simulation" you can do before needing to test the real thing. Creating a mold takes weeks - a CNC machine cuts away metal over a day or two. Finally, a human gets tiny files and spends days filing the surfaces of the molds to the specifications. Testing the mold with real materials in a machine takes time because these machines are scheduled. The machines are in use 24 hours per day making plastic for millions of other products, we have to schedule time and wait to have a single part tested.

Each material has a different shrinking percentage. On top of that, you have sink mark issues. Also, if some points of the mold are too thick the material cools at a different rate causing sink marks in the surface. This also can create stress points which can be the cause of the product cracking over time. Pre-tests and simulations prevent our product from having these issues.

Now the material is also important for how it gets out of the mold. Certain materials stick the mold and require difference forces to get it out. Little pins push the product out of the mold, which causes visual appearance marks that no one wants.

Then we have the mold creation part itself. This is was the largest challenge ever! We have over 50 parts to be injected molded for Revolution - and every part needs to clip together and be compatible. Also, our parts are quite challenging to be molded because they're complicated. This has required the parts to be reviewed, modified, reviewed, modified, over and over again... The things that get modified are based on tests, simulations and feedback from manufacturers. There are so many interesting facts we learned about injection molding... Every time you feel the part is ready for the mold creation, there's a surprise for you...

We kept having to go back to SolidWorks to make changes to the design for the injection molding process. That's what our holdup has been - changing the parts. The most recent simulations and reviews of the parts show that we're ready to spend the $500,000+ USD to begin manufacturing. Wait, what? $500,000? Yes, that's how much money it will cost us to create the first batch of Revolution's plastic components - when you ask why there's a hold-up? Well, the hold-up is I don't want to lose your money or my house on a detail that we overlooked.

It has cost EZ-Robot over a million USD to create Revolution - this isn't an Arduino or Lego Mindstorms... Revolution is REAL robotics right out of science fiction. When you get this thing in your hand, you will understand what the future really holds for Robotics. It is a true game changer!

Anyone who is upset that they don't have the product in their hands immediately can Contact Us to request a refund - that's not a concern of ours at all because +90% are true believers. To be frank, you've stuck around this long, another month or two won't hurt. Keep in mind that if you request a refund that you'll have to take a place in the back of the line later. With the number of orders we continue to receive, it'll take a while for us to catch up!

I guess if you were to summarize our position - We've taken our time to make sure Revolution is done right!

Thank you DJ for the explanation and for ensuring the product is perfect when we receive them Hopefully your headaches with the manufacturing process will soon be over.

thats so thru dj.even ad a color to the plastik can cause huge problems.there are some chops online who color there brakets. and they look nice,but also comes whit problems that is bad for the robot.they bring cracking sound pieping sounds, but most the servo's strugling due to the holes are not perfect round any more.the drying proces is to hard.

jezus 500.000 dollar blush i never saw a 500 euro bill in my life.

Thank you DJ for the update and caveat about going into the mold injection business! To remain transparent, professional and committed to customers is a challenge when the desire is for the absolute best product! DJ's explanation is thorough with the molding/developing process. I am not sure why the EZ-B V4 is "locked in" to the robot products and a release time but if I may presume , perhaps like a PC manufacturer they don't want to ship a laptop with out the processor IC ! I know there are many here on the Forum who don't require the motherboard and accessories but are really just waiting for the " processor" This is my rough/ignorant(without inside knowledge) attempt at an analogy.

The EZ-B v4 is dependent on the plastic parts due to the size and dimensions of the PCB. Also, the developer kit's and EZ-B include the plastic shell.

2 minutes later after my post, DJ gives yet another awesome explanation! Again.....Thank you so much nuff said by me

Hey DJ,

Thanks for the update .... I don't think anyone wants to get off the bus at this stage .... it's just nice to know if the end is in sight

It would be great if Jason's forthcoming update gave a rough plan of what timings you are aiming for - even if it was a rough date against month of order and I do appreciate that it's hard. From your post it looks like 1-2 more months I guess. Fingers crossed that you and the team are on the home straight now and that the wind is behind you.

