Securifi Community Forum

Securifi Products => Almond+ => Topic started by: coolcatiger on October 02, 2014, 01:52:53 pm

Title: Almond + very poor performance - do you think so as well ?
Post by: coolcatiger on October 02, 2014, 01:52:53 pm
I am early backer and received my device in first batch and was very excited.
As soon as I received y new Almond + I replaced my cisco E4200 with it and gave away E4200 to a friend.

But my Almond + has degraded in performance so much that now nothing work for more than 10 min after reboot or reconnecting wiif from devices. Apple app never download, they fail all the time. Airplay has become useless and  all other issues. I even disabled 5 Ghz and started using 2.4 after support said 5 GHz has issue. Now 2.4 is behaving erratically.

Support was prompt  to contact but unless device work sweet nice words from support to "wait" is useless. Finally as i had already given away e4200 I ended up buying another linksys router.

I relied on Securifi's   1st almond reviews and betted on Almond+. At this point I am very disappointed highly DO NOT recommend it to anyone.

I am not even daring to try home automation part at this time. So don't know how miserable it is to used home automation part.

Almond+ is now $100 brick on my desk.

Are you guys frustrated ? Or am I the only one ?
Title: Re: Almond + very poor performance - do you think so as well ?
Post by: mr23 on October 02, 2014, 02:12:47 pm
My unit is white+ sensors thus sent later.
So far it is working reliably, around 2 months?
Just waiting on HA etc feature adds.
Title: Re: Almond + very poor performance - do you think so as well ?
Post by: coolcatiger on October 02, 2014, 02:16:02 pm
I am guessing from beginning that there is something wrong with HW of device I received and support is adamant on saying it's software and on top of this they are not ready to fix the software ......

I am really frustrated. >:( :(
Title: Re: Almond + very poor performance - do you think so as well ?
Post by: tt4me on October 02, 2014, 02:27:31 pm
Put me down in the "Happy" column.  Is it perfect?  No, far from it.  But as a developer, I get that some things take time to iron out. I'm happy to have mine sooner than later.

As for stability though, mine has only been rebooted for power outages, and firmware updates.  I sure can't complain about that.  Granted our home is only 17-1800 sqft, but it reaches to every corner, and also 2 houses down from us.  I've got a door/window sensor, and also an outlet that was shipped with the Almond+ and both are through 2 walls and about 100 or so feet away and work perfectly, every time.

Maybe I just got lucky though.
Title: Re: Almond + very poor performance - do you think so as well ?
Post by: tt4me on October 02, 2014, 02:29:08 pm
I should clarify on the signal, in that, yes I do get connected 2 houses down, I have not tried to surf or do much of anything at that distance.  I've just noticed that I've connected that soon when driving down the street.
Title: Re: Almond + very poor performance - do you think so as well ?
Post by: hiero on October 02, 2014, 03:20:40 pm
Wow, I'm sorry you've had such a poor experience  :-\  I've so far had an amazing experience with my A+ and like tt4me says, it's definitely not perfect, but I'm willing to wait for some of the features that were promised.  At the moment though, it's been great. 
Title: Re: Almond + very poor performance - do you think so as well ?
Post by: coolcatiger on October 02, 2014, 03:39:48 pm
Thanks for sharing your experience.

At this point i really don't care about additional features. I plan to use Almond+ in AP mode.  The basic WIFI is broken.

I am just not understanding why Securifi is hesitating to replace my device.
Title: Re: Almond + very poor performance - do you think so as well ?
Post by: francehopper on October 02, 2014, 04:51:35 pm
I'm happy with mine despite the teething issues. But you get used to those as a beta tester ;)
Title: Re: Almond + very poor performance - do you think so as well ?
Post by: zentrickster on October 02, 2014, 08:46:14 pm
Quote
Are you guys frustrated ? Or am I the only one ?


No, you are not the only one... I have had problems with my Almond + from the day I received it..

I've mentioned my problems in a few threads.... and been belittled by some other users for not being patient.... and told we will take baby steps  to get my router all happy happy by a Mod..

OK Securifi took $100 from me by putting together a nice polished Kickstarter campaign..

Fool me once... shame on you.... Fool me twice..shame on...

Skeet shooting... I'm going soon.... and the Almond is most likely going to replace a clay...

Pull!!




Title: Re: Almond + very poor performance - do you think so as well ?
Post by: LGNilsson on October 02, 2014, 09:09:19 pm
zentrickster, did I not tell you to contact support so we can replace yours?

Coolcatiger, sorry to hear about your problems and I'll have a look see why the support team hasn't replaced yours already.

Do we have some issues? Yes, are we working on trying to fix them? If course we are, but please understand that some these things takes time for us to debug and fix. We expect to have most of the issues solved within the next two firmware updates. The problem is that we didn't run into any of these issues before we shipped and now we're doing our very best to get things fixed, but it's not something that takes five minutes to fix. Please keep in mind that we're a relatively small company of only about 40 employees in total, with about half being our software team. We're not Netgear or Linksys, we don't have their kind of resources and in as much as I understand how frustrating it is to have a poorly working router, it's not as if we're sitting idly and doing nothing about the issues.
Title: Re: Almond + very poor performance - do you think so as well ?
Post by: SteveD on October 02, 2014, 11:07:04 pm
coolcatiger, not to make you feel paranoid, but the Almond+ has been working great for me in an all Apple device environment. I'm still running the R065 firmware, and currently have an uptime of just over 29 days. (The latter made me skip R066 as it didn't fix anything I was currently concerned about). Wireless range has been better than my 802.11n AirPort Extreme dual-band. Stability has also been better than the AE in that one of my AppleTVs was regularly dropping its connection with it, and I haven't seen that happen once with the Almond+.

