Great Idea, Cheap Product, Poor Support
931987
Purchased this item and it failed on start the very first time out of the package, electronics burned inside.

The support provided by Goal Zero is horrific.  Getting them to take ownership is difficult, and they are not interested in resolving quickly.

The idea for the product is great, but the quality of the product is poor for an item that is advertised as portable and to be used in the field, and as I said, the support at Goal Zero is unbelievably poor.
4200128
Sadly, my high hopes for this wonder machine were dashed soon after purchase. Worse, I purchased two units. One for my wife and one for me. I knew mine was bad, but didn't know her's was too until my right to return expired. The issues: Random disconnects of the entire dock from my computer--which includes 3 hard drives and a display. May not seem too big of a deal, and I dealt with it for a while, but when the disconnects numbered in the dozens per day, enough was enough. I spoke to OWC a couple of times and they finally RMA'd one unit, but the replacement had the exact same issue. Totally frustrated and needing to get real work done, I shelved the dock for 2 months. I dug it off the shelf this week to give it one more go, but still nothing. Totally random and frequent disconnects make this unit unuseable--especially when working on files located on connected hard drives! Called OWC support again to see if there was a fix or something that they can do. To my surprise, they told me that the issue is one that they are aware of and that they are working on a fix. Likely firmware they said. Unfortunately, they have no idea when and if they will find a fix. They told me to sit tight and they would let me know when a fix is available. Until then, I have $500 worth of boat anchors. Never again will I buy an OWC product. Friendly people, but useless products and support policies.
2040985
This is a great product when it works.  I've ordered four of them now.  They don't last very long, and some of them come non-functional.  The good news is they're cheap.  The front and rear-facing cameras are a real plus.  This particular one I got for this review has very static-y sound.  It did record someone turning right in front of us.  Unfortunately, the GPS isn't working at all.  It would have been nice to identify the dangerous intersection to the police, but sadly, we couldn't remember exactly which one it was.

You can't really read license plate numbers, and the sotfware that comes with the product, while it always works, is very scary.  I'm a computer scientist, and it could easily be used to give you a major virus or make your computer part of a gigantic bot-net.  Also, the 32GB max size on the memory card is lame.  It does last a long time, but I'd much rather keep up with the times and go longer.  Also, if you don't get a fast enough card, it just won't work.  So don't get a cheap one.

The suction cup was a surprise.  It works.  Sometimes you'll get a plastic mount that is fragile and brittle. Fortunately, I have several backups from older broken units.  I'm planning to hard-wire this in to get rid of the wires dripping down from the rear-view, but until then, the cigarette lighter adapter works just fine.  Too bad Amazon doesn't offer a protection plan.  I'd definitely recommend that with this cheap quality unit.  I just wish a better one with the same features was available.
354645
Great hardware...

The technical support is terrible, I mean the worst...
2170929
Ok this thing worked amazingly.......for about a week. Then the screen started to freeze or would just black out all together until I restarted my PC. So I contacted customer service and asked for help.  They where quick to return my email and they where polite but that's where the good stopped and the bad began.

They asked me to
1)uninstall drivers/software
2) run some kind of scrubber/cleaning tool
3) reinstall drivers/software

well the links they gave me where broken. For 2 days I kept getting MySQL errors when ever I tried to click on the links they sent me. I tried them again before writing this review and they did work but by that time I had already packed up the device and began the refund process. I'm sorry but if your going to send your customer a link to follow you should make sure its currently working first. and the product is cheaply made, the short usb cable protruding from the small box you plug your monitor cable into is made of a very cheap rubber. The small box its self is very light weight and flimsy.

So I cant recommend this product. Its cheaply made the software// drivers aren't up to par (if you can find them) and while their customer service rep was polite the quality of the service was just not up to my standards. There are better products that do the same thing. they may be a bit more speedy but well worth not having to go through the problems ive had with this.
3902965
I want to like this thing, I really do. It's a neat piece of equipment with the potential to route like a madman. It has a nice web interface and a powerful CLI to get in and do more complicated stuff if you want. It has responsive and helpful support folks, either through their ticketing system or their forums.

Which brings me to my point: I've dealt with the support folks far too much.

My first ERL-3 went bad about six months in, with bad storage. It's a relatively common problem with these things, and you can fix it yourself by replacing the USB drive inside with your own and using their rescue kit to upload a fresh copy of the OS. That same device had a port go bad about a year in, it would only maintain 100mbit connectivity, which is also a relatively common problem with these things. Unfortunately, this is the kind of problem I can't fix myself and now that the thing is out of warranty. No matter, I'll buy a new one and just chalk it up to getting a lemon.