Cheers,

Jay

Jason's challenge over the past month (literally the entire month) has been to obtain an exact date of delivery. He's confident in the timeline and we will update you shortly - I don't fully know the timeline yet either, so it'll be new info for all of us

The reason why the date has been hard to determine is due to the number of players involved. For example, there is a completely different company for each one of these responsibilities:

• manufacturer of pcb's
• supplier of pcb components
• manufacturer of injection mold
• dfm reviews and simulation of injection mold
• injection mold tester and quality control verification
• manufacturer of injection molded plastics
• quality control reviewer of plastic components and pcb's during assembly
• assembler of PCB and Plastic components
• packaging (box, insert, Styrofoam, multi language instruction booklet, etc)
• final product packaging (put into a box and send to shipping warehouse)
• shipping warehouse begins sending products to people

So, that's pretty much all of the companies involved - it's pretty crazy to think about it. Given that we have been waist deep in this process, I'm realizing why so many KickStarter projects fail. We have discussed creating a short documentary video of the experience to share with other start-ups. Hopefully we can help prevent other companies from thinking this process is a breeze - and perhaps we can help support other start-up projects with their injection/manufacturing requirements...

DJ, thank you for the lengthy input update :-} I am just overly anxious to get my robot up and moving and talking and showing people what I have been working on over the winter. By the time I get the Developers Kit and other things I have on order, the body should be painted and everything should all be attached, just waiting for the V4 to be put in place and powered to go, then the fun part begins, like teaching a new born baby :-} I don't know what's worse, waiting for the V4 to ship or waiting for the weather to warm up so I can put color on my robot out in the garage? I also have another secret I am waiting on, something that is very different and I haven't seen anyone else do on here yet, supposed to get a delivery this week, I will post pictures as I progress :-}

We would love to see it stone wolf

Stay tuned! We are just putting the final touches on the update and confirming dates with our manufacturer.

now i feel guilty for pestering you guys about the delivery date

i for one, truly appreciate the detailed information on why it is not in my hands yet!

I don't know about you guys, but I feel like a race horse with the gate about to drop....

Gentleman ...start your engines! Patience is a virtue for sure! Good things come in small packages, 2" x 2" (open the ring box and its an EZ-B V4)

Wow, I have to say that your response and patients is absolutely stunning. In Canada where we are from, funding for new technologies is really hard to come by. It has been a real adventure for the EZ-Robot team to design this product. Without your pre-orders, this product would have never get as far as it has. We had taken some investment, but that investment would not have happened without preorders, which validated the market.

I can tell you that we are being cautious with testing the molds to ensure it's a quality product. Also, it's a great deal of my money, your money and some investor money being spent. We really want to make sure it's 100% quality... After all of our hard work over the past year, we are really confident. There are days where we find a small bug that was overlooked and we literally panic! But thankfully we have your patience which let's us move forward with support.

Thanks again everyone!

My pleasure DJ . It's been such a awesome ride so far that I'm sure the next phase will be over the top amazing. Kinda like approaching the big dive on the roller coaster. It's been a fun ride but the real screamer is just ahead.

Hey! If I place another pre order will that help you guys out with your funding? I could use another EZB.

I've done my part. I have a total of 5 boards plus a Roli on order.

your welkom

Jason,

Is there any news on the update DJ said you were going to do - I really would prefer to hear from you before I place my order.

Thankyou,

Neil

April showers bring May flowers... April office cams bring May robots...

:P J

Hey Everyone, Sorry for the delay! We had some back and forth with our manufacturing facility and will be sharing the update very shortly! Watch your email!

Jason

I was waiting for a April fools post , haven't happened yet lol.

i wax wondering if you guys could approximate a date range that the fist shipment may cover? say like from 08-13 trough 11-13 or even better 12-13 (Mine was ordered in mid november ) Im not super pressed I was just curious if my order will happen to be coming sooner or later. Unless this will all be in the update, that is. Thanks

new updates about chipping will be availeble as soon the new ezb-5 is reddy .

