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Here at Violet, we
Those of us from the IT world know exactly what you're going through. The good news is that, if it weren't for a terrific idea AND a fantastic new product, the servers wouldn't have been overloaded. And then users would have been complaining because you went out of business. So you can't win really. I for one am pulling for you guys. It's a terrific product. Growing pains are always, well, painful. Best of luck and thanks for the candor. It's quite refreshing in this business.
so you rushed a product onto the market knowing full well you weren't ready for any of this?
so you rushed a product onto the market knowing full well you weren't ready for any of this?
Yeah, that's kinda the gist of it isn't it!
When I preordered the _tag the company I orderered from sent me the original by mistake. I toyed with the idea of keeping it, but knowing that the new one would be out in a month made me ship it back - I didn't want a model that would be obsolete (in my view anyway), so I can appreciate the point Sim made.
That doesn't absolve Violet by any means though and although he said:
"There is a notice at the end of the flash animation (for tag/tag) on nabaztag.com that explains that not all the services will be immediately available. This has existed since the animation was introduced to the site."
I actually didn't see it, or it wasn't prominent enough to register with me when I ordered it so I do feel cheated somewhat.
SO, basically the way I look at it now - I wouldn't have bought a bunny until V2 was out and if they held it until April to release then I would've waited until April to buy it. Now that the services are extended until April - I see this all as "practice time" with the bunny and I'm willing to coast with free services until they get everything resolved. If things go sideways down the road (well, more so) then I'll be a horrible thorn in their side, but for now, I'm willing to give them the time.
That's my 2 cents anyway 
Cheers
D
So, we could have sold many version 1 Nabaztags in December, which would have worked perfectly on the stable and robust network that the version 1 Nabaztags have been using. Then, we would have released Nabaztag/tag in February, and the large group of new users would have felt that their rabbits were already obsolete.
I have a v1 rabbit which I got for Christmas. I hadn't heard of the v2 and neither had the person who bought it from me. Although by rabbit has worked quite well, there are some services which have not worked for me at all - e:mail alert, RSS feeds, nabcasts & full stock quote. Others including the talking clock, alarm clocks, weather etc. do not always work, so I'm not sure I would call the network stable and robust 
Also, I would like to know that my v1 rabbit, which I am now very fond of, will not now become obsolete and that the services will continue to be improved. Having said that, I am generally very happy with my rabbit and hope that we will be happy together for a long time
well i'm keeping my bunny. i'm pretty much attached to her.
I have a v1 rabbit which I got for Christmas. I hadn't heard of the v2 and neither had the person who bought it from me. Although by rabbit has worked quite well, there are some services which have not worked for me at all - e:mail alert, RSS feeds, nabcasts & full stock quote. Others including the talking clock, alarm clocks, weather etc. do not always work, so I'm not sure I would call the network stable and robust
It WAS stable and robust (ish) before they introduced the changes for V2. It's been a terrible joke now for 2 months and we've less services than we had last year now on V1 rabbits.
I've 20+ years as a software engineer and the rollout of their V2 platform is one of those prime examples you learn about of why you should run systems in parallel and test, test, test before release, but rarely do you get to see these train wrecks happen in public.
Still, OpenNAB looks promising though that doesn't support V1 yet. That's where the future lies if Violet can't pull this around.
I take some of that back bearing in mind calsim's post today, we've got all the V1 services back now I think.
I wonder if we're going to see V1 services grow still though?
I love my V2 rabbit despite the interruption to the services but my rabbit now only has 1 working ear and many other users have had this problem. There is talk on here of a recall? Is this likely to happen? I've been advised to send my rabbit back to pixmania or to violet direct but I'm worried that i'll be rabbitless for some time if i do this and there is no guarantee that the replacement won't start playing up. Could you tell me if a recall is likely? If so then i'll wait for that but if not then i guess i'll have to risk being bunnyless... I'm very attached to kizi now so will be very sad to part with her.
We've had no acknowledgement from yourselves about the ear problems.... This problem seems pretty wide spread... Is it being worked on by yourselves to find a fix or at least to guarantee that the replacement rabbits won't go down the same road.
Helen x (& Kizi)
My V1 rabbit(s) and I got off to a rocky start in early December 2006. In fact, that first bunny finally went green-bottom comatose and was returned to ThinkGeek. ThinkGeek's wonderful customer service department sent me out a new bunny though, with no problem. This bunny is in great shape (now that we've rectified a minor "twin" issue). I went about 2 or 3 weeks without a working bunny on hand. The difference in the my.nabaztag.com site during that time is amazing. The RSS feeds now work! (This was a huge frustration of mine.) The email alerts now work! In fact, there are directions on the site telling me what the email alert light language means!
I know it's been hugely frustrating for everyone these past few months. I just wanted to thank everyone on this forum for the Help I've received. I also wanted to thank Violet. I can really see the improvement on the web site and in the rabbit functionality. My rabbit is now more than a tai-chi-loving paperweight. So thanks, everyone, for all the crazy hard work.
Cheers,
Michelle & Sherlock
**UPDATE** Sigh. I was wrong. The bunny has gone mute. Why is it never easy?
Last edited by wrtgirl (2007-02-13 15:00:06)
All of the problems that have occurred since the launch of Nabaztag/tag have been software and server based
Is this supposed to be a joke or is violet turning a blind eye to all the hardware failures???
