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Inmotion has blocked use of her app


Dmitry71

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Somebody solved such problem? : the Inmotion company has blocked use of her app on wheels if they are bought not from official dealers in your countries. That is having bought a wheel in China, the app won't work in my country.

17191272_1887794778129485_3948990506787410904_n.jpg

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Hi,

there is already a thread including a possibility to resolve the problem.

Maybe you can try that and let us know if it worked for you.;)

I have also ordered an inmotion V8 for a friend (will be delivered soon) so I will try to resolve the problem too.

 

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If Inmotion is trying to protect the turf for their official IM representatives then they should only sell to those representative period! I am sure reputable dealers like @Jason McNeil are frustrated by fielding questions from people that have purchased from outside sources.

Best wishes. It sounds like your problem will be resolved. 

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I think in the modern global world this kind of artificial blocking of access and region coding just doesn't work.

It is easy for resellers to refuse support based on serial number if they haven't sold those units, but I don't see the point in manufacturers refusing application services for privately imported units. After all, lots of Android phones are purchased and imported privately and I'm not aware of any company refusing app service for those phones. What harm does it do to sell spare parts to units which weren't sold by that same store? Just support those purchased parts and refuse support for anything else.

 

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It's a difficult one. I agree that local Distributors need to be competitive & stay on their toes, but in some countries, especially in Europe, by being local they're at an inherent disadvantage over the Ali sellers.

  1. On imported products they have to pay 20% VAT on the product value & another 6% import duty
  2. Local Distributors typically invest a considerable amount in marketing, free samples, & product outreach
  3. To be economic on shipping, they need to commit to large quantities
  4. It's expensive to stock a sufficient quantity & variety of spare parts
  5. Warranty & support: the probability of something going wrong during the warranty period is not negligible, these costs continually erode a good chunk of the margin
  6. Even a mean slim operation with practically no overheads has comparatively high costs

For a company like Inmotion, I think they want to see Distributors who have the ability to provide a minimal level of after-sales support, which means that they don't have to deal directly with end-users :P

NOTE: it should be made clear that this measure was made on Inmotion's own initiative, probably following in the footsteps of Segway/Ninebot. I'm not aware of any specific Distributor making the demand that Ali purchased units be excluded from App access.

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Manufacturers generally don't deal with end users, nor should they. If I choose to purchase a cheap unit from a shady seller outside US/EU, then it is my choice and I have knowingly taken the risk of getting burned if I can't get the support I need. If there's anyone who doesn't understand this and comes to you asking for support, he/she needs to be told that. But refusing application access is just too artificial a way to steer people away from unwanted sales channels.

Personally I do appreciate local stock, proper warranty and timely support, but the purchase decision of an item is always a compromise. Many of us EUC riders are technically able and therefore might not value the support as much as with other consumer electronics. However a good supply of spares might generate a good business for these things, I for example have been searching for replacement covers before even buying the EUC. :)

Think about car tyre business nowadays. Most of the time, when asking for tyre offers from local tyre shops, the guys tell me to just go to an online store, buy the tyres and ask them to be delivered to their shop for installation. They know they can't compete with the prices of online stores. That's how the global world and internet has changed things. They could try to refuse from installing any other tyres than those purchased directly from them, but that would run them out of business. So, they have had to find another source of income which in many cases has been general car services and even some rim reconditioning etc.

I agree with you that it is difficult to plan the business and stay competitive but unfortunately this kind of artificial refusal of service has the tendency of firing back.

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This is really annoying… I bought my wheel of Aliexpress for the fair amount of 900$, which I consider to be pretty much money for a electric engine with a wheel attached. I did my fair amount of research before deciding on the V8 and nowhere did it say not to shop from Aliexpress…

On delivery I couldn’t connect to the wheel but managed to get it working through the Flightmode, turn on Bluetooth approach, good enough I could set the speed limit and tilt angle and see the speed and engine percentage. Then just last week a firmware update was pushed through and now it is impossible to connect to the wheel. This is really bad customer care from inmotions side. If they have issues with who’s selling their products they need to address that, but never ever have I heard of a company that decides to punish customers instead of retailers. This will for sure be my last buy from them if they don’t change their approach to customer care. Here was a clear lack of information to customers and total ignorance to the fact that I spent 900$ on a product that they are responsible for. I’ve got two answers on emails I sent asking for their help; both answers were short and did not help me in any way. I’m very much NOT impressed with how inmotion is handling this issue.

If they are so money hungry, then give the customers who bought the wheel in not knowing the option to Paypal them 50$ or so and let them use the f*cking app.

I sure hope they will make a decision to revise their policy here and get happy customers again, cause I’m pretty certain this approach is going to be bad for business in the long run.

:angry:

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56 minutes ago, Fredda66 said:

This is really annoying… I bought my wheel of Aliexpress ...

 

I hear you. I was wondering I I would buy myself a V8 from ali, but no seller is willing to ship them wheels to me...

You guys are lucky to have the way of obtaining this EUC. I've even been in contact with Inmotion but no luck yet.. No distributors with V8 in Norway...

Now I am not very keen to buy it from Ali in first place as I keep reading the almost all of failing V8's comes from grey dealers/aliexpress...

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10 hours ago, affe said:

And by the firmware update, do you mean the app was updated or a new firmware was really pushed to the wheel without your approval?