@Nomad , don't be so negative , it will be out soon and it will be a awesomesauce Christmas gift for any Geek this year!

april 1.haha

Wow.. When I Ordered in september I've been told that would be avaiable as a crhistmas gift, indeed. But for the LAST YEAR! So... I really hope we got it far before that... Lol...

Soon ? .... I've read all the posts and I think it's always "real soon" "almost there" "just finishing and will be this week" "we will be saying something..... but not yet ".... I will give it a miss thanks as I don't think it's going to be soon enough for me and it seems like its a bit of a dangling carrot trick .... Bye guys .... but honestly I wish you and the EZ team the very best for the future .... Neil

thats what you get ,when the product is AMAZING ,stunnings awesome excelent great .

@neilsingleton ... in another post you had suggested you had not ordered yet anyway... So even if you ordered today you would have to wait even longer until the back log of pre-orders had been filled first... Well another one bites the dust...

Hi Richard,

I know there would have been a lot of people in front of any order I would have placed - I was just hoping for an idea of what the likely dates could be. It didn't look like the 5-7 week preorder delivery would be possible if there were so many in front of me and I knew I would have to take my turn - I hoped the shipping update would give me an idea but I just found / watched the latest one and it actually doesn't update any dates for anyone let alone people that are just thinking of placing an order.

I would rather not order if I don't have an idea of when I would get a delivery - you have all waited patiently so I will let you all have fun first and come back maybe in 6 months when things will have settled a little.

Neil

Another one bites the dust ?

Sorry I missed that - not really nice but take care anyway.

Take no offence to that... I just meant another person is unable or unwilling to wait... that's all... You're not the first one to bow out because of how long this taking...

The problem is it's a new product, so new it isn't yet shipping to the public. There will always be people who cannot wait for it to begin shipping and that is understandable. I hope what you choose as an alternative works out for you.

I just want to suggest a little something to those who feel the need to complain about the time line, to help them gain a little perspective. Start your own company, robotics or otherwise and, see where you are in 3-4 years. And for an added challenge, try doing it with only your own money for all but the last 9 months of that. Then come tell us how easy it was to conceive, prototype, then mass produce your 2nd? 3rd? line of products. Even if you had Apple's money, I'd wager you wouldn't be as far along as EZ-Robot in the same time frame.

It bugs me when people bash these smaller independent companies. It's hard work to get off the ground, then stay afloat more or less grow and expand. Ez-Robot is doing an amazing job for a company of its age and if you disagree, accept the above challenge and show us all how easy it is.

I've tried, twice in my life, and I currently work at a warehouse. ... Just for perspective.

Rich, thankyou for the good wishes - the same to you sir hope it all works out for you too !

To others that were less understanding - guys I just asked what the lead time is - I didn't ask for an invite to start a frigging company - give me a break ! How a company organises itself is of no interest to me, but if I am interested in becoming a customer I usually ask when the product will arrive!

Neil

@Antron I don't think Neil was bashing anyone.

A lot of people will see the EZ-B advertised, more now there seems to be a google ad campaign out. These people, like Neil, see the board, have no idea it's pre-order and not yet finished. If they need it for a project that has a deadline then they may not be able to wait for the shipping to begin, whenever that may be.

So if someone asks about delivery dates and then needs to back out when they find out don't think they are bashing the company or even have any kind of opinion, chances are that they have deadlines to meet and are unable (not unwilling) to wait.

From an outsider's point of view they may check the forum, see these topics, see the generic "coming soon" or "we will be announcing this week" and I have to admit, it does look like carrot dangling and no real information for weeks on a product that should have been with us for Christmas 2013, some 3 months ago. Giving them any kind of attitude, sarcastic remarks etc. doesn't help anyone and isn't how we operate on these forums. We may know you are joking or posting with no bad intentions but people new here may not. Just go careful with what you post, I don't want to see this community go down hill

Well said Rich. Well said.

