Users in Europe

[Hellow]

I was wondering if there is any users in Europe that uses Amulet Remote. I ordered mine one month ago, and its still not sendt. How long time did it take before you got yours?

[jitterjames]

That sucks.  On what date did you order it?

[Kalle]

That is really bad, I ordered it about 2 years ago and was shipped after 3 weeks to germany. I hope our member Eddy (from amulet devices) read this post, perhaps he can help you.

[hpooni]

That is really bad, I ordered it about 2 years ago and was shipped after 3 weeks to germany. I hope our member Eddy (from amulet devices) read this post, perhaps he can help you.

I ordered mine Dec 17th and still no reply on status from Amulet Devices.  I've requested status via their support page, their forum, this forum and pm'd eddy on this forum last week.

[jitterjames]

After speaking to the good folks at Amulet, I have a better understanding of the situation.  They have been experiencing some difficulties with their distribution system and they are still working it out, but I am confident that they will have the situation resolved soon.  Believe it or not, I think they are more frustrated by the current delays than their customers.

My hope is that after the current problems are resolved, they will be able to ship much more quickly, and may even be able to ship to Europe directly from Ireland which would make the shipping faster and less expensive, and will allow them more direct control over the process.

Their current problems involve a misunderstanding with the US postal service.

It is unfortunate for anyone that recently ordered an Amulet but I am assured that you will get your device as soon as they can manage it, so please be patient.  I can't tell you when the issue will be resolved but I know that they are working on it.  If at any point you decide that you don't want to wait any longer, I am sure that you will be able to request a refund for any item that has not been shipped yet.

For anyone who is thinking about getting an Amulet, especially if you are in Europe, you may want to wait a bit for them to sort out their current issues.  I will make an announcement once that happens.

I should point out that I have no affiliation with Amulet and make no money off the sales of this device.  I recommend it because I think it works well with VoxCommando.  It is not perfect but I use mine all the time, and know I would be sad to lose it.  I believe that this company will take care of their customers.  It is only my opinion but based on all my communications with the people at Amulet over the last couple of years, I believe that they are doing their best and that they can be trusted to come through in the end.

[hpooni]

Thank you for the update.  Its very much appreciated.
I have no problem with delays and issues as they're part of life.  But, I wish Amulet Devices would reply to emails.  Lack of communication (support) is what drives customers away from companies no matter how great their product is.

[jitterjames]

I agree with you 100%

I hope that Amulet will make more of an effort to communicate with customers that are waiting for order confirmations.  This part confuses me.  I think maybe they have been reluctant to communicate because they have not been able to provide an actual answer to the shipping questions which they were trying to resolve, but I don't think it is a good excuse for going silent.  

As I understand it some of the developers at Amulet have spent a considerable amount of time communicating with users (even though it is not their specific job) about these issues but I guess they have not communicated with everyone.  I don't really know why they are not returning all emails within 48 hours.  They should be making a point of doing this.

[Hellow]

I ordered mine around the 13. des. Thanks for the update! Your doing a better job at there costumer service then they do. It shouldnt be that hard to find all orders being sent to EU, and send a mail with the information regarding the delay.

Im sure there are other company that can handle parcels in US, maybe they should take there business elsewhere.. or maybe i should.

/rant

[Brian]

Same boat. Ordered mine December 18th and no response from customer service.

[eddyc]

Hi all,

My apologies for the delayed response here, especially after James was good enough to give me a heads up about the discussion more than a week ago. Everything James has said above is correct, including the comments about lack of communication being the most frustrating part of all; we hope to do better moving forward, and to more closely monitor the forums here for questions and concerns.

To add a little to what James said:

We experienced significant problems with our US shipping facility over the Christmas period which led to large delays in orders being shipped. We were doing our best to get these resolved so we could contact people with good news; in retrospect, no news most definitely ISN'T good news, if you're waiting for something you ordered to arrive and we should have done a better job of keeping people informed.

I believe the majority of outstanding orders shipped early last week, and all US orders have now been delivered. International orders are still in transit, according to the tracking information I have -- they typically took 7-8 days with our old shipping agent, and I expect the new agent will be similar; we'll need to wait until some units actually arrive though to find out!

