Matrix Orbital warranty policy

[dodge55]

Hi,

We are a developer of government security systems worldwide and are evaluating several of the M.O. displays for a couple of projects, namely the GLK24064 and GLK12232. While we are generally pleased about the looks and general operation