Hey everyone! We just sent out the March Newsletter to all pre-order customers. If you have not pre-ordered anything but want to read the update, click on the link below. Sorry again for the delay! We were speaking with our manufacturer every day for the last 7 days confirming dates and making sure we had accurate information to share. We want to keep you all up to speed every step of the way! http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=ebaa2ebc3773933e68a51eb76&id=a6099ba3b4&e=[UNIQID]

If you have specific questions not related to tech (shipping, changing your order), shoot us a message at CustomerSupport@ez-robot.com. We now have a few people replying to customer emails (there are alot to go through each day haha). Plus this way we can tackle those questions and keep track of them. Thanks!

Got the truly sad email... So now we're talking June/July for shipping?... Now you guys mentioned in your email that some hand made (in Canada) developers kits pre-ordered in the summer of 2013 will ship in a week or so. Can you define Summer? I ordered a few ezb4 boards in mid Sept 2013. Any chance any of the orders for just the boards as well ( from Sept 2013) will be sent out in this early shipment?.... I would be so happy to just get even just 1 EZb4 board of my order at this point.... 3 more months of waiting is hard to swallow...

same here.i was hoping to see the ez-b4 .

I feel like Charlie Brown and he doesn't get to kick the football once again because Lucy pulled it away. For the really young people, this is what Im referencing. Lucy's football trick

wow.. that's quite a jump from the end of March time frame that was being touted until about a week ago. i can understand delays and the complexities of getting a business off the ground but frankly these intricacies should have been worked out before there was money exchanged and shipping date windows provided. I'm not gonna Monday morning quarter back the teams marketing and production strategies but after a delay like this i'd be shocked if there weren't a lot of disappointed customers and cancelled pre-orders in the coming days. Honestly this even has me considering just shelling out the extra $20 for a V3 board off of that third party site that was linked in a different thread. It might not be the new one but at least its something.. I know the email said that this would be the last major shipping change but based on actions thus far I'm not sure how much a statement like that can or should be trusted. its a shame because this is an amazing product but the roll out seems to be getting bungled at every turn and that's the sort of thing that can sink a company even if their product is revolutionary.

@Rich - thanks for the leveling words. I was in a bit of a mood yesterday. It just felt like the world was against me and all I loved and got defensive. @Niel - I oppologize if I misunderstood you and double oppologize if I've offended you. I don't feel you were in the wrong. I was just pissy. Sorry once again. I'm typicaly better mannered than that.

I have to admit even I'm a little miffed by the new shipping date being 6 months after the original shipping date, especially after a few updates and claims recently. It's not the actual delay that's got me miffed but everything associated with it and surrounding it.

As much as I respect EZ-Robot and I understand they have taken on a mammoth task but it seems the customer service has gone to pot recently with the lack of information, updates and empty promises followed by further delays and the lack of staff presence on the forums too. I only hope it's a temporary thing!

In all honesty, all cards on the table and being totally transparent here, I'm getting really fed up of this amongst a few other things lately. I've had to bite my tongue and not post in response to quite a lot of things lately - that should not be happening!

As a minimum change the shop pages, it still says 5-7 weeks and it is not clear that this is probably 5-7 weeks after shipping of pre-orders starts in July.

Be open, honest and totally transparent with us. Keep us updated regularly with updates of the progress (I know in DJ's note it said monthly but personally I think we should receive updates weekly at least - it doesn't take long to post a quick update!).

I hope EZ-Robot listen and read this, if one of your strongest/loyalist community members is fed up you know you have problems that need sorting out. Again, the delay itself is not the problem it's how it has been handled that's really peed me off.

What I am confused about is what exactly is holding things up? The boards? Plastic molds? Both?... Is anything ready? I for one could careless about the plastics... I just want the boards and I am willing to take mine sans plastic like the ezb3 boards were shipped... I Am not really one to complain and I consider myself to have patience.... At this point I won't cancel my order(s).... And by my count this is the 3rd broken promise to ship.... not sure what else to say really.... except I am seriously disappointed....

lol you're a little late to the party Anthony. we've been discussing that email for a page and a half.

does the company who will make the boards no end date on the contract whit ez?

Agree with Rich. The fast growth of a company can sometimes take a step in the wrong direction. The Revolution has postponed the rollout of V4. My expressed opinion in a prior thread was that these plastic robot parts were going to get in the way of the development of what is the core of EZ Robot, the unique PCB and software.

