Discontinued The Grasshopper

[Mr. Me2]

Lies. Even at 1%, if they sold 100k units that would equal 100 defects. Well, we know based on serial numbers they are nowhere close to that number. Where are they getting these numbers? Are they just completely making them up? And if they are seeing hundreds (or even 100!) of defects based on the amount of units that they have produced, the defect rate is much higher than 1%. I'm fairly positive that they have seen more than 100 returned.

I mean, come on. I'm just one person and I had to return mine 6 times in 6 months. I've also talked to multiple people who had to return theirs multiple times.

From my experience and talking to others it really comes down to how often you use the device. If you use it a dozen times a day it's going to fail in about three weeks. If you use it 3 times a week you are going to have it working for a much longer period of time. Regardless, it should work much more reliably for the heavy user.

When I read their newsletter, I had a different interpretation of the 1% number. If I had to guess, I'd say they track defect rate by production or assembly run (or some other trackable grouping); not their defect rate from the beginning of time.

Who knows, maybe the hoppers from the early runs fare better than the ones toward the end of preorder. And the latest, newest hoppers are faring best. Just a guess and my hope. If I'm right, I wish ghl would just replace the hoppers from known bad runs (when a RMA is submitted) with new, trouble free ones!

 

[Vapor_Eyes]

Lies. Even at 1%, if they sold 100k units that would equal 100 defects. Well, we know based on serial numbers they are nowhere close to that number. Where are they getting these numbers? Are they just completely making them up? And if they are seeing hundreds (or even 100!) of defects based on the amount of units that they have produced, the defect rate is much higher than 1%. I'm fairly positive that they have seen more than 100 returned.

Your math is a bit off, 1% of 100,000 is 1,000. That's beside the point though.

The thing I found interesting about that email is they never actually claimed to have a 1% failure rate. I had to read it three times to make sure, it's very carefully worded.

"It is important to realize that even with a 1% failure rate, we will see hundreds of customers with problems."

To me that sounds like a purely hypothetical statement, using the 1% number to illustrate a point. There are probably over 10,000 Grasshoppers out there so that would make hundreds of customers with problems if they had a 1% failure rate.

That is just my speculation, but that's my point too, they haven't ever made a hard claim to reliability. The closest we got was the Reddit AMA April 15. Matt said that the initial failure rate was 30% and it is more than an order of magnitude lower now. That would place it less than 3% two months ago. I doubt they are down to 1% that fast, but it would be good news if true and if they would confirm it is an accurate number. If the failure rate was that low back then they should have just said 1% in the AMA.

https://www.reddit.com/r/vaporents/comments/65ks2l/ama_hopper_labs_founders_matt_and_trevor/dgb26wk/

The funny thing is failure rates of 1%, 3%, 0.1% all mean nothing without a time period. That is how reliability is measured.

I'm glad Hopper Labs has set a hard goal of 0.1% failure rate, so hopefully if they reach that number we will finally have detailed statistics, with an actual time period included.

It would be nice if Hopper Labs would implement some sort of "lemon" policy where they will outright replace problem units and units that are dead on arrival. It would be great if they did it after the first DOA but they should certainly do it after two or three DOAs in a row like in @JCat's case. It seems like it might help troubleshooting. If that user continues to have problems with new units, it might be use related. If the "lemon" gets repaired and sent to a new owner and it still has issues than it might not be use related.

 

[Hjalmark]

Also if they have a 1000 units failing and they have to pay shipping on those every month, then we can kiss that company good bye

But I don't really understand why they don't replace the whole vape when people have had so many returns

I use my Grasshopper +4x times a day on 4,5 but I had one rmd in 8 months and that was 6 months ago

I am known for killing electronics and users here even been slapping my theoretical hands for ways I been using my hopper

Like leaving it on for whole session

So cursed hopper or cursed user?

 

[MoltenTiger]

Your math is a bit off, 1% of 100,000 is 1,000. That's beside the point though.

The thing I found interesting about that email is they never actually claimed to have a 1% failure rate. I had to read it three times to make sure, it's very carefully worded.

"It is important to realize that even with a 1% failure rate, we will see hundreds of customers with problems."

To me that sounds like a purely hypothetical statement, using the 1% number to illustrate a point. There are probably over 10,000 Grasshoppers out there so that would make hundreds of customers with problems if they had a 1% failure rate.

