Discontinued The Grasshopper

MoltenTiger

Well-Known Member
I rarely stir with my Z and Vapefiend have stock :evil::) I have the Z on top of a Paranormal and it is definitely for home use but I rate it and the GH as different but equally good.
yeah, I bet with the right pack and technique it can do pretty good things.

I need to get a new mod to properly use my 510 devices, when they're dialled in they can be pretty awesome. Just always have had something go wrong
 
yeah, I bet with the right pack and technique it can do pretty good things.

I need to get a new mod to properly use my 510 devices, when they're dialled in they can be pretty awesome. Just always have had something go wrong
They are definitely different though. I like the GH through water and for the Z I use a 4 inch glass line roasting tube from Alan. I don't like using 510 style vapes though water. Too much fumbling about for me.
 

Hammahead

Well-Known Member
I bet with the right pack and technique it can do pretty good things.

Yeah, like I said, I'm considering on of those programmable mods and use a proven firmware to make the experience more "civilized", but then, I'm impressed with what this thing can do on a no-name mod.
 

Cheesequake

Free Men Don't Ask
both Sublimator and Grasshopper are in wacky states right now
Hopper Labs has been in the wackiest of states since it was created.

if you don't mind stirring and a certain learning curve while using it, the Splinter Z which I recently bought is growing on me.
Splinter Z was nowhere near a grasshopper replacement for me.


Edit: Received an email about a 20$ off Ti code...no word on my warranty request though of course.
 
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MoltenTiger

Well-Known Member
Hopper Labs has been in the wackiest of states since it was created.


Splinter Z was nowhere near a grasshopper replacement for me.


Edit: Received an email about a 20$ off Ti code...no word on my warranty request though of course.
I guess, but I'd consider it good or above average crowd funding project - most are really bad. Look at Loto Labs, that's a fair comparison. But yeah, crowd funding is by default kinda wacky, but kinda cool too.

And Sublimator has been a wacky ride for me. I remember first learning of them in 2011 and scoffing at the price.

If I hadn't somehow bought one for 30 AUD, I'd still be scoffing and wouldn't really understand what it was.
 

vapviking

Old & In the Way
I guess, but I'd consider it good or above average crowd funding project - most are really bad.

They've been a hugely successful crowd funding project... the funding part, that is.

Today, I see one of the worst developments in the past few years for the 'Labs.

It's the batteries, folks. I fear the jig is up this time.
Originally $7 US each, over the past year they've gone to $12, then $14 recently. (I just saw an 18650, more than double the capacity, for $8).

Yesterday, HL website said batteries, "currently unavailable".

TODAY, site says,

Temporarily Out Of Stock will ship in 2-4 months.

Maybe no batteries available = peeps won't use Hoppers = Hoppers won't fail = NO MORE RMA's ?!?!?!

Genius!
 

MoltenTiger

Well-Known Member
They've been a hugely successful crowd funding project... the funding part, that is.

Today, I see one of the worst developments in the past few years for the 'Labs.

It's the batteries, folks. I fear the jig is up this time.
Originally $7 US each, over the past year they've gone to $12, then $14 recently. (I just saw an 18650, more than double the capacity, for $8).

Yesterday, HL website said batteries, "currently unavailable".

TODAY, site says,

Temporarily Out Of Stock will ship in 2-4 months.

Maybe no batteries available = peeps won't use Hoppers = Hoppers won't fail = NO MORE RMA's ?!?!?!

Genius!
yeah they have been. They have been playing with millions of dollars.

And, to be quite honest, they've committed to this project, they're all in. So, I feel like it's all good. I mean, it's not great but for the consumer it is, eventually. That eventually has panned out into a long amount of time, but on the other end of the hopper is a tiny team working around the clock trying to service a ridiculous backlog.
They said they were buying batteries at $5USD a piece, and selling them for $7 was a gesture to the customer. I think they should have always had bigger margins. You need some control over the scale, making more off less would have been better for them.

They always have super slow shipping times from China, batteries have to travel by sea, they probably only ship large qty's at once to save on costs, and they'd owe so many for on-hold orders, like mine which is almost here.