Hellow, are you in Norway? If so, my news isn't great -- you may be the one international order that slipped through the net, since you weren't on the list of tracking numbers I received from our US office last week; I should hear later today whether this is an oversight on the list, or whether the order has indeed not shipped. If the latter, I will see if I can find a fresh unit in our European office to ship you immediately.

Brian, I believe your unit was delivered on 15 Jan, if you are in IN; if you haven't received it by now, please let me know via PM on the forum here.

Harri, I have PM'd you the tracking number for your order, which was dispatched last Wednesday and still appears in transit.

If any other readers have orders pending, and have not already received an update from me, please contact me via PM here and I will try and get you info asap.

Thanks all for your patience, and also to James for his support. Our new shipping facility is not as efficient as we would like (it can take up to a week to turnaround orders) but is only an interim solution until we relocate our stock to Europe -- we expect to have this completed within the next 3-4 weeks. We should then be in a position to ship European orders with a turnaround of 3-5 days, and at reduced shipping cost. I will post an update once this is complete.

Eddy
Amulet Devices

[hpooni]

Thank you  Eddy. Your reply is very much appreciated.  I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of my new toy  and will let you know if any further issues arise.

[jitterjames]

Hi hpooni.  I guess that means that you now have your tracking number?

Please let us know when you receive your remote since I am sure that it will help to put other who are still waiting at ease.  Thanks.

[hpooni]

Hi hpooni.  I guess that means that you now have your tracking number?

Please let us know when you receive your remote since I am sure that it will help to put other who are still waiting at ease.  Thanks.

Actually Eddy PM'd me the tracking number today and as of right now the status is as below:
January 19, 2014   3:41 am    ISC LOS ANGELES CA (USPS),   Processed Through Sort Facility

Also, the status updates may be a little behind as I believe its Martin Luther King Day today in the US.

[jitterjames]

My own experience with USPS >> Canada Post is that you won't hear anything until after it passes customs, and then you won't see any updates until after you have received it.  But at least you know that it is on the way!

[Hellow]

Hellow, are you in Norway? If so, my news isn't great -- you may be the one international order that slipped through the net, since you weren't on the list of tracking numbers I received from our US office last week; I should hear later today whether this is an oversight on the list, or whether the order has indeed not shipped. If the latter, I will see if I can find a fresh unit in our European office to ship you immediately.

Yes, I live in Norway. Nothing have happens so far. I'd like for this to get solved asap.

[eddyc]

Yes, I live in Norway. Nothing have happens so far. I'd like for this to get solved asap.

Okay, from chatting with our fulfilment house, there was a problem with your shipment which caused the package to arrive back undelivered. I'm afraid I don't have any more specific info on the cause - I suspect it was at our end, rather than any problem with your address, since yours was the very first international shipment made with our new shipper (possibly an issue with customs paperwork?) I am going to email you separately to discuss. Hopefully we can get this resolved asap.

Regarding tracking, I noticed that the tracking for one of our New Zealand deliveries did indeed show progress of the package into New Zealand, through customs clearance, and on through the delivery process. I don't know if this will be typical for all international shipments or if it's specific to New Zealand, but I hadn't noticed it with our previous shipping carrier; it's quite useful! That order spent 3-4 days passing through the sort facility in LA, so if hpooni's order is similar, it should be entering Canada either today or tomorrow, for delivery the following day.

Eddy

[hpooni]

Just wanted to let everyone know I received my remote last night. Didn't play around a lot but notice few things.
1. The hard-buttons only generate IR events (let me know if I'm wrong). I was really hoping I would see hard button events via the provided RF receiver so I can eliminate the line of sight issue and control everything with combination of VC and Eventghost.

2. The keys make a tick sound when pressed. The tick sound may get annoying when the remote  is used during quiet scenes in the movie. Also, in my opinion the tick sound makes the remote feel cheap.

I haven't tried voice control yet but I'm not expecting any issues as I've heard lots of good things about that.