That is just my speculation, but that's my point too, they haven't ever made a hard claim to reliability. The closest we got was the Reddit AMA April 15. Matt said that the initial failure rate was 30% and it is more than an order of magnitude lower now. That would place it less than 3% two months ago. I doubt they are down to 1% that fast, but it would be good news if true and if they would confirm it is an accurate number. If the failure rate was that low back then they should have just said 1% in the AMA.

https://www.reddit.com/r/vaporents/comments/65ks2l/ama_hopper_labs_founders_matt_and_trevor/dgb26wk/

The funny thing is failure rates of 1%, 3%, 0.1% all mean nothing without a time period. That is how reliability is measured.

I'm glad Hopper Labs has set a hard goal of 0.1% failure rate, so hopefully if they reach that number we will finally have detailed statistics, with an actual time period included.

It would be nice if Hopper Labs would implement some sort of "lemon" policy where they will outright replace problem units and units that are dead on arrival. It would be great if they did it after the first DOA but they should certainly do it after two or three DOAs in a row like in @JCat's case. It seems like it might help troubleshooting. If that user continues to have problems with new units, it might be use related. If the "lemon" gets repaired and sent to a new owner and it still has issues than it might not be use related.

Nice one.

Last I hear, HL said (on Reddit) that the failure rate had jumped to just below 10% after their recent calibration blunder. (All the recent combustion issues and the new red then dead).
Before this it was below 5%.
This means the numbers of faulty devices, whatever they define that as, is still alarmingly high. 0.1% is a normal industry goal I'd say, I used to test electrical power meter tolerances to 0.05% to ensure this with the products my company makes. But failure rate is not probability, and even PCBs very, very expensively printed in South Australia arrive at the assembly line with faults amongst the batches - leds not mounted square, dodgy individual components or a missing component, or bridged solder are not common but do occur in decent numbers (even after multiple revisions of the PCB, and I'm talking nearly a decade of R&D by experienced professionals too). If I have to build 146 devices and I have available components to build 150 but 5 devices fail which the techs can't patch fix, we ship 145 and customers (generally corporate) get irate. Micro-controllers failing or communication issues cause vast fluctuations in detected current and the entire device becomes useless, and despite our prestigious calibration and testing procedure, not every device is equal and some end up having wacky faults in the field. The circuitry between the meters I build and the hopper is not entirely dissimilar, so a lot of the hopper problems I see (which I could fix if I had component access and tools to open the device easily enough) are really nothing to be too shocked by given the nature of HL's project. It will take them some time before they iron this all out in any meaningful way, but the recent update discusses some important aspects. Mainly that there are still important revisions identified but not yet implemented, so don't expect an overnight drop to 0.1% as it may never happen, but it's a normal goal they need to concern themselves with, so it's good they've made the progress they have towards it.

slapping my theoretical hands

Think of it more as a High-5

 

[vapviking]

Nice one.

Last I hear, HL said (on Reddit) that the failure rate had jumped to just below 10% after their recent calibration blunder. (All the recent combustion issues and the new red then dead).
Before this it was below 5%.
This means the numbers of faulty devices, whatever they define that as, is still alarmingly high. 0.1% is a normal industry goal I'd say, I used to test electrical power meter tolerances to 0.05% to ensure this with the products my company makes. But failure rate is not probability, and even PCBs very, very expensively printed in South Australia arrive at the assembly line with faults amongst the batches - leds not mounted square, dodgy individual components or a missing component, or bridged solder are not common but do occur in decent numbers (even after multiple revisions of the PCB, and I'm talking nearly a decade of R&D by experienced professionals too). If I have to build 146 devices and I have available components to build 150 but 5 devices fail which the techs can't patch fix, we ship 145 and customers (generally corporate) get irate. Micro-controllers failing or communication issues cause vast fluctuations in detected current and the entire device becomes useless, and despite our prestigious calibration and testing procedure, not every device is equal and some end up having wacky faults in the field. The circuitry between the meters I build and the hopper is not entirely dissimilar, so a lot of the hopper problems I see (which I could fix if I had component access and tools to open the device easily enough) are really nothing to be too shocked by given the nature of HL's project. It will take them some time before they iron this all out in any meaningful way, but the recent update discusses some important aspects. Mainly that there are still important revisions identified but not yet implemented, so don't expect an overnight drop to 0.1% as it may never happen, but it's a normal goal they need to concern themselves with, so it's good they've made the progress they have towards it.


Think of it more as a High-5

Very astute observations and reflections of your experience in the field. Thanks, Tiger.
I also appreciate the posts from @Mr. Me2 , @Vapor_Eyes and @Hjalmark re: what was actually said in the newsletter.