But, to their defense, a weekly update would serve no purpose if there was no new information to report. It seems the past months have been all about manufacture in China. There certainly was a hard lesson learned by the EZ Robot staff. I'm sure it wont happen again in the future.

All we can do is wait for delivery. I have a product going up on Kickstarter that depends solely on the EZB. I can't wait until June/July to launch the product, so I will most likely have to use V3 for the Kickstarter campaign. A disappointment with all that v4 has to offer. Certainly after watching the China manufacturing unfold, all parts will be manufacture in the USA under my control

my 2cents

What would be neat is a almost blog style approach with updates every couple days with what's going on. What I do for my business customers at tmobile is talk them through the process with updates of what I have been doing and progress as I go every 24 to 48 hours. The updates are usually minimal of course but it keeps the end business customer engaged. When setting up infrastructure of dozens or hundreds of interconnected cellphone, smartphone , and data devices it is a huge undertaking and without those frequent updates my customers would feel that we are dragging our feet to get their new communications network setup.

Great idea Josh!

I said weekly because of the previous information given has been somewhat unreliable (for want of a better word). A simple, "we are still on course" or "slight problem with the mould for JDs head may delay by a week". It's been mentioned elsewhere (and witnessed on the cams) that they have daily meetings to keep the team up to speed, I just feel at this time, after the delays it would help some of the community to know the state of play.

Just regularly keep us in the loop with either "all's still OK" or "JDs head needs mods, may be slight delays", nothing major, no 6 page message explaining it all, just brief but true and accurate information to keep us in the loop. That would at least help put my mind at ease.

Oh, and why are the cameras off, dark.... ? Nobody at the office at this time of day? I guess after that painful delay "yet again" announcement they must of pulled up stakes and blew out of Dodge?

delay off tree months.does that mean excactly tree months or is it possible it still can start sending excample one or two months.

It was said in the email that they can't send just the boards and then the plastic parts due to shipping costs.

The difference is, you are 3d printing not injection moulding, well done on a 7 day turn around but it's hardly comparable to mass production and injection moulding.

Well we are now on strike 3, so supposedly June or July things should start shipping, no more major problems to get in the way, I'm not holding my breath :-{ Yes the V4 and the cameras should be the top priority at this point, since many of us already have our robots ready to test and complete and get on with training them. Oh well I waited this long, I can wait another 2 or 3 months, but beyond that, I might have to make some changes. I myself at this point in time wouldn't be selling something that doesn't have a definite shipping date. People don't want to spending money and waiting for who knows how long, when they could've used the money on something else, we are still in hard times economy wise and it's going to get worse. At least DJ isn't blaming it on the weather, like our government has with jobs and economy this past winter. I hate smoke screens :-{

Yes, I am sad I will not get my robot kits till later in the year.

But let's use this time to make what we have even better!

Let's push ezb v3 to the limits.

:) j

@Rich... What I was saying is I would be happy if they send me my boards without plastic and call it a completed order... I don't need a second shipment for the plastics since I won't ever use the plastics.... At this point I am even willing to pay a surcharge if a second shipment is needed for just the plastics....

Those of you using Gmail who haven't seen the update, check your SPAM folder. Despite my telling Google repeatedly that EZ-Robotics emails are priority, it still keeps putting these updates in spam.

Alan

I have been avoiding commenting on the delays for some time, but with the additional delay, I feel it is time to say something. For the past several months I have been pretending that I invested in an (expensive) kickstarter, rather than pre-ordered. I have higher confidence that I will actually see my product than I would in a normal kickstarter campaign, but it eases some of the pain of waiting to know that I am helping finance a new company essentially from the ground up.

My only real complaint, which I am echoing here from others in this thread, is that I think the store page could be clearer about the real expected delays, and that no products are actually shipping at this time. I have also been concerned from time to time over the constant marketing push (videos, magazine articles, toy fair participation) where I don't think it has necessarily been clear that the product isn't actually ready for shipping "in just a few weeks".