It was an app update to be clear. I can't even make firmware updates since the app directly blocks me from connecting to the wheel. I’ve bought plenty of things from Aliexpress through the years and have never had any problems with any of the retailers there. Just make sure you buy from people with good reputation. And in this case I can hardly argue that it was the sellers fault, I’m most uncertain if they knew that Inmotion was planning to block the app from connection in Europe specifically…

They seller shipped my wheel fast, and I got tracking number and everything, the wheel is a original V8, no problems what so ever except from the producing company which obviously made a bad call when setting up retailers. Fine if they fix this now, but for the few (?) of us that bought the wheel not knowingly of this blocking and ended up with a 900$ wheel that we can’t connect to will of course be annoyed. Especially since they don’t seem to care to solve this problem with customer satisfaction in mind. I’ve email them several times, even got some answers from Alice which ended with them asking for my serial number on the wheel and stating that “they will look into it”… THE END. This was 3 weeks ago and I’ve gave them plenty of chances to fix this before I even gave a thought of telling my story on this forum.

This really would go by as nonsense if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s a 900$ purchase and a “Masterpiece for intelligent transportation” according to their homepage. Call me idiot, but I really do think the amount spent on this device deserves a little more customer care.

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12 minutes ago, Fredda66 said:

It was an app update to be clear. I can't even make firmware updates since the app directly blocks me from connecting to the wheel. I’ve bought plenty of things from Aliexpress through the years and have never had any problems with any of the retailers there. Just make sure you buy from people with good reputation. And in this case I can hardly argue that it was the sellers fault, I’m most uncertain if they knew that Inmotion was planning to block the app from connection in Europe specifically…

They seller shipped my wheel fast, and I got tracking number and everything, the wheel is a original V8, no problems what so ever except from the producing company which obviously made a bad call when setting up retailers. Fine if they fix this now, but for the few (?) of us that bought the wheel not knowingly of this blocking and ended up with a 900$ wheel that we can’t connect to will of course be annoyed. Especially since they don’t seem to care to solve this problem with customer satisfaction in mind. I’ve email them several times, even got some answers from Alice which ended with them asking for my serial number on the wheel and stating that “they will look into it”… THE END. This was 3 weeks ago and I’ve gave them plenty of chances to fix this before I even gave a thought of telling my story on this forum.

This really would go by as nonsense if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s a 900$ purchase and a “Masterpiece for intelligent transportation” according to their homepage. Call me idiot, but I really do think the amount spent on this device deserves a little more customer care.

Attached is my email conversation with Inmotion for anyone interested...

SV Re:SV Problem connection to wheel.msg

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4 hours ago, Fredda66 said:

It was an app update to be clear. I can't even make firmware updates since the app directly blocks me from connecting to the wheel.

Then why not re-install the old app? I am sure there is a way to get hold of it (I still have it installed anyways, I try avoid updating an app unless I see a good reason to do so).

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8 hours ago, Mono said:

Then why not re-install the old app? I am sure there is a way to get hold of it (I still have it installed anyways, I try avoid updating an app unless I see a good reason to do so).

I got an iPhone and autoupdate on apps, which is a good thing overall. And I can’t keep my phone on Airplane mode all the time because that would lead me to losing my job and therefore not being able to buy any more of these fantastic wheels that we all love so much :-)

Yesterday I bought an Android phone from Aliexpress, it was 40$ and I got hold of a previous APK from a very kind member of this forum (big thanks, you know who you are) and within 3 weeks I'll be rolling like a king again. But this is a workaround that really shouldn’t have to take place when buying a product in this price class.

I little friendly ask since I haven’t received the Android Handset yet and not 100% sure if the APK from December will work for certain. If anyone else on the forum happens to have an even previous build (earlier than 6.2.4) I would be very glad if you could drop me a PM with a link.

Thank you very much, and a big thumbs up to this forum for dedicated members and quick answers. I hope the EUC-manufactures that follow these forums need to shape up because the EUC’s should be able to take a real cut out of the bicycle market if advertised and produced in good manners… And the bicycle market is pretty big worldwide.

:)

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On 28.3.2017 at 8:37 AM, Fredda66 said:

This is really bad customer care from inmotions side. If they have issues with who’s selling their products they need to address that, but never ever have I heard of a company that decides to punish customers instead of retailers.

I've heard of such a company, it's called Apple. Similarly, they punish their users who don't use their "official" repair channels (like the home-button issue, replacing the button on newer phones will brick the damn thing, unless something is done to the firmware), the devices are full of stuff that's only there to make repairing them harder or to prevent using 3rd party accessories like headphones, they design them to become obsolete fast... need to go on? :P

https://9to5mac.com/2017/02/15/apple-nebraska-right-to-repair/

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21 hours ago, esaj said:

I've heard of such a company, it's called Apple. Similarly, they punish their users who don't use their "official" repair channels (like the home-button issue, replacing the button on newer phones will brick the damn thing, unless something is done to the firmware), the devices are full of stuff that's only there to make repairing them harder or to prevent using 3rd party accessories like headphones, they design them to become obsolete fast... need to go on? :P

https://9to5mac.com/2017/02/15/apple-nebraska-right-to-repair/

True that! ^_^

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22 hours ago, affe said:

..yet you can still buy them from China if you wish and gain access to their services. ;)

Oh right :P well... almost...  

"The Apple warranty is only valid in the country of purchase, and Apple will NOT accept shipment from outside the country.

Also, the LTE/4G frequencies are not universal, you will not have that coverage back in your country."

Well, enough off-topic from me on the Apple-issue, carry on ;)

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The problem was deeper than it seemed. In case of failure (burned) of the controller, its activation requires the code that sends the factory of the company inmotion. But in case of breakage of the wheel, not purchased from an authorized dealer, factory inmotion refuses to send the code

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