Discontinued VapeXhale Cloud

WatTyler said:

You could have left it, but no, poke me for some more frustrated venting then.

how many US customers are using inverters with their new toy? Quite a few I reckon. Why I am different? Only 1 reason. Shipping and return costs at a vulnerable phase of release.

I have a point.

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You're lucky to even have an opportunity to purchase one being an international customer. It's not vhl's fault you live In a country with different electricity requirements. Its easy to rectify the problem with a 110/220 switch and different transformer. However, I would ony ship international once production was full steam and I had a compatible unit that would work on 220v without an inverter.

Venomous said:

You're lucky to even have an opportunity to purchase one being an international customer. It's not vhl's fault you live In a country with different electricity requirements.

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Keep feeding me. I'm pissed off and could go on all night (not that I want to).

Lucky? I haven't got the chance to purchase. Lucky me? eh?

It IS VX fault that they messed me around waiting (no complaint), took my money once (no complaint again), and led me to believe that I would be purchasing a Cloud sometime in the very, very near future in line with everyone else, and then didn't even make a proper contrite effort towards telling me or any of their other international supporters that this wasn't the case.

"of course my opinion is biased as i have a good 'back up' vape, "bow wow wow!" " quote

bro, i did kinda mention that my opinion is biased. that's cause i just got 2 puppies (movingui ud & claro twig ud) and they are kickin' ass! kinda like a mini-cloud while i wait for the 'real thing'. these UDs, "spirit of a puppy, engine of a harley". i am so baked & happy .

dude, i did not mean any insult. just that in my country, sometimes lucky to get a return call from the telecom provider customer support. sometimes they hang the phone down on you. so the kind of response i get from vxc team, to me, is really sufficient to satisfy my considerations. and more importantly, my opinion is biased.

how about we let this issue go? we should just vape some 'erb and vape summore :/ me thinks life's too short to get angry over something like this. peace , man! i hope u get a vape that will satisfy you soon

WatTyler said:

I'm certainly not going to be coming into this thread anymore reading everyone else's glowing reports, including from UK users who were just slightly ahead of me in the que (I think I ordered 3/11, so it was close).

It is what it is. I'm pissed off at being messed around and venting my views about it. That too is what it is.

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You don't get to vent endlessly. We have a line in the 'Be nice' section of the rules that applies to products and companies, and you're on the edge of it. And if anyone decides to make any posts that directly spur you to vent some more, we'd be very unhappy about that decision as well.

Where am I posting soley for the purpose of attacking or offending VX?

I think my opinion is quite valid, and I have not been endlessly repetitive in my criticism. If that's getting near the edge of the rules then I really don't know quite what to make of things.......

I do know that my valid criticism here is nothing compared to that which is levied towards other companies in other threads on these boards.

I love the ability to ignore certain peeps on the new forums!!!!! Enough said.

Wat Tyler I think you are forgetting the fact that right at the beginning vxl said that they wouldnt even ship units out of north america. They only started doing it to try to please people on this forum. You say you are still willing to take the risk, but the fact of the matter is vxl has evidence supportting the fact that people outside of north America are having independent issues, and since they don't know why they are no longer "willing to take the risk" and throw more money away. They are concerned about further perfecting their product so that they can keep their company running and expand the reaches of the cloud world wide. The thing people are missing is that they do infact have a fairly low failure rate and that they are striving for near perfection, amd incredible customer service that will trump most others. They are not taking the common approach of "good enough" lets ship them and make money from whoever. For this I am so grateful, and this is coming from someone who is also outside the USA and been waiting a few weeks for my replacement as well...

My on the inverter thing - I'm in the U.S., so I don't need one at home. However, I did try two I have used in my car with many other devices and vapes, and they do not work with the Cloud (some of my laptops work with the inverters, some don't; even have an ipod that won't charge through it but an iphone that will).
Fine by me, but wanted to point out that not every American can get it working with an inverter. And frankly, I'd rather it refuse to work on an inappropriate inverter than blow out on it.

WatTyler said:

cost has to be a key factor, but when I suggest that it's denied, and when I dispute that denial you call it "serious unsupported accusations".

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The accusations were that you have been dishonestly misled and that VXL's technical concerns are not valid. IMO those are serious because they indicate malfeasance and incompetence; and are inappropriate because there is not sufficient substantiation.

Plus you suggest "operational bandwidth" as a factor- which is kind of similar to what your cross at me for saying.