I also think, particularly now that you have extra staff to handle customer service issues, that when people post complaints or questions about shipping here, it should not take several days of the regular participants trying to explain the situation. An EZ-Robotics staffer should jump in within 24 hours at the latest and reply with the current status.

Alan

Damn Alan, very articulate of you... Well said.... I am not worried either, but I am disappointed to borderline pissed... Forget the smoke and mirror videos of what ezb4 can do... We're all sold on it... lets just get it shipped... I appreciate all the updates and new features DJ has been consistently adding to ARC.... Maybe while we all wait again, DJ can pull yet another (more) rabbit out of the hat with continued updates and features with ARC... It is what it is, but it doesn't mean I am all that happy about it...

Exactly :-} I mean I know you have to get people to buy to keep things going, but if the product isn't made or in stock and the customer doesn't know it and they need the product, well your going to piss people off. The way it is going, if someone new was to order the V4, they may not get it until 2015, all depends on how many others have ordered. I myself will wait another 2 or 3 months, I have nothing to loose, but after that, enough is enough, you can talk all you want and show me videos, but I want something real in my hands that I can use. Yeah there is all this preorder talk about people waiting a whole year to get things from other places, I understand that, but I just never order things that far ahead, I have had some of the newest things at times when they first came out, I ended up being a test person, would rather wait until the bugs are worked out, before I spend big bucks on a what if? Hopefully waiting all this extra time, there will be no glitches or bugs or problems, things should be worked out. I tell people I am building a robot, but if it's just a shell and doesn't move or anything, it's just a robot shell and me talking :-{

Hey everyone! I started a new thread to chime in on regarding my idea to get you the answers you want...in real time! Let me know what you think in the thread: https://synthiam.com/Community/Questions/5444

Thanks

Reading it back again, I hope my earlier post hasn't come across too negatively I just felt it needed saying after the unexpected surprise of an additional 3 month wait was dropped on us. At this stage I have all answers I need, I just wanted to stress how important total honesty and transparency is at this stage, after these delays. If you give us that then I'm happy and I assume most of the community will be too

I agree 100%! We will make sure to save some time to give more frequent updates on the forum and keep everyone up to speed. Thanks Rich (and everyone else). Feedback is important and we will continue to implement as much as we can!

I agree with the overall feelings of many of you in respect of the massive delay that has been dropped on us. I can't say I am surprised, as the emails I sent to EZ that were replied to did hint at these timescales weeks ago - when I picked up on this and asked for my own calculation of the time implications on my order to be confirmed I was told by Jason that DJ was making an announcement 'really soon' and that he didn't want to do a spoiler on what was to be said to the community as a whole - so I totally understood and left it until then. Next came the awaited announcement he had promised from DJ - who in turn stated that he wouldn't say anything about dates because Jason was going to be doing another announcement "real soon". When that one came it confirmed the dates that I had surmised and asked for clarification on weeks ago were indeed correct.

Now do you see how frustrating it has been? Especially when I feel sucked in by a stated 5-7 week delivery time - which even after telling you to be above board over a month ago (to avoid others feeling misled like I do) in correcting the dates in the shop, it still shows 5-7 weeks.

The real kick in the teeth was the statement that if people didn't like it they could always cancel. After this long I think most people will stick it out but I felt that I owed it to you to tell you that from a customer experience perspective, for me personally it has been a really rough ride and a bad one. I lost count of the number of times that I was told "this week" for the STLs - which I understand fully the problems you had now, but why not have said that at the time? The eyes for JD - DJ months back said to me "I don't know why they're not in the shop yet - they should be let me check" (or similar) - they weren't even finished at that stage and he would have known this so why not be clear ?

I honestly feel as though I was sucked in and strung along guys sorry. The product will be awesome I'm sure, but for those that don't have V3 boards to keep them going there is nothing to do and it's very frustrating when the promised 5-7 lead will actually end up as months and not weeks.

For you guys that have ordered way before me it must be really frustrating and I can only imagine how much you are dying to get your hands on the product - my heart goes out to you and I genuinely hope your deliveries in particular come really soon to you.