I do sympathize with the folks who have had multiple failures and returns. I'm among you folks, with about 9 or ten from 2 Hoppers (too much detail to bore you with). If I were in a country/place that cost a lot of time/money to get a warranty repair, I might just try to sell the Hopper to someone in US or maybe Canada -- cut the losses and move on.

I also agree that HL would do well, even if only from a public relations standpoint, to call a lemon a lemon and replace the ones that repeatedly refuse to perform for the customer; enough of banging heads against the wall!

For a long time I've suggested the "time capsule" approach to this dilemma. Put the silly thing away for a year or two, don't think or worry about it, and send it in if and when you really think they've got a solid product. As a matter of circumstance, I can submit here that I gave each of my daughters a Hopper in August '16 (my pre-order was for total of 4). Both failed within a couple of weeks. Neither of the girls, even though living in US, were motivated to rma and those two pieces aren't even registered yet. Time capsules, both of them. I think my 'kids' are pretty smart, but I'm biased.

 

[Baron23]

Even at 1%, if they sold 100k units that would equal 100 defects.

errr....might want to check that math. Last I checked, 1% of 100,000 is 1,000 and not 100.

The funny thing is failure rates of 1%, 3%, 0.1% all mean nothing without a time period. That is how reliability is measured.

THIS ^^ 100% and absolutely. Any reliability figures that they spout without a time component is completely and utterly meaningless.

Quite frankly, as owners I think we should be more interested in "availability" of which this is a pretty decent definition:

Availability is the probability that a system will work as required when required during the period of a mission.
​

I don't care about their overall population failure rate too much. I do care that when I turn on my GH I have a very high probability that it will come on and work and do so for the duration of the session.

Here is another quote that may help to understand this:

People often confuse reliability and availability. Simply put availability is a measure of the % of time the equipment is in an operable state while reliability is a measure of how long the item performs its intended function.​

 

[olympusmons76]

hand burned by a friends sister

That's a nifty custom hopper dock but I would be careful storing your hoppers with the front end up, especially a warm unit as all of the oils/resins will eventually work their way down into heater and that delicate temp sensor..

 

[Icon13]

Your math is a bit off, 1% of 100,000 is 1,000. That's beside the point though.

The thing I found interesting about that email is they never actually claimed to have a 1% failure rate. I had to read it three times to make sure, it's very carefully worded.

"It is important to realize that even with a 1% failure rate, we will see hundreds of customers with problems."

To me that sounds like a purely hypothetical statement, using the 1% number to illustrate a point. There are probably over 10,000 Grasshoppers out there so that would make hundreds of customers with problems if they had a 1% failure rate.

That is just my speculation, but that's my point too, they haven't ever made a hard claim to reliability. The closest we got was the Reddit AMA April 15. Matt said that the initial failure rate was 30% and it is more than an order of magnitude lower now. That would place it less than 3% two months ago. I doubt they are down to 1% that fast, but it would be good news if true and if they would confirm it is an accurate number. If the failure rate was that low back then they should have just said 1% in the AMA.

https://www.reddit.com/r/vaporents/comments/65ks2l/ama_hopper_labs_founders_matt_and_trevor/dgb26wk/

The funny thing is failure rates of 1%, 3%, 0.1% all mean nothing without a time period. That is how reliability is measured.

I'm glad Hopper Labs has set a hard goal of 0.1% failure rate, so hopefully if they reach that number we will finally have detailed statistics, with an actual time period included.

It would be nice if Hopper Labs would implement some sort of "lemon" policy where they will outright replace problem units and units that are dead on arrival. It would be great if they did it after the first DOA but they should certainly do it after two or three DOAs in a row like in @JCat's case. It seems like it might help troubleshooting. If that user continues to have problems with new units, it might be use related. If the "lemon" gets repaired and sent to a new owner and it still has issues than it might not be use related.

Lol, I meant type 1000 defects. Stoner move. That's what happens when you trade your grasshopper in for a vapexhale Cloud Evo.

My logic is this. They must have sold at least 20K. At 1% that would be 200 units. I'm sure they've had far more than 200 units returned or sent in for service at the 20K mark.

 

[JCat]

I'd just really like to know in what time frame .... ever? In the first 24 hours after shipment? (ie. only for those that live in the same city) ... In the first 24 hours after ownership? .... my track record if you count for my SS having been shipped to me 4 times by HL not working properly and my Ti working for <1 week first time and working flawlessly for a 1 month period after 1st RMA ... than it's a 60% failure rate from the first second of ownership to the first week ... an 80% failure rate from week 1 to week 4, and a 100% failure rate within the first 5 weeks ...