On the other hand, they haven't made any statements recently apart from discount codes. It's definitely not their finest hour, out of a fairly patchy history too. But, they'll probably pull through, I mean, it's really annoying for the user because they're out of pocket without a vape, but on HL's end that doesn't actually affect them. So it is a pretty wacky situation, but eventually it should get better again. Unless their tech is totally fundamentally flawed, or the sales stop
 

vapviking

Old & In the Way
They said they were buying batteries at $5USD a piece, and selling them for $7 was a gesture to the customer. I think they should have always had bigger margins. You need some control over the scale, making more off less would have been better for them.

They always have super slow shipping times from China, batteries have to travel by sea, they probably only ship large qty's at once to save on costs, and they'd owe so many for on-hold orders, like mine which is almost here.
I didn't mind the increase to $12, , maybe not even the $14, though frankly I think they should have gone for the bigger margins elsewhere in their product line.
This is just looking like they either A. Planned it this way, a bait and switch gambit or, B. Have sold out on the 'righteously priced' batteries thing.

The part that puts this over the top for me is the (un-) availability. This is not a 'slow boat from China' shipping issue. It's obviously a cash-flow issue. Maybe they didn't bring in enough bucks yet on those pie-in-the-sky chargers to pay for a load of batteries...

Despite my recent cynicism I do still wish them eventual success with the product, since I own 5 of them and 4 are currently not working. ahem...
 

MoltenTiger

Well-Known Member
I didn't mind the increase to $12, , maybe not even the $14, though frankly I think they should have gone for the bigger margins elsewhere in their product line.
This is just looking like they either A. Planned it this way, a bait and switch gambit or, B. Have sold out on the 'righteously priced' batteries thing.

The part that puts this over the top for me is the (un-) availability. This is not a 'slow boat from China' shipping issue. It's obviously a cash-flow issue. Maybe they didn't bring in enough bucks yet on those pie-in-the-sky chargers to pay for a load of batteries...

Despite my recent cynicism I do still wish them eventual success with the product, since I own 5 of them and 4 are currently not working. ahem...
Yeah, I wouldn't have minded a simple notification before the price increase, or even before they started moving.. that's interesting. Seems like pretty unfortunate timing to be moving.
Best of luck to them
 
MoltenTiger,
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MonkeyTime

Well-Known Member
Unless their tech is totally fundamentally flawed

Unfortunately, I have always believed this to be the case. The choice to make this design without wires was the lynch pin. From a manufacturing standpoint, far too complicated with too little room for error.

They've had a lot of time to fix the fundamental problems, none of which they have. (IMO, what's actually different in v5 parts?) They may have improved their failure rate some, but it's still no where near acceptable.

Any day now they can give up this useless fight and start over with the same heater in a minimally larger form factor FTW!
 

MoltenTiger

Well-Known Member
Unfortunately, I have always believed this to be the case. The choice to make this design without wires was the lynch pin. From a manufacturing standpoint, far too complicated with too little room for error.

They've had a lot of time to fix the fundamental problems, none of which they have. (IMO, what's actually different in v5 parts?) They may have improved their failure rate some, but it's still no where near acceptable.

Any day now they can give up this useless fight and start over with the same heater in a minimally larger form factor FTW!
yeah you might be right.

But that said, I have had a number of different hoppers. Different coloured PCBs, heater shields, sensor placements, back end weldings, different switches. It's been incremental but they have made improvements, and the massive cloud I just exhaled with their recent tech is convincing me not to worry.

I do really enjoy the form factor, so I'm happy for them to pursue it. I'm sorted in every other way, be it portable or at home. So the hopper can remain the hopper, I'm fine with that
 

Vaporific

All who wander are not lost...
Any day now they can give up this useless fight and start over with the same heater in a minimally larger form factor FTW!

...or a version 2 that's wider in diameter akin to a thick cigar with a bigger (and better!) battery. I'd be down for that. As long as it works well - and consistently! I'm not an electrical or mechanical engineer but their batteries were initially very inconsistent and I think some of the v2's (or whatever the second iteration is called) were also not consistent. And the wireless thing using the metal body parts as conductors of some type may be problematic and compounded with degraded threading not making optimal contact for an optimal circuit. But what do I know?