I've personally ended up placing an order with another robotics company just to keep my tinkering mind busy as I wait - I would rather have increased my EZ order by $500 which is what I wanted to do, but I didn't have enough confidence at the time and still can't even place the order for JD's eyes - you could have sorted that by now guys - all you have to do is load the item in the shop so we could ask you to add it to our orders. You don't have to ship it yet you only have to allow us to make our orders complete so that when we do end up getting shipments, we don't had to wait another however long to get the bits you hadn't listed.

The Big question of the day is who has been included in the list of of lucky people who will get EZ-Bs and Developer Kits because they ordered in "summer 2013" Seeing that I live on the opposite side of the globe I did some research: Technically Summer is the start of June to end of August Officially in Canada Summer is June 21 to September 21 I received an email from Ez-Robot on 20 September 2013 first announcing that the "Revolution is here" and listing prices of the EZ robots & kits, etc Does this mean that only people who ordered within the first two days of getting this email will get their kits?

Another clue would be DJ's statement on 17 Mar under the discussion Just A Thought On The V4 - "The few hundred that we are getting manufactured in Canada for the pre-orders...."

I think a better way of announcing this surprise delivery of pre-orders should have been "those who pre-ordered EZ-Bs or Development kits with order numbers up to 9-?" or even email the lucky people

As it is now, people are yet again wondering, guessing, hoping, etc etc which is causing so much frustration.

I think DJ needs a stress reliever.

From a Dr Who episode, just in case there aren't any Dr Who fans. (GASP I shudder the thought!)

{K.C.C.O.}

well i dont want to be that stress reliver.accchhhh haha eek

The one positive note I can add to all of this, is that those of us who were V3 customers before Revolution know that EZ-Robotics puts out a high quality, highly functional product with excellent customer support.

There were also some intermittent delays in V3 order fulfillment (not this long, but I waited a month plus international shipping time for my V3 developers kit). I am sure, looking back, if DJ had realized how long this process would be, he would have arranged to continue manufacturing the V3 longer and perhaps been a little less ambitious in the scope of the first Revolution release. But 20/20 hindsight only helps "the next time".

Those of you who can stand to wait, it will be worth it.

Alan

That's frustrating.. Ez-robot should never suspend the V3 until they were ready to sell the new version. By my math,(with all the usual two months customs delays) when I receive my boards, it will be ONE year after my order!

As far as I know, more than costumers, we are really fans of the Ez-robot. That's why despite all the frustration, we are still here, waiting. And we will. But.. Will the regular costumer or the market, understand that ? Almost one year of delay ? And no product at all to deliver ?!

It's like if Apple had stopped selling iPhones for an entire year, giving Nokia the chance to grab their costumers...

Folks, think about how can you even compensate your community.

I agree with @Anthony-XLRobots.com. As I said before take your current robot and push it to the limit with v3.

cool cool cool cool j

Well, Anthony, you can count me as one of those folks you are concerned about. I am as newbie as you can get and I know this product will be for me assuming it actually happens. I originally found EZ-Robot last year right before summer. My son came to me wanting to do a robot project over the summer. Who can turn down a request like that? I did a lot of research and decided the EZB v3 product was going to give me the best product for my money. The software seemed like the easiest to use and that I wasn't going to spend all my time trying to learn how to program. I saved up my money over a month or so and came back to buy my kit only to find it wasn't available and a new product would be coming out soon. I talked to my son about how I felt waiting for the new board rather than buying the old one from somewhere else was going to be the best idea and decided to play the waiting game. I don't like to pre-order stuff unless there's some major perks for doing it, so I didn't pre-order. I waited until recently and came back to see the complete new product line figuring if this thing was supposed to be ready by Christmas 2013 that they had plenty of time by now to work out the inevitable bugs in the new system. The intention was to order this for my son's upcoming birthday. Of course when I went to the shop and found the 5 -7 week shipping time, I was disappointed but figured it must be popular and EZ was trying to keep up with orders. I was still ready to order but before ordering came over to the boards to see what issues folks were having with the new stuff, only to find no one has the new stuff. On top of that, it's going to be a couple of months before ANY shipment goes out, and even if I order now, I could still be 4 months or more down the line from now getting my stuff because pre-order folks still have to get their stuff first. As a new comer to this scene and community, I have no idea if it is SOP for products to experience delays this long but I do have to say it has discouraged me to the point of almost scrapping the idea altogether and spending this money on some other project I know I can do with my son. I mean, it's been almost a year. I definitely will not be placing an order until I see product is being shipped.

