Well no reviewers have the MAS. So I’d say not ready. Same with comfort kit as no reviewers seem to have it either.
So at present we have only seen pic mockups & company assures on how good.
If MAS was ready it would be demoed while gearing up to ship. I can understand not wanting to showcase the Standard MAS’ audio as it would be unlikely to fair well in a noisey enviroment. But even a strap without Audio being used could demo comfort & with 2 headsets the comfort kit could also demo differences for those attending.
Really not sure why there not doing it. It’s a no brainer.
So unlikely ready for any models at this time & no prototype to demo either.
This is precisely what I fail to understand, they stand to make more money by providing more time for people to upgrade. It’s a gamble they are going to lose. Considering the community continues to talk them down why would anyone buy now and have to deal with the nightmare that getting a refund from Pimax is sure to be?
I have a very specific dog in this fight (like every other backer). I cannot reasonably be expected to have RMA’d and sold my newly repaired headset in time to meet this unnecessary deadline. I won’t wind up upgrading and Pimax will miss out on my sweet, sweet money.
Which is why I advocated for a RMA to trade in policy to mitigate unnecessary shipping. I send them my old headset and I simply go without until such a time as they are ready to send everything that I want to pay them for in one big box. Then they can part out my old headset or repair and sell if for cheap on eBay, or whatever else companies do with defective merchandise.
Ah but they don’t want to deal with our headsets to ship us never versions.
Think there are some if I recall whom didn’t receive their headset yet & want to simply get the new improved models.
Think of those whom also were explicit in wanting to wait for everything to be ready & ship. Most if not all seemed to receive a headset anyway. But had they not. Many in this case would want to pay difference for headset & receive new version.
If I were a company and I saw that I still stood to make a reasonable profit I would be personally helping my customers to trade up. It could be the case that the profit margin doesn’t warrant the logistics of it, although the logistics of doing a 1 step trade in is leaps and bounds better than this cockamamie scheme they’ve concocted. Even still, if they have a valid reason for not doing it for everyone then at least with respect to RMAs they need to accept that companies necessarily lose money when they sell defective goods. They simply have got to eat that cost or they will alienate their customer base, squander their goodwill and founder.
Also, what about all the people that RMA’d their cracked headsets in the past and now have a working version of the 5k+ or 8k?
They would be pretty angry if Pimax started handing out super discounted or free 8k+ or 8kx headsets to new RMA’s.
No way to make everyone happy.
It would also be a potential loss of revenue. Supposedly the 8k+ and 8kx costs more to manufacture so giving out a 8k+ in place of a new 5k+ would cause then to lose more money. Even if they required you to pay the difference in the manufacturing cost they would still be losing more money due to loss of opportunity. Every 8kx handed out due to RMA of a 5k+ is a lost potential purchase of an 8kx.
They could require you to pay the manufacturing cost difference plus a profit margin equal to a normal sale of 8kx but this would result in people with defective headsets getting a great deal on the new headsets while people that already RMA’d or had a working headset would be missing out and likely unhappy. And as oysta1109 mentioned this would incentivize people to RMA their 5k+ or 8k headset.
It would be great if they did allow people to RMA 5k+ into 8k+ or 8kx headsets (Especially since mine has cracks now so I could take advantage of it) but I don’t see how it makes business sense to do so.
As others have mentioned since it involves trading in streach goals a deadline makes sense. If they aren’t going to have reviews and finished units before December then the timeline of the deadline doesn’t make sense and should be longer. But a deadline makes sense.
At some point they are going to start shipping streach goals and they probably don’t want to have to figure out if each person wants their streach goals shipped or if they want to wait an unspecified period of time to continue to have the option of trading them in for an 8kx discount. Then they would have people randomly contacting them in the future telling them that they decided they wanted their streach goals after all and they would need to deal with the logistics of this.
Both of your posts testify to the sense of what I have proposed. Doubly so considering that Pimax is attempting with this new batch of headsets to produce the headset they wanted to bring to market all along. Insofar as we backers made this a virtual reality (I couldn’t resist) why not endeavor to get these units into the hands of we few who risked so much at a more affordable albeit profitable cost? To restate it, I propose Pimax institute a full fledged trade in program. (All those in favor say “aye”)
No need for anyone to crack the housing to game the system. The likelihood is that Pimax, being logistics adverse, will put newer panels in old 8Ks on the sly when they receive an RMA and no one, short of opening their unit, will be able to prove it. I proffer this as being fairly likely scenario because the supply to chain to continue sourcing the older, inferior panels will probably dry up as natural consequence of panel manufactures no longer expending resources to produce inferior panels predicated on older technology.
I agree. Pimax has gotten many extra sales by Backers word of mouth & support.
Now they have likely piled up costs in logistics due to external quality defects reaching customers. Many of these issues were downplayed and at least 2 who RMA’d units to receive a QA checklist stating no issues & ended up having defects the checklist covered upon unboxing.
If they had a “Stay the Course” Discount plan I would be tempted. But the nonsense of moving my money around because they haven’t delivered anything but the headset is no discount as promised.
If I am keeping my OG headsets I am not opting out of the MAS even if have to plug in on ear headphones due to them opting for a potential immersion killer by allowing enviromental noise distractions.
I am certainly not trading my full packages towards a new headset either or taking the Index path as it sounds like possible escape clause. Deal with us or we may direct you to Valve.
PimaxUSA (Kevin) has stated somewhere that they considered it and decided against it due to the logistics being difficult to manage.
There is a lot for Pimax to consider. If they want to resell the 5k+ headsets that are traded in as refurbished then they need to hire staff to inspect each one and determine if it is functional and the condition (like new, used good, used fair, poor) then repackage. Then they would either need to resell them as used through Amazon or enter them into their store.
Taking all this into account and, if reselling, the projected sales of refurbished 5k+ headsets. They would need to decide on a discount for the trade-in that didn’t have them losing money and left the customers feeling like they got a good deal and not ripped off. (See the streach goal trade in backlash. If they offer people $100 off to trade in their current headset then they probably wouldn’t get good word of mouth advertising.)
If they expect to lose money after all the estimation then they would need to feel that the additional sales from good word if mouth would be worth the losses otherwise there wouldn’t be much point in the trade in.
As I understand it they are both the “Modular audio strap” and that the difference between them is the module that is installed. IIRC the Standard version has off-ear headphones and the Deluxe version has on-ear headphones…
I had forgotten about that… The 5K+ has been more trouble than it was worth in my opinion. Those who made the swap find ourselves at the short end of the stick. Still, even with my headset suffering from awful screen tearing, when it works, it’s a good headset. No cracks to report here and I’ve had mine since January.
I was pleased to see this thread got as much traction as it did but no one from Pimax seems to have anything to say on the matter. @PimaxUSA Considering Matthew has had to take time off from the forums to address a backlog of RMAs, would you concede that it’s inconceivable that I could RMA my unit, receive a replacement, and have sold it before December 31st? Also, are you prepared to go on record about what happens when owners of the original 8K RMA their unit? Are they going to get an upgrade for their trouble? I have a hard time imagining putting old panels in a headset tooled for the all new ruggedized components.
Be careful of RMA’S, If your hmd is working with no black dots DO NOT RMA!!! I just had mine replaced and bam, black dots and no 120hz. I think i’m going to open a ticket about this just to have a laugh at what they will reply with, I bet they direct me to the upgrade plans.