I have to say, the delivery model that these guys have opted for, the 3 month wait’s that blow out by months, make me want to never order from these guys again regardless of how good the hardware is. It is not normal for a manufacturer to take your money before putting the item into production and making you wait unsure if your item will be in the “Next Batch”.
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I have been waiting since July for a very basic model with no CM, and have ordered and received 2 add-on’s for it, one of which was a pre-order, how bad is that
welcome to the club.
you can request a refund and buy an unit from scalpers/resellers.
there is a least one reseller in EU with very reasonable prices:
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I have now been told January, but I am not waiting any more.
While I have waited since early June, there have been new units up for sale on the ClockWork webshop and at resellers multiple times. It is clear that my payment is not funding the product I should receive (a silver uconsole wo. any modules).
It appears to be a business model borrowing from an increasing number of customers for an increasing amount of time to finance other business activities or until the model crashes.
just ask alex for refund
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Good news for others.
Even though I can see that Clockwork could communicate better, I think it’s wrong to make such accusations.
Yeah, it’s clearly not the case as the PicoCalc is shipping much faster… What is more likely is that they created the uConsole with a specific supply chain, and it’s hard for them to source the parts.
They realized their mistake and made the next product with easier-to-source parts, but that doesn’t help the uConsole. They continue to sell it because people keep buying it, but the uConsole’s logistics differ and cause long delays. That’s just what happens sometimes. Maybe one factory has the tooling for the keyboard, and under contract, Clockwork can’t retool at another factory or something. I’m not sure, but I am sure people just expect everything to run like Amazon Prime and can only view things from their own perspective, and that leads to people thinking everything is a scam.
For those types of people… I am forever confused why they don’t ask for a refund and find something on Amazon Prime.
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I think it’s declining order volume, and reduced production capacity after the launch of picocalc
they were shipping batches once a month before the picocalc and actually shipped popular variants within their stated 90 day estimate for a while, and then everything slowed down
That’s totally possible too. Many smaller factories run 4-8 lines and switch tooling per line, per product. So you might have 1 day a month where a lane is making your component. Fewer orders, more costly to keep a line on your tooling for a whole day or several days. And those are things they SHOULD communicate. They should have better communication over delays; I can’t defend them on that.
My only point is that “scam” is the default assumption for people, and most of the time it’s just logical issues, not nefarious intent.
Clockwork has been operating for several years now, and I have not heard of any cases where anyone has lost any money.
On the contrary, the company always responds quickly to order cancellations and seems to be extremely helpful when it comes to service issues.
Any negative comments seem to be based on personal disappointment.
It is about the end user experience absolutely, this is a product that is reasonably mature and is being sold and yet after all this time they still don’t hold stock of it and assume the buyer will be willing to wait for it, which if they stick to their word on timings may be fine, but saying 90 business days then not delivering on that promise is extremely bad.
As I have stated previously, it is experiences like this that will make people not want place further orders with the company regardless of how good it is as you don’t know how long it will take and there is no communication to the buyer, it is up to the buyer to chase the answers.
I will wait it out this time but will think twice before I ever order from them again, so really good for business. I wonder if they ever check their own forums to guage customer satisfaction about their practices?
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I have cancelled the order and request a refund.
It seems to me most people follow the expectations (still) being set on the web shop with 90 business days, and when they turn into 7-12 months still without delivery, an Amazon Prime comparison seems a bit far fetched.
This all while units become available everywhere else multiple times during these 7+ months for the most basic unit - even on their own webshop in December according to the forum.
So it is not an 8+ month “batch is being collected” or an 8+ month “supply issue” - without parts there would not be “multiple teams packing” while confusing what orders they are shipping.
I am calling it a business model. It would almost be stupid not to take the payments from the slow supplying product with happy bubble customers seemingly prepared to wait forever, lending out money for free, and fund the new faster supplying product to get quicker larger income.
Anyway, don’t mind me. I am just another sad would be customer, who feel like a joke for “doing the right thing” getting it from the source and waiting this long.
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Since there are obviously more people willing to wait than can be supplied, the system seems to be working.
It is well known that the announced delivery time is often exceeded. Accept it or leave it. You are free.
no, there was always +6 months delay, in the very beginning it was almost a year.
a very few people received units in 90 business days.
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no, I know of multiple people, including myself, who got it within 90 days, in 2024 there really was a period where non cm4 variants hit the promised timeline
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Did you receive your refund or any reply from them?
Just wanted to check, because I received no communication from them since first order confirmation and no replies to my inquires.
Yes, I got a refund in less than a week, communicating with Alex on an old dedicated mail. I believe others have reached Alex on alex(at)clockworkpi.com
I can buy it right away from the other sources mentioned earlier in this thread.
It is one thing to prioritize resellers over customers who payed for those products 6-12 months ago, and then to also put stock up on their own web shop is just, what the actual …
Still strange to me why they would pawn dedicated customers like this.
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I am still within the 90 day window so I haven’t been waiting as long as most but looking through this thread I am debating looking for another seller. seems like the RPishop.cz doesn’t ship to England does anyone know of 3rd party sellers that do ship to England?
When I asked about my order, I was told it was 90 WORKING days, which is about 4.5 months… IF they work full 5-day weeks. But that can easily be stretched to 5 or 6 months, depending on holidays and religious observances.
THAT being said, it seems like it’s being run as a no-risk production offering. Where they hold NO stock, nothing will be produced until there is a minimum batch order. Unfortunately, that’s poor for user experience and ultimately can/will lead to an upset/alienated customer base.
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This has all been discussed a thousand times already. By now, everyone should be aware of it. Every YouTube video reports on it, too.
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