Quick answers on questions I heard: @Jayceekeys - We held off on adding the JD eyes to the store just yet because there was an unclear cost around selling them by themselves (without the head) and we wanted to clarify before we put them up for sale. Without that info, we don't even know how much they should cost. For the most part it is finalized, so we will be able to put it up for sale next week. As for the shipping times, DJ is going to update it ASAP to say "July" instead of 5-7 weeks. He is in Eastern Canada for business until Monday and will be able to make the change shortly after (or while he is there if he has time). In regards to adding the new .stl files, we needed to wait until we had the final final design final with all tiny tweaks included so that they would be the exact same files as the ones we are using for manufacturing. This way, there would be no confusion around design revisions amongst community members. We are currently getting final final design back every 2-3 days so we will start adding the .stl files this month in spurts as we get them.

@Tony1952 - All orders made in June-July 2013 are part of the first "hand built boards". Product numbers included are 3403-3494. After these have been shipped, we are going to review the next waiting orders to see if any of them can be shipped early. We will then move on and look at more orders which only have the EZ-B v4 and developers kit (plus misc items like servos), but not any orders with Robots (because of the plastics included). No promises on these though until we have shipped the first batch and have a clear idea of how many boards we have left to ship out to the next wave of customers (we were only able to get our hands on 100 Wifi modules in such short notice which is why we can only prep that many boards. Usually, it takes 8 weeks to get the Wifi modules, so we had to find a small batch of them from a different distributor (and paid much higher costs on them).

@thetechguru - We discussed the possibility of continuing to manufacture V3 boards while we prepped the V4, but quickly realized that our customers would feel "ripped off" if they bought a V3, and then the V4 was released with bigger and better specs. Now that was under the assumption that manufacturing wasn't going to take this long... In short, I agree. We should have continued to manufacture the V3 boards if manufacturing was going to take this long, and then stop selling V3 boards right around this time.

@jaultman - This is definitely not the first impression we wanted to leave, and I apologize for this! Usually we confirm new orders and are able to ship them out in less than 48 hours. As you noticed, we have gone through some unexpected delays and there has been a bit of confusion around shipping dates (our fault). Once products are shipping reliably to all customers in July, I hope the excitement of building robots returns to you and your son

@Jason, you said "All orders made in June-July 2013" but didn't we get first access to pre-orders at the beginning of September?

Hey Rich, there were a handful of orders for v3's that slipped in right before we decided to stop producing them. The order for V3's have been upgraded to V4's and we want to ship these out first. There aren't very many (about 30 in total), so we will be able to ship these out and then start shipping the September ones (we didn't sell any product in August). Does that clear it up a bit?

Sweet... Dave you may just get an early one after all... I ordered on Sept 22... so I am hoping too....

Thanks, Jason. I appreciate the response.

Just as another note to all of you, I assure you that your voices ARE heard by ALL of us here at EZ-Robot. We talk about you guys daily! We stay quiet on these types of forums for the most part so that Jason and DJ can disseminate the clearest, most concise information possible and it's not coming from every person in different ways. YOU GUYS are why we work late and why we come in on weekends. Think of how impatient and excited you feel. Multiply that by 10 and that's how we feel! Imagine if we had this product and we had no idea if anyone even wanted it...YOU GUYS make us work hard so that we make our customers and most of all our #1 fans happy! We can't wait to get these V4s in your hands and hear all the cool things you guys have imagined and created!

@Jason, Cool (I could see that question being asked, as it was mentioned previously by a few, so jumped in).

Clears it up perfectly as far as I can see. Thanks

No further questions your honour

I like it better when the cameras are working. At least I know the place is still in business when I can see folks there