I'm only a 1 person sample with 2 devices and 5 back-ends though so take it for what it's worth

Oh yeah ... @Icon13 ... you did it again ... think you meant 2,000 units

 

[grokit]

For a long time I've suggested the "time capsule" approach to this dilemma. Put the silly thing away for a year or two, don't think or worry about it, and send it in if and when you really think they've got a solid product.

I did that. I had an og hopper that worked well but was suspect mechanically, and finally popped apart. I sent it in and they put on a new back end that was better, but it never vaped right--it would just barely change the color of the material and was hot to touch. I waited another year or so until they seemed more caught up, and when they announced the colored ti pfe's I sent it in again. The unit I got back worked great a few times and then broke again; different issue this time. It happened more than 72 hours but less than a week after I had gotten it back, and to their credit they did offer & send me a pre-paid postage label.

 

[freshly baked]

It appears I bragged on my repaired gh too soon. Today when I turned it on it went straight to blue lights and its not heating on any temp with any of my batteries. So much for hitting that 1% failure rate. Ive returned mine 3 times in 2 months. 7 or 8 times total in a year and a half. Very frustrated and starting to look for a more reliable vape so I can toss this thing in a drawer and get back to happy vaping adventures. This sucks honestly!
Edit... After banging it on everything with in 5 ft of me to no avail... I say what the hell its already broke so I try blowing in it.... Back to working for now... Who knows how long..

 

[Icon13]

I'd just really like to know in what time frame .... ever? In the first 24 hours after shipment? (ie. only for those that live in the same city) ... In the first 24 hours after ownership? .... my track record if you count for my SS having been shipped to me 4 times by HL not working properly and my Ti working for <1 week first time and working flawlessly for a 1 month period after 1st RMA ... than it's a 60% failure rate from the first second of ownership to the first week ... an 80% failure rate from week 1 to week 4, and a 100% failure rate within the first 5 weeks ...

I'm only a 1 person sample with 2 devices and 5 back-ends though so take it for what it's worth

Oh yeah ... @Icon13 ... you did it again ... think you meant 2,000 units

No. I meant 200. 1% of 20k.

 

[Hogni]

May be 1% RMAs of all sold devices per WEEK? 200 per week sounds realistically to me....

 

[vapviking]

It appears I bragged on my repaired gh too soon. Today when I turned it on it went straight to blue lights and its not heating on any temp with any of my batteries. So much for hitting that 1% failure rate. Ive returned mine 3 times in 2 months. 7 or 8 times total in a year and a half. Very frustrated and starting to look for a more reliable vape so I can toss this thing in a drawer and get back to happy vaping adventures. This sucks honestly!
Edit... After banging it on everything with in 5 ft of me to no avail... I say what the hell its already broke so I try blowing in it.... Back to working for now... Who knows how long..

That's a drag. Pretty disappointing!
Your edit strikes a chord here. I think there is something to it, along the lines of debris/crap/whatever affecting the temp sensor. Before my break (almost a month now, ugh), I made a habit of removing mouthpiece while unit still warm, rapping on wood to empty and, after each couple of bowls then taking a firm, quick draw. I was also trying not to fill it to the brim nor tamp the load. Mine had previously both felt restricted (draw restricted) prior to their rma troubles. I did enjoy two great smooth running Hoppers for 3-4 months before the break. They're on vacation now, though not by my choice. Long, shitty story with which I could fill pages on the Fuck You! thread...

 

[Baron23]

I'd just really like to know in what time frame .... ever? In the first 24 hours after shipment? (ie. only for those that live in the same city) ... In the first 24 hours after ownership? .... my track record if you count for my SS having been shipped to me 4 times by HL not working properly and my Ti working for <1 week first time and working flawlessly for a 1 month period after 1st RMA ... than it's a 60% failure rate from the first second of ownership to the first week ... an 80% failure rate from week 1 to week 4, and a 100% failure rate within the first 5 weeks ...

I'm only a 1 person sample with 2 devices and 5 back-ends though so take it for what it's worth

Oh yeah ... @Icon13 ... you did it again ... think you meant 2,000 units

Reliability, Maintainability, and Availability are all well developed sub-disciplines for the design and QA engineer.

There is MTBF (mean time between failures) which has a time component for which there needs to be supporting data

There is FIT rate (failures in time) which will require collection of both # of failures and total operating time on the population (which they don't have unless there is a time keeper buried in the device and not available to the user).

Availability which we discussed earlier but to review is the probability that a system will work as required and when required during the period of a mission.

DOA or infant mortality - dead on arrival and for infant mortality, you need to define the time frame for "infant" but I think we know when we get a DOA or a vape that craps out prematurely, like @freshly baked 's GH.

