Malc’s contribution can actually be summarised as ‘Communication is key’ - and no division is really good at it. Bambulab, Makerworld, Cyberbrick, … It always comes back to the same thing.
I agree, communication is everything. I feel bad for Malc, I see he says that he is “just a bloke who enjoys 3D printing”. So am I just a bloke who enjoys 3D printing and dabbing with mico-electronics and would greatly appreciate it if someone responds to my inquiries. The difference being, I have no expectations that anyone will respond.
As I am writing this, my wife is talking to me, expecting me to be listening to her and expecting me to answer, but I am not, which is making her angry with me. So, as I just said, communication is everything. Time to quit posting and listen.
For anyone interested, pledges have started arriving in the UK. My friend who backed the early bird kit received his today
I didn’t say this.
You mean from their customers?
They are doing them in batches of 2k according to BL.
Their lack of communication is throughout the whole company and in each division.
If we focus on this specific part related to CyberBrick.
I use the term reviewer to mean those who were to design models using the new hardware, not YouTube people.
- They failed to respond to the handful of early reviewers of the hardware.
- They then demanded info from each and then failed to respond to any feedback.
- I was accepted as a late reviewer. They failed to respond to all but two of my messages.
- I called them out publicly and they responded “if only you told us”, which I had and the reason for the call out.
- They said tell us and we will provide what you asked for, I did, they still haven’t.
- Back in March they told me they were going to release the standard remote 3mf to reviewers, it arrived into May in a general release.
- They said at the start of the kickstarter campaign the kits would be shipped in April, they waited until the campaign ended to go whoopsie we need another month
- Reviewers were issued devices that used a web portal to configure the devices, it used WiFi. They knew they were changing this to Bluetooth and desktop/mobile apps when they sent my review unit. They didn’t tell me I couldn’t use it with the new apps still being written. They knew I couldn’t create the required config files as they need the new desktop and mobile apps to achieve it. My review unit requires a firmware update which I asked for privately and publicly, they still haven’t provided it after promising they would.
- The apps were late without any reason given before or after.
- The models the promised would be released on a specific date never materialised without any reason given before or after they eventually showed up.
- The wiki didn’t arrive when promised without any reason given before or after.
- The API didn’t show up when promised without any reason given before or after and is incredibly light on details.
The list goes on.
I talk to lots of designers here all the time, the big, the small, those in between. We are all very frustrated. I have a gig and am unafraid to use it despite the kick back I get with my models being suppressed.
My biggest issue now is the group of people who will not know there is an issue with their order due to payment or that dumb pledge box process (should have been in-house created) because BL haven’t told anyone their order has been cleared without issue of information or payment. Worse, they haven’t communicated with people with issues.
How does anyone know they might need to fix something, like a failure of the pledge box system?
All of these issues are communication and much frustration could be avoided by simply talking to people in a blog post, forum post, email newsletter, kickstarter campaign update, any of the tools available to them.
They constantly choose not to.
If you don’t understand that and blame me for wanting them to be better for everybody, I have no words to explain my exasperation.
I don’t blame you for anything, I appreciate your diligence in trying to make the MakerWorld better for the rest of us. Thank you.
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