Unfortunately, this new one started having problems after about two months in service. The thing wouldn't stay up, the web UI went away, it wouldn't answer pings, etc. Connecting via console cable allowed me to watch it reboot constantly. Bad DRAM, says their support. It's (yet again) a common problem with these, says their forums. Ship it back to us (at my expense) and they'll get me a working one in 3-4 weeks, says their support. Sigh, okay, says me.

While this thing has been in RMA, I just built my own pfSense box and have been using that. It's just as fast, it has more features, it burns a little bit more power, but it isn't known for having DRAM problems, storage problems, port problems, ghost problems, or any other problems that may crop up if I was to buy a third ERL-3. If I wanted to get extra nerdy, I could replace pfSense with VyOS, which is what EdgeOS on Ubiquiti gear is based on.

I appreciate that Ubiquiti is trying to bring enterprise-quality stuff to me at home, but come on. I do IT infrastructure at an enterprise and if our first two purchases from a vendor failed spectacularly, we would stop taking calls from that vendor. It doesn't matter if it was a "bad run" of product, or if we just "got lucky", or what. It just leaves a bad impression of what could be a great device.
3719660
Having lotsa difficulty getting this to work.  Haven't had any support!
1240856
I bought the hood aND the installation went well. After a week, the switch is broken. Called support, they said they will have a third party to come out to fix. After waited for nearly two weeks,, someone called and said they will come few days later. So far no phone call and no show. Terrible support and cheap product. Stay away. You have been warned.
1161828
Summary:  product okay, works as advertised... but you're up the creek without a paddle once it breaks and you start dealing with horrid customer service.  Review by a dedicated tech gadget user/fiddler/troubleshooter.

Product worked fine for a while; was very happy with it regarding the weight and body fat measurements and tracking.... and then it all went sour.  One of the sensors seemed to break on the scale (basically the scale would always think something was on it, endless looping of "thinking"/"step on"/"step off" leading to massive battery drainage.

I then called customer service who said they could do nothing since we were outside the one-year limited warranty.  I was willing to send it in for repair, but the agent replied that this was not an option.  Offered me a discount on premier membership; um, how will I use that with a broken scale - "we suggest you buy a new scale."  Ha.  Nice try.  Then offered me a 25% discount on another tracker.  No thank you.

I expressed my displeasure with these options and she then opined I should be happy that it lasted as long as it did since "electronics break" all the time.  Well, maybe that's true with Fitbit products but I would beg to differ.
486952
While I am new to this product, I am a bit surprised at the lack of support provided by Synology for this product. As a lay person, not a full time IT person, I need to be able to work with someone on evenings and weekends...something they don't offer...at all. While some features are working, I have hit a roadblock and am now going to return it to Amazon. It's a shame because it has a lot of potential, but not without any decent support.
4026155
A well cared for device that required 4 replacements within 4.5 months!  Power button recessing into unit twice, USB plug dislodging into unit once, power plug receptacle breaking once. Each time customer support pleasantly replaced item for a new and soon to break unit. The device worked great when it was functioning, but I have given up on this product despite its great reviews and have thrown it in the trash. Great customer support was very welcome and made a difference in the frustration potential, but I would of preferred to have a device that didn't require such wonderful support.  The unit was not mistreated in anyway and was kept in a small case within backpack.  Truly bizarre how ready to break these units seem to be.
4275534
I gave up on this product. Their technical support is very bad It is all over the telephone. I have two Roku boxes. Their support want to blame all issues on everything else except the product. The support department needs a level 2 & 3 team with telephone and remote logon support capabilities.

The product idea is good. but their support concepts are poor.

Ted Britton. PhD
President, Creative Solutions & Systems
4775240
I was so excited to find these devices last year. I bought four of them and after some difficulty and lots of help from other customers on their support forums, managed to get them configured. They worked intermittently at best (disconnects, hard reboots, can't find server) for a while, and frankly i just got used to having to restart the rocki android app, or walk downstairs and reboot devices with some frequency.
Over time I noticed that the previously helpful customer support forums at rocki's web site became filled exclusively with a whole lot of angry customers posting a laundry list of problems with these devices, from the android app's buggy behavior to the spotty connectivity of the devices.  All of these posts were met with utter silence. I never saw a response posted from anyone at this "company".
They fixed this situation by actually  deleting and taking off their website all of the customer interactive forums and converting to a read only blog, which has not been updated in months.  So they basically silenced any dissent and disappeared.
Last month my rocki devices just decided that they were no longer going to connect to my wireless access point, and all rebooted into "hotspot" mode, which is used to configure them.  After days of attempts to try to get them to connect to ANY wireless access point in  my home, they resolutely insisted on rebooting after being configured and proudly announcing "I have successfully booted into hotspot mode".  Nothing I've done (and I've done plenty) will force these devices to connect to my home network (the hardware and configuration on my router has NOT changed).
and support from rocki literally does not exist, physically or virtually. I can't even ask other frustrated users how they got around these problems.
I finally threw in the towell and order 4 sonos "connect" units. It was worth every penny. every single penny. They're the gold standard for a reason. I haven't had a single issue, they were a breeze to configure and they just work.
The rocki kickstarter will clearly go the way of most kickstarters.  I expect their domain to simply drop off the net any day and that will be that. I can't recommend strongly enough that you avoid rocki's wifi players.
4288700
I really wanted this to work. It was easy to set up. I had no problem registering at the web site and setting up triggers. It was easy to go view sensor history, etc. on the web site. But triggering of emails and texts did not work. It is supposed to contact you when the temperature range is exceeded.