[nime5ter]

Just wanted to let everyone know I received my remote last night. Didn't play around a lot but notice few things.
1. The hard-buttons only generate IR events (let me know if I'm wrong). I was really hoping I would see hard button events via the provided RF receiver so I can eliminate the line of sight issue and control everything with combination of VC and Eventghost.

Yup, you're 100% correct. That misapprehension certainly explains the confusion during this thread: http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=1320.msg11367#msg11367  

The reviews of the Amulet here and elsewhere do discuss the company's choice to use IR for the buttons, and RF only for the audio transmission. It's too bad, and others before you have lamented this too. Since we rely probably 80% of the time on voice control for our home setup, that's the main feature we care about. We use the remote buttons primarily to power on devices, for pause/play, and the arrow keys occasionally. But everyone's needs are different. Hopefully your post will help other users to keep that in mind.

[hpooni]

Yup, you're 100% correct. That misapprehension certainly explains the confusion during this thread: http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=1320.msg11367#msg11367  

Yes, I automatically assumed all buttons were RF capable.  I guess we know what happens when you ASSume things. 

The reviews of the Amulet here and elsewhere do discuss the company's choice to use IR for the buttons, and RF only for the audio transmission. It's too bad, and others before you have lamented this too. Since we rely probably 80% of the time on voice control for our home setup, that's the main feature we care about. We use the remote buttons primarily to power on devices, for pause/play, and the arrow keys occasionally. But everyone's needs are different. Hopefully your post will help other users to keep that in mind.

Its too bad as I think this would give the remote much more power and flexibility.  Hopefully, I can set it up well enough and convince the family to switch over to voice control so the button presses become a non-issue.

[eddyc]

Thanks for the feedback, Harri. I'm not a big fan of the loud "click", personally -- it was a late change necessitated by a manufacturing issue, rather than a design choice.

There were a couple of reasons why we ended up with IR rather than RF keys for default Media Center buttons. The main one was latency -- we figured the same delay you see when the RF link is initially activating for voice would also apply when sending keystrokes via RF, which would be just enough to be irritating when you have to live with it on a regular basis (it's around 500-700ms, from memory).

The other, less significant, issue was battery life - running the wireless link takes more battery than pure IR. That said, we end up running the RF link whenever motion is detected anyway, so unless you are pressing buttons with the Amulet sitting flat on a table, it's not a big consideration.

A third reason is that Media Center supports IR codes out of the box with no special software, once you have an eHome receiver; with our RF chipset, we can only cover about 90% of the buttons using the generic HID driver, and would need to install custom software to deal with the other 10% of buttons (e.g. Start Button, and a few of the other useful ones).

All of these are good reasons for not making wireless transmission the default, but it could definitely be made customisable via a firmware upgrade. No promises, but it's on the list of "would-be-nice-to-haves".

Eddy

[Hellow]

My remote arrived today! Thanks for fixing this eddyc. Everything works fine, except the damn clicking noise.

[jitterjames]

You get used to it.

[maxwel]

Hi everyone,

I ordered Amulet Device one month ago, i received an email after ordering online, stating my order is confirmed, but i still havent received my remote yet! Can someone tell me pls how long it takes normally .. i'm very confused about it!

Thanks in advance.

Max

[jitterjames]

That sucks.  I guess that Amulet has still not sorted out their shipping or communication issues.

What country are you in?

Was your order confirmed on or before February 13th, 2014?  It is always best to be precise about these things.

Have you tried to contact Amulet directly, or on their forum?  If you are having trouble getting a response then I suggest you also try to send a private message to eddyc on this forum.

There is nothing I can do really other than offer advice or my sympathies, but it would be nice to know if Amulet has solved their distribution problems or not, so I hope that Eddy will do us the honour of providing us with an update on this subject.

[maxwel]

Thank you  james for your sympathies.

i'm from Netherlands and I ordered mine January 25th, 2014. I've requested status via their forum and pm'd eddy on this forum feb 14th 2014. writing this:

We had about four international orders which were due for dispatch early last week; I believe yours was one of them. I will see if I can find some tracking information.