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I'm not cross at you at all. At my age, that takes too much work and so I have to reserve my bandwidth for really big issues. Besides, who can get cross with anyone having as cool a moniker as "WatTyler", let alone such a great pornographic avatar (and the previous one you had with that dog was pretty damned good, too)?

But it's true that I do have a bit of a short wick when it comes to making judgments about engineering decisions and business operations without having the applicable knowledge and experience. Especially so when it gets personal.

Finally, just to clarify re "operational bandwidth", I intended no connection to the inverter issue. IMO this issue may have been a consequence of a development process error, or simply a later decision out of desire to satisfy customers without giving it sufficient evaluation. What I was ref'g to is that a manufacturer doing business internationally must consider localization requirements in every function in the value chain for each country where it does business. So development, marketing, manufacturing, fulfillment, channels, support, legal, and financial concerns all must be understood. Small manufacturers rarely have sufficient resources or expertise for this, which is why they usually do business through oem's or licensing agreements or distributors. A small start-up is likely to be very limited in what it can do internationally until at the minimum it has stabilized its core processes and has sufficient infrastructure. My concern was that VXL may have gotten a bit ahead of themselves by committing to international customers before having all the prerequisite pieces in place.

Where am I posting soley for the purpose of attacking or offending VX?

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Who said you were posting soley for that purpose? - posts written to offend are not allowed.

• Rules are interpreted and applied at staff discretion.

I think my opinion is quite valid

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Opinions are allowed, but on and and on and on? Nope.

• Rules are interpreted and applied at staff discretion.

My valid criticism here is nothing compared to that which is levied towards other companies in other threads.

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You're welcome to that opinion too. It won't save you from an infraction though if you keep .

7 posts about the matter, 5 in response to my quotes- i.e discussion. "On and on and on"? That's unfair IMO.

And I have NOT written to offend.

mod note: Rules are interpreted and applied at staff discretion and public discussions of staff decisions are not permitted on the site. You're just digging your hole deeper.

Wat, just let it go and move on. You damn a company for doing the right thing about delivering a working product outside the us. With the cost of international shipping back and fourth , it's quite costly only to have the inverter damage the unit. It would take only 90 days to implement a 110/220 unit if vxl felt the importance of international distribution. Personally, I would get the units bugs worked out here on main side before dealing with international issues that may arise because of voltages differences. Think common sense here. What if you were in charge and had this problem?

Venomous said:

However, I would ony ship international once production was full steam and I had a compatible unit that would work on 220v without an inverter.

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ding ding! exactly. this is the thing the bugs me the most...I wonder how many US customers would have already been blowin clouds, if they just waited on doing international orders until full production? Why would you want to estestianlly do beta testing or first release to overseas customers when you know you're going to have some problems (as with any first release)? Those shipping costs can't help the bottom line and not to mention all the time it's taking away.

On the other hand, this was probably a mistake that was going to happen, so maybe them figuring it out now, before heavy production might actually save them more money and time in the long run.

GODSPEED VXL!

mistergyro said:

ding ding! exactly. this is the thing the bugs me the most...I wonder how many US customers would have already been blowin clouds, if they just waited on doing international orders until full production? Why would you want to estestianlly do beta testing or first release to overseas customers when you know you're going to have some problems (as with any first release)? Those shipping costs can't help the bottom line and not to mention all the time it's taking away.

On the other hand, this was probably a mistake that was going to happen, so maybe them figuring it out now, before heavy production might actually save them more money and time in the long run.

GODSPEED VXL!

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I agree with what venomous says.

@mistergyro, this has been said before, but I will say it again. Tha majority of issues being complained about, would not even be happening if it weren't for VXL's major transparency in this whole operation. From the beginning, anyone who has access to a computer with an internet connection, has had the ability to watch this vape be designed, built, changed, etc, right before there eyes. With everything being out in the open, they opened themselves up to criticism from all angles, around the world. This led to, among other things (improvements/ideas contributed from FC members, etc), Overseas folks wanting to have access to this wonderful vape. It was asked for and asked for, until VXL agreed to expand sales beyond the borders of North America.

So, again as others have stated. If you would rather not have the inside info, and all of the goodies that come with it, stop reading this thread, and wait until you can click "Buy it now" on the vapexhale website.

IMHO, had this vape been designed, etc, behind closed doors, we wouldn't necessarily be any closer to a full launch. I feel that the info/feedback/banter in this and the past cloud thread, helped move the process along. Think about it, had they been doing it all in private, there chances of discovering potential design flaws, issues, customer wants/needs/opinions in the product, would have been greatly diminished.