Then we just got crappy testability, ambiguous fault isolation ability, and shitty QA that allows a vape to be RMA'd 5-10 times and still not provide the owner with a robust and reliable unit.

Note that almost all of the above requires a time data component. If Hopper Labs has any engineers working for it at all (and surely they do), then they KNOW....absolutely KNOW....that throwing out a figure like 1% failure rate is completely meaningless.

Look, I don't want to get into an RMA engineering debate with Hopper or anyone on the boards. I just bring this stuff up because when they throw out meaningless terms like this I feel its an insult to my intelligence (insult to our intelligence, really).

Final note, my GH is still working flawlessly after about a year although not a daily driver (still, probably 4-5 loads/week through it). But I still can't recommend it to anyone but a very experienced vaporist who has a stable of other vapes to rely on when the GH goes tits up.

Cheers

 

[abcd5432]

Maybe they're insulting your intelligence but I just realized my lack of intelligence on the matter after reading your post.
I'm going to continue to wait til 2018 I guess since I still have 2 of my vaporizer.
I'm happy I read your post and got some good engineering perspective

 

[Hjalmark]

I personally don't mind that crazy much when my hopper dies and it goes in for repairs, because I like the fact there are people improving the product on the other end, I spend a lot of time reading from through puffitup blog and their amazing tear downs, I recommend people to lay their hopper on a piece of paper and put the battery next to it and mark out size of hopper 3 parts, then size of the bowl and then size of battery on the paper .. What is left is your heater, circuit board and a tiny computing chip on both ends .. It's fucking magic

But also groundbreaking finicky new technology that is trying to be way to impossible for our "stealth factor pen secret vape ninjas"

I would be pretty sad if they went bankrupt, I look at myself as both a customer and a supporter


20-30 bucks ones or twice a year in mailing costs is not the end of the world for me

If your looking for a vape that can't break then get a stickybrick

 

[disGRUNTled]

Man it's been too long since I posted in here. Ordered the performance front end and some new glass, both go here today so perfect time to break the hopper out .Couple of bowls of Blue Dream and watching WWE
Raw.

 

[freshly baked]

That's a drag. Pretty disappointing!
Your edit strikes a chord here. I think there is something to it, along the lines of debris/crap/whatever affecting the temp sensor. Before my break (almost a month now, ugh), I made a habit of removing mouthpiece while unit still warm, rapping on wood to empty and, after each couple of bowls then taking a firm, quick draw. I was also trying not to fill it to the brim nor tamp the load. Mine had previously both felt restricted (draw restricted) prior to their rma troubles. I did enjoy two great smooth running Hoppers for 3-4 months before the break. They're on vacation now, though not by my choice. Long, shitty story with which I could fill pages on the Fuck You! thread...

Well I got another day out of it but now its going straight to blue lights with no heat again. Maybe it is small particles and I shouldn't be grinding quite so fine.

 

[Hjalmark]

Well I got another day out of it but now its going straight to blue lights with no heat again. Maybe it is small particles and I shouldn't be grinding quite so fine.

Think small particles getting into heater and circuit either from fine grind or left in a pocket without protection from pocket lint/sand is pretty much going to kill your hopper .. Specially fine grind left in the hopper and then going around in a bag or a pocket

All my vapes are convection so I been trying to find a grinder that gives as course grind as possible but still I would never leave grinder bud or NEVER stir load inside hopper, if I need to fill my hopper before hand then I put a whole nug inside but preferable fill a container then transfer over to hopper

Also noticed some more sizes

 

[slcbdco]

Maybe it is small particles

It probably is. Usually you can just blow the chamber out and it'll be fine.

 

[freshly baked]

It probably is. Usually you can just blow the chamber out and it'll be fine.

I had heard not to blow in the chamber I just did because it was broke anyway... Is it ok to blow into the chamber regularly?

 

[Hogni]

carefully with your mouth should be ok but care of using pressed air!

 

[Hjalmark]

Get some pressurised air for cleaning computer's and do it when it's been off for couple of minutes

Also maybe rotate it as you blow air into intake so the particles have a change to drop out not just push further into the hopper

 

[nonbeliever]

Get some pressurised air for cleaning computer's and do it when it's been off for couple of minutes

Also maybe rotate it as you blow air into intake so the particles have a change to drop out not just push further into the hopper

Along with his, I also occasionally just heat an empty chamber, and draw heavy for a few big empty hits. And keep the mouthpiece screen clean so you have better draws. It all helps keep it a bit cooler.