It's clear that some people are having problems with Apple devices and the Almond+, but Securifi has been very upfront about acknowledging it, and hopefully a reliable fix will be released soon.
Title: Re: Almond + very poor performance - do you think so as well ?
Post by: felixdacat on October 03, 2014, 12:10:43 am
Solid performance, no disconnects, everything works (= what's supposed to be working and what I'm actually using), promising future. Consumer electronics and crowd-funding usually are not a match made in heaven, but this has been a good experience so far. I am very much looking forward to a complete HA solution.

And I'm not sure why but here we go:
Zentrickster: Next time don't shop at Kickstarter. I understand it's frustrating but you can't expect a perfect product even before it's publicly available. And yes, you might have gotten the worst lemon of all, but at least the team is listening, communicating, and trying to make it right. That's not the case for many other KS projects. I also understand that this kind of concept and all side effects of being an early adopter are not comprehensible for some. Best of luck in getting it sorted out.
Title: Re: Almond + very poor performance - do you think so as well ?
Post by: nsvrana on October 03, 2014, 12:59:02 pm
It sounds very much like you are experiencing the bug described here - http://forum.securifi.com/index.php/topic,1515.0.html, which Securifi said will be fixed in the next software update.
Title: Re: Almond + very poor performance - do you think so as well ?
Post by: Achrovost on October 03, 2014, 10:41:45 pm
I got mine rather early on and I have not had any issues with it. I have two roommates that both play heavy online games, my self included. We stream twitch, movies, and music without a problem. All three of us can have a video game running with streaming music, we also have all our phones, tablets, game systems, media streaming devices (a roku and two chromcasts) hooked up as well with no issues.

All in all I feel that I got more than I paid for.
Title: Re: Almond + very poor performance - do you think so as well ?
Post by: Cotesy on October 04, 2014, 12:38:25 pm
Gave it to your friend getting rid of B plan unit? Can i be your friend man!

Mine worked like 4 days than died. Think it went to hot standing flat. Securifi agreed for replacement, was surprised that they payed both new and return shipping units, took around a month the whole process, I put my old previous unit during that time. Had very good support +++.

Some enhancement expected next firmware : ios wifi stability while returning from sleep, 5ghertz actually 10%slower than 2gh.

Almond+ is a big deal for me, even not using sensor capabilities.

I pledge for Soap IGG too so it will be fun to compare both product if ever released (Soap one).
Title: Re: Almond + very poor performance - do you think so as well ?
Post by: joltdude on October 07, 2014, 08:47:23 am
zentrickster, did I not tell you to contact support so we can replace yours?

Coolcatiger, sorry to hear about your problems and I'll have a look see why the support team hasn't replaced yours already.

Do we have some issues? Yes, are we working on trying to fix them? If course we are, but please understand that some these things takes time for us to debug and fix. We expect to have most of the issues solved within the next two firmware updates. The problem is that we didn't run into any of these issues before we shipped and now we're doing our very best to get things fixed, but it's not something that takes five minutes to fix. Please keep in mind that we're a relatively small company of only about 40 employees in total, with about half being our software team. We're not Netgear or Linksys, we don't have their kind of resources and in as much as I understand how frustrating it is to have a poorly working router, it's not as if we're sitting idly and doing nothing about the issues.

People don't get that when they are "First Adopters" of a technology product.. there are a lot of variables that can't be accounted for in testing... that only rear their ugly head when devices go into the field and get into consumers hands.. Kickstarter/Indiegogo really aren't a store for finished goods.. Many times devices are shipped in a ... it works pretty good state where it runs acceptably under most conditions... knowing there might be some kinks that need to be worked out, but it should be fixable in software.. Plus KS backers whine the later you ship a product... its a balancing act between shipping it too early and its unusable, shipping it slightly late and it works for most, or shipping it extremely late and people start attacking you and wanting refunds that you already spent the funding on production.. and that still does NOT guarantee folks will not have issues in real life. Some crowdsourced hardware projects are simple enough that its pretty good that it will work out of the box but add a processor and computing power or an embedded system.. and all bets are off..
Title: Re: Almond + very poor performance - do you think so as well ?
Post by: joltdude on October 07, 2014, 09:03:56 am
Thanks for sharing your experience.

At this point i really don't care about additional features. I plan to use Almond+ in AP mode.  The basic WIFI is broken.

I am just not understanding why Securifi is hesitating to replace my device.

Because its software issues not hardware... And the wireless component/driver is what is called a closed source/proprietary component that only the wireless chip maker is privy to... This is the normal course of business for routers.. The business end of the wifi usually is NOT in control of the router vendor.. Router manufacturers are limited in what they are allowed to see/access from the wireless driver... they have to get it fixed by the chipset vendor and it comes back as what is called a "binary blob"... or as a plug-in..  they arent allowed to modify it, they have to use it as-is.... Broadcomm is notorious for this as well as other wifi vendors.. This also goes for many video cards.. they dont want securifi to know "whats under the hood"...
but they are allowed to transact through it...