What I'm getting at, is regardless of transparency, and openness to the FC community, I feel that the VXL is doing a great job, and that this vape will be successfully released to the public, when it's damn ready to be! If you don't want to see all of this go on, and just want the Cloud when it's pure gold, than wait!

I apologize if my post is out of line in any way, or is useless. Delete it if need be.

I wonder if this would mate with the Cloud, could make an interestng hydratube
http://nvsglassworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/2011BC_tophat.jpg

I'm done here, except to point out that many of you jumping to the defence of vx are actually supporting my point, that VX initially denied, which is the significant role of the business case in the decision not to serve their faithful international customers at a time when there's uncertainty with quality control. I think so many jump in to defend without attempting to properly understand the arguments. Honestly, it's such blind defence it makes me laugh. Many of the points made I agree with and need no illuminating, I've got plenty of common sense, so you're really wasting your breath- like I said, they actually support my argument. (only difference is I maintain that my regulated mains inverter is more predictable that any US DC-AC inverter, or even just US mains supply). A great part of this is not about the outcome, but about the way that VX communicated this issue and the way I feel it was slightly disingenuous. But how could I expect you to really appreciate that when it's of no relevance to you whatsoever? Just try to take a little time to understand that whilst you might be experiencing great customer service and VX doing a great job, that's not true for all mislead customers. No need to fix bayonets, which often prolongs the skirmish and turns a couple of posts into a couple of pages i.e. making it worse. (now I await my possible censorship/infraction, comrades)

and love

WatTyler said:

A great part of this is not about the outcome, but about the way that VX communicated this issue and the way I feel it was slightly disingenuous. But how could I expect you to really appreciate that when it's of no relevance to you whatsoever? Just try to take a little time to understand that whilst you might be experiencing great customer service and VX doing a great job, that's not true for all mislead customers. No need to fix bayonets, which often prolongs the skirmish and turns a couple of posts into a couple of pages i.e. making it worse. (now I await my possible censorship/infraction, comrades)

and love

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Good points made. The way people, including mods, jumped on you for your criticism was unfortunate. I see both sides, and just think VX should have done a better job of breaking this news to their international customers (who have been following them for a year+). That said, it's VX's sole decision about where/when to sell their products, and I'll defer to them about the technological reasons for doing so.

Silver420Surfer said:

I wonder if this would mate with the Cloud, could make an interestng hydratube

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This looks like it should work. Cool find man!

^^^
if it's got an 18mm gong joint, it will work!

Thing looks like some kind of an ash catcher- Can't really see what's up with the bottom joint, but looks pretty cool!! I like the black accent in the middle! It also looks a little like various components (almost like a HOPS or sumpin')

So I guess its impossible to estimate when will us, your international customers - when we'll be able to enjoy the cloud...

3 Month ? 6 Month ? 1 Year ? 2 Years?

`

m0sh said:

So I guess its impossible to estimate when will us, your international customers - when we'll be able to enjoy the cloud...

3 Month ? 6 Month ? 1 Year ? 2 Years?

`

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Absolutely correct.

per sm55 last post
One thing that we found is that some of the international units are exhibiting different types of issues than we've seen from the US models which is why we are trying to better understand what is happening with these units. If they were the exact same problems, then we could cross the inverter off the list but since it isn't, the most obvious variable is the inverter and we are investigating that currently.

I really hope its top priority...

m0sh said:

I really hope its top priority...

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That's the feeling I get m0sh. They seem to be responding much quicker than most, to issues.

Bluntcrush said:

Thing looks like some kind of an ash catcher- Can't really see what's up with the bottom joint, but looks pretty cool!! I like the black accent in the middle! It also looks a little like various components (almost like a HOPS or sumpin')

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Here's a better look:



Whole thing costs $550 from High Priority Glass, which isn't too bad when you consider it's a very unique HT that just so happens to have a worked showerhead bubbler dangling off the bottom of it!

OKcomputer said:

Here's a better look:

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What a great idea Silver420Surfer. 2011/12 BC makes some amazing glass and is the only other quality blower that uses gridded percs (SG trained him). This tophat upstem should be the unofficial gridded HT since the SGs didn't make it. Just need an adapter for the male joint, a couple keck clips and a mouthpiece. Stonemonkey55 I know you love glass, please let us buy the Cloud by itself soon. It's not that I don't want a HT, I just don't want one right now (or when my email comes).