I still haven't heard back from them regarding status of my pre-order Ti RMA. Sigh. TGIF to all. :peace:
 

Baron23

Well-Known Member
Yesterday, HL website said batteries, "currently unavailable".

TODAY, site says,

Temporarily Out Of Stock will ship in 2-4 months.

Yep, it just keeps on getting better and better....sigh.

And, to be quite honest, they've committed to this project, they're all in. So, I feel like it's all good. I mean, it's not great but for the consumer it is, eventually. That eventually has panned out into a long amount of time, but on the other end of the hopper is a tiny team working around the clock trying to service a ridiculous backlog.

You are far more gentle and understanding than I.

I personally don't care about their emotional state including feelings of "commitment". All I care about is their performance and it has been execrable, IMO.

The reason they have a tiny team after all of this time is that they fucked up by the numbers and still are.

The reason that they have ridiculous backlog is that they fucked up by the numbers and still are.

I don't think they deserve any sort of plea for understanding, quite frankly.

Unfortunately, I have always believed this to be the case. The choice to make this design without wires was the lynch pin. From a manufacturing standpoint, far too complicated with too little room for error.

They've had a lot of time to fix the fundamental problems, none of which they have. (IMO, what's actually different in v5 parts?) They may have improved their failure rate some, but it's still no where near acceptable.

Any day now they can give up this useless fight and start over with the same heater in a minimally larger form factor FTW!

I absolutely agree...and its not just the wireless connections....the entire vape lacks fault detection/isolation, they clearly can't test this mofo as evidenced by all of the crappy performing RMA's that have been shipped back (incl my two), and they don't seem familiar with RMA (reliability/maintainability/availability) engineering.
 
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MoltenTiger

Well-Known Member
I don't believe for a second the average hopper is any more reliable today that it was in 2015.
They definitely are. 2015 was early days. I got 3 months out of a Jan ’16 Vapefiend unit, and 3 months from a August '16 arrival. One of the three from that order did work for over 2 years - but it was running hot for its last several months, which made it one heck of a hopper.

All units arrived since then have been cooler, but have worked consistently. One from late ’17 and two from early '18.

Totally anecdotal, but each arrival has been noticeably different by the things I listed above.

People having problems most typically have a mixed and matched device. It'll be interesting to see how my RMAs compare when they arrive with some new batteries next week.

Things aren't drastically different, but things were worse in 2015 save for the RMA turnover (which would just break in a shorter time frame, consistently).

Most people are claiming their RMA finally got back.. and then nothing. Maybe they've had no trouble? By late '17 RMAs were lasting weeks most commonly
 

Cheesequake

Free Men Don't Ask
They definitely are. 2015 was early days. I got 3 months out of a Jan ’16 Vapefiend unit, and 3 months from a August '16 arrival. One of the three from that order did work for over 2 years - but it was running hot for its last several months, which made it one heck of a hopper.

All units arrived since then have been cooler, but have worked consistently. One from late ’17 and two from early '18.

Totally anecdotal, but each arrival has been noticeably different by the things I listed above.

People having problems most typically have a mixed and matched device. It'll be interesting to see how my RMAs compare when they arrive with some new batteries next week.

Things aren't drastically different, but things were worse in 2015 save for the RMA turnover (which would just break in a shorter time frame, consistently).

Most people are claiming their RMA finally got back.. and then nothing. Maybe they've had no trouble? By late '17 RMAs were lasting weeks most commonly
It's all random. There's no consistency. This unit has been warrantied 6 times since 2018 and has never once worked absolutely perfectly for more than a day or so. Back in 2015 I had units that lasted until I sold them. There is no consistency whatsoever with hopper reliability and it doesn't matter what you do or how you treat them. Just go through the recent pages and pages of people STILL having the exact same problems they did when the hopper launched. I've been following HL since the kickstarter in ~2013. I had one of the first non kickstarter hoppers sold and never has there been a time where people weren't consistently complaining that their hoppers are dying over and over and over. If it seems to have died down very recently it's because people like me finally got tired of talking about the hopper and sending it in every other week for fixes. This thread is consistently on the 2nd+ page when I go hunting for it because people are fed up with HL and their shoddy products.
 

vapviking

Old & In the Way
I never heard back anything from a few emails and RMA messages over Dec/Jan, but I got thrown an email with tracking details for one of my 2 RMA's, and I later discovered an order is marked as shipped with the same tracking. I guess I might get both RMAs back with some batteries, not sure.
If I'm reading your recent posts correctly, these Hoppers had been sent to HL in late 2017 and are coming back to you now? So, that's about a 14 month tun around. And maybe some batteries in there that are currently out of stock?
At least we have a gauge for the RMA timing. And I may be waiting til fall '19 and beyond! My original "time capsule" analogy continues to apply.