Thanks,

Eddy

Then I've heard nothing more from him.. No emails.. No tracking number... but I already send a private message to eddyc on this forum and i hope to hear from eddy soon.

[eddyc]

Hi folks,

As you may have gathered, we have still not fully resolved our shipping issues, unfortunately.

Our main stock of Amulet remotes was collected from Idaho on 20th February, and should have been in Ireland by 27th February. Unfortunately, they got stalled in Los Angeles due to the large number of Lithium Polymer batteries contained in the shipment.

We had done our research, and had taken pains to make sure the battery manufacturer's guidelines for air transit had been followed to the letter. However, the airline was still unhappy. The shipment was stalled until last Thursday (13th March), while our shipping company organised a safety inspector to come and certify the shipment as safe for international transit. Having provided the extra paperwork needed, we've been told it takes several additional days to process the shipment, since it's in a long queue of other shipments that are being similarly delayed.

Yesterday was a holiday here in Ireland, but I am hoping to hear today or tomorrow that our shipment is on the move, hopefully due for arrival in Dublin before the end of the week.

How can it take more than a month to ship something by air? It sounds crazy and messed up. At this point, shipping by sea looks like it would have been both faster and cheaper. Needless to say, we're as frustrated as you.

All I can do (again!) is apologise for the delay, and re-iterate that anyone who is fed up waiting is of course entitled to a full refund on demand.

I'll post more news as I have it.

Thanks,

Eddy

[Casmo]

Hi,

 I've only just discovered this thread. I've also only realised that that your based in Ireland! (as am I) I ordered mine on March 14th, has there been any update on getting your stock across the pond?

[eddyc]

Hi Cosmo,

I think I emailed you directly yesterday (assuming you're the customer with a work address in Musgrave's, Dublin 7!) but no harm to post a general update for the benefit of everyone else:

Yesterday evening, our shipping company informed me that American Airlines had rejected our shipment of remotes for a record 5th time. The last three rejections have been for such trivial reasons that it seems clear they just don't want the business and will keep coming up with excuses not to carry it.

We have now engaged an alternative airline and all going well, our shipment will be on the move again today or tomorrow, hopefully arriving in Dublin over the weekend.

I don't like to keep making posts with words like "hopefully" since they don't really convey much information other than that I'm an optimist at heart; however, I do recognize that some information is better than none!

I will of course let people know as soon as we finally have our stock safely in Dublin and available for immediate dispatch once again.

Thanks,

Eddy

[jitterjames]

It sucks of course for people who are waiting for their Amulets to arrive, but I really feel your pain Eddy.  It must be incredibly frustrating.  

As you can see, I gave you a "noogie" and now you are happy.

Not sure if you have those in Ireland, so here is an explanation of the word, although it doesn't really explain why it made you happy again...
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/noogie

[eddyc]

Thanks James - we do have the concept of the Noogie, but not so much as a happiness-inducing gesture! 

Perhaps it's making me happy because it's temporarily distracting me from our shipping woes...

The latest update I had from our local shipping agent here in Ireland, in response to a query, is that I probably won't be allowed to collect the shipment from the airport when it arrives, since I don't hold a hazardous goods transportation license (!). I'm definitely taking a picture of all our shipping boxes when they finally arrive, since they are apparently now covered in hazmat stickers!

One day at a time...

Eddy

[Casmo]

Thanks for the update Eddy (FYI its D11 and my home address is in D5. Having made is out of the US, I wont be impressed if it gets lost between ballsbridge and ballymun  ). Sounds like a bit of a nightmare for you alright, hope you get sorted.


We do have noogies here, but generally favour the basic headlock..

[Casmo]

Hi Eddy,

 Any developments?

[Casmo]

FYI - Got my amulet. Loving it, yes I could live without the clicking which sometimes sounds like someone cracking their knuckles but other than that, it's superb. It's truly changing how I interact with my media, whereas the open mic setup seemed a little gimmicky by comparison. Kudos to all involved...

[jitterjames]

I heard from a little bird that Amulet finally got their stock shipped back to Ireland.