I reported this and 2 days later got an automated response telling me the problem report was being closed. So I submitted the bug report again. 2 days later it was automatically closed again. I did call and talked to someone in support, who promised me that they would determine the problem and would keep the bug report open.

After another email exchange with tech support a month later, and with no resolution to the lack of triggered alerts, I gave up. But I could still go to the web site daily and check status -- which was great, though not optimal.

Then, I reduced my Time Warner Internet service to a maintenance level (aka "Everyday Low Price") for the season and suddenly everything stopped working. AcuRite pointed at TW as the culprit, claiming insufficient bandwidth. TW claimed that they could ping my modem and I was getting the required 1 Mb of upload speed, but I was no longer there to verify it.

The upshot is that I'd have to pay $50 a month to TW to get more than 1 Mb of upload bandwidth to make this work. I could get a security service for less than that. So the great experiment failed.

I'm now trying the MarCell product, which is cellular based, rather than internet based. So far so good, but it requires $100 per year for cell service -- not ideal, but cheaper than $50 per month for Internet.
1921962
My third UP band just died last week. A complete failure, after two previous replacements. They all seem to go kaput after two months. And I really loved it when it worked! The step tracking and sleep data really helped me make changes in my day-to-day life. But after the first failure I took extremely good care of the band, thinking that maybe it was wearing it in the shower that caused it to fail (despite it being supposedly water-resistant and wearable in a shower). But then the second band failed after two months.

The folks at Jawbone were friendly and offered to send another. "This is really strange," the person on the phone told me, but because I was monitoring Jawbone's support forums I knew that wasn't true and others were having the same problems. But I decided to give it another shot. And then, sadly, my third band started acting flaky and then just died completely. It won't even light up when I try to charge it. It's an expensive rubberized bracelet with no functionality. And that's not what I spent $129 for.

I wanted so much to like this product, and even was a bit of an evangelist for it before the rapid succession of failures. If the company can fix the issues in the future I'd gladly buy one because when it worked it was a great product. But I can't recommend that any one buy one of these. Great idea but it was clearly not ready for the marketplace.
1991739
I am disappointed. It's a great product in concept, but the execution is flawed.

The biggest problem I have had is that the Garmin Express app will not connect from my computer to the Garmin Express server. (The Vivofit device pairs with the application, but it won't connect to the server and, as a result, I can't sync the device data to my computer.)  I've been able to sync via my smartphone, but the fact that I can find a partial workaround doesn't really make up for not having the full functionality I paid for.  I have tried to resolve the issue with customer support, but have received no useful solutions and each time I respond to a customer service email offering ideas, it takes several days before I hear from support again, each time receiving a response from a different customer service representative, and at least a third of the time the suggestions seem entirety unresponsive to the feedback I provided regarding the previous set of useless suggestions.

Aside from software/customer service issues, I have also had problems with the device "glitching" with data that gets muddled in the process of syncing. (E.g., a "activity" of 0 steps over 18+ hours appearing after the data on the watch syncs to my phone or a day of 15000+ steps as recorded on the watch showing up as only 8000 steps after the sync.)

These issues would be annoying in a less expensive device. But for the amount paid, the performance of the product really isn't acceptable.
3369263
Initially, the product worked pretty good out-of-the-box.  The IR link never worked well, too much delay.  More instructions might help.  Works intermittently good, though for transmitting the signal to another room (through a wall).

However, the product stopped working around 9 months.

I have been unable to contact "support" at IOGEAR.  I get a busy signal!  The CHAT link is not available for Technical Service, only Sales.

My e-mails to "support@iogear" have gone unanswered for 4 days so far.

Do not buy this product, or any from IOGEAR.  No support.