My most recent RMA request, submitted 7 days ago, has brought no response other than the initial robo-acknowledgement.

add, edit,
btw, I'm still a bit miffed about the battery thing. It even irks me a little more when I see the spirit of the 'sales pitch'. This is from the product sales page,

"Spare batteries are on order from the manufacturer and it will be 2-4 months before they arrive. Please do not order unless you fully expect to wait that long." (emphsis added)
 
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voodoo_vape

Vapour RebeL
Not a single word from their side since 26th November.... Not even a happy new year or sth... Have you guys been talking with them lately? Are they still running their business?
 
voodoo_vape,

MoltenTiger

Well-Known Member
If I'm reading your recent posts correctly, these Hoppers had been sent to HL in late 2017 and are coming back to you now? So, that's about a 14 month tun around. And maybe some batteries in there that are currently out of stock?
At least we have a gauge for the RMA timing. And I may be waiting til fall '19 and beyond! My original "time capsule" analogy continues to apply.
Well something is on board for delivery today. At least one RMA and I guess an order, it's been just shy of 13 months for the RMA turn around.
Definitely not a short amount of time. I don't know if I'm getting both RMAs or not as only one is marked as shipped too...

Their front of house staff are basically non-existant at this point. They need to put out an update instead of petty discounts.

The battery price increase isn't that welcome either, but it seems like they should put that 2-4 month statement on everything they're selling. I bought batteries and the battery charger 10 months back, and the set I'm receiving 3 months ago when I sorted some engraving for RMAs. Both RMA units were supposedly in the final testing stages back then in Oct, 10 months since arrival. Getting complex engraving dragged it out a bit longer, I also told them to take their time as I already had a working unit and didn't need to rush. Ultimately my HT unit is still going strong so I have no real need for 3 units, but I should be covered for a long time of hopping from here on out.

I guess that's all helped my patience, having a hopper, and knowing that this day would come when I would have too many because of the extra I bought during the madness.
I only ever had two because the pre-order wait time was also 13 months for me, which is just too long and there have always been easy ways to obtain
 

grokit

well-worn member
So a bit of good news from my end of things. My old green ti pre-order, that I waited years for and only got a few good months out of, actually still works. I had no idea! I remember that ~15 months ago it wasn't producing vapor anymore so I initiated an rma. They replied not so fast we need you to blow out the sensors with compressed air or something. My entire life has been in upheaval since before then and I didn't have my cool little compressor handy, so I went from ready to ship it to leaving it in a box for over a year.

But I missed it, so when they reached out with the $20 coupon I bought a plain ti version 5 so I would have a working unit whenever my other unit was being serviced, you guys know that drill very well. Well I finally got my little air compressor together with my green hopper, and whaddaya know it works! Damn if I didn't think it was a stalling tactic at the time, but I got it humming really well. So now I have bluetak and deoxit on the way to hopefully help keep it that way. I hope hopper labs eventually makes us all happy.

It works very well actually, wispy on 3.5 but vapor as thick as I want it at setting 4. The front end still gets hot as hell and clogs too easily. I will get another front end so I always have one soaking, and would pay extra for a slightly longer version with some cooling baffles or something inside. Not a quibble.

So that made my week. Who wants to bet that my new unit ships this week or not? When I ordered it said 2-10 days for the plain ti, working days that means it should start moving this week. I really hope it doesn't turn into another stupid situation like all the broken promises of my og unit, but I suppose the smart $ says that it will. So how long will 2-10 days take lol? I get the impression that they were really trying to move the ht units with this sale, but of course that's the most expensive version with the least discount %.

:freak:
 
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