I love my V2 rabbit despite the interruption to the services but my rabbit now only has 1 working ear and many other users have had this problem. There is talk on here of a recall? Is this likely to happen? I've been advised to send my rabbit back to pixmania or to violet direct but I'm worried that i'll be rabbitless for some time if i do this and there is no guarantee that the replacement won't start playing up. Could you tell me if a recall is likely? If so then i'll wait for that but if not then i guess i'll have to risk being bunnyless... I'm very attached to kizi now so will be very sad to part with her.
We've had no acknowledgement from yourselves about the ear problems.... This problem seems pretty wide spread... Is it being worked on by yourselves to find a fix or at least to guarantee that the replacement rabbits won't go down the same road.
Helen x (& Kizi)
I too had to send my bunny back for a replacement after his right ear stopped moving and know of so many others with the same problem. Another fault that I have been unfortunate enough to encounter is fault lights, the right red LED has died
The worst thing is these problems develop over time and are not provoked. Every rabbit out there potentially has a fault waiting to happen.
It's only a matter of time violet... *Awaits lawsuit* 
So we're 8 months later, and usually the service works, and on occasions, it doesn't work that well.
The rate of new stuff added to the my.nabaztag.com site is slow - too slow, and the options, unless you're into using some third party software and add-ons, are poor. Not enough contents, and not enough utilization of the nabaztag's abilities. Pity.
I enjoy it (as I add contents by myself through my NabRSS), but I still reckon it to be too expensive and not quite filling the promises in the site.
So much potential. May they use it already.
Ez
I agree with you, ezaton. Cool gadjet, a bit expensive, but it's time to get all the promised features.
As a prospective customer it is interesting to note that this letter of apology was written in February of this year saying that they were not ready for the influx of users after Christmas. It is now November and Christmas is a little over a month away and apparently a lot of these issues and promised functionality is still being worked on. So as someone that would really like to buy one of these, my brain says don't do it because there are problems that have yet to be fixed. What a great pity as this really looks like it has the potential to be absolutely huge.
Yeah. Mine was a gift so I'm willing to tweak and wait. I don't know if I would be so blaze if I had paid for this myself
There is just too much wrong at the moment.
Everytime they overhaul the UI (which adds no real functionality), more basic stuff breaks.
Time for another open letter from Violet I think? There have been no comments on this forum from insiders for months - I wonder if there has been some staff turnover??
Prove me wrong Violet - respond to this thread!
Have you seen the new Linux penguin toy on ThinkGeek.com? It is similar to the Nabaztag, but runs is Linux and is much more customizable. I was hoping my husband would get a Nabaztag for himself, but seeing as how none of the services promised with the Nabaztag actually work, he will be getting one of the penguins instead. It is quite disappointing. I really enjoyed the twitter feature, but that hasn't worked for months now. Hardly anything new is ever added. The memo feature is the only new thing I saw when I logged in today for the first time in months, and that is hardly customizable at all, so what is the point?
Violet, If you are monitoring this site. Please can you let us know what is going on?? The service at the moment is bad. I am starting to think that I should return my Rabbit to PC World where I bought it and request that they stop supplying as they would be doing so under a false pretence that the services are actually working.
Have you seen the new Linux penguin toy on ThinkGeek.com? It is similar to the Nabaztag, but runs is Linux and is much more customizable. I was hoping my husband would get a Nabaztag for himself, but seeing as how none of the services promised with the Nabaztag actually work, he will be getting one of the penguins instead. It is quite disappointing. I really enjoyed the twitter feature, but that hasn't worked for months now. Hardly anything new is ever added. The memo feature is the only new thing I saw when I logged in today for the first time in months, and that is hardly customizable at all, so what is the point?
I saw that too. My mom saw it and pointed it out to me. Too bad I'm not a Linux user 
My services are not working again??? No messages coming through
My nabcasts (which are like a form of messages) are coming through like 8 times. I don't know if the server keeps resetting or what, but this it like the third day in a row this has happened and it is very annoying. I keep deleting the messages from my inbox, but they keep coming!
My new bunny connected quite quickly and messages/services from nabaztag.com all seemed to be OK yesterday (Christmas Day) and this morning.
But since this afternoon (UK time), my bunny is mute! It's a tag/tag. When messages arrive, my bunny's nose flashes red several times (and occasionally does some other light sequences at the end) but there's no sound. When I press and hold the button for voice recognition, it does make the usual "I'm listening" sound (but no following message about the weather), so it can't be the volume/speaker.
I had changed some settings, but only added and removed a couple of services which I've now returned to yesterday's settings anyway.
Is this due to Boxing Day server overload?
From a Sad Bunny Owner.
p.s. how do I SMS my bunny or is this still only for French users?
Last edited by bunno (2007-12-26 17:56:07)
Update: after the late Dec/early Jan updates, I reconnected:
- unplug
- hold down button while plugging in so lights go blue
- connect computer to nabaztag wireless network
- go to http://192.168.0.1
- press Update & Start
...and now my bunny has sound again.
So, I've owned my tag/tag for over 24 hours now, and I'm seeing a very disheartening lack of communication from Violet (on their official blog, even). Am I to think the company is going to fail and my $200 will have been wasted? I did hours of research, reading rave reviews, about this gadget before I went ahead and agreed to pick it up... it was not at all an impulse buy. And now I'm seeing that 80% of the people who own them have been having the same kind of trouble for over a year.
Is there an end in sight to this, Violet? Will things be fixed eventually? We need communication from you. We need you to post that you're working on it, to give us estimated deadlines. All I see is that some features -- features I signed up for -- haven't even been working for almost a year. What's going on, you guys?
Disappointed,
Naoki & Binker
So have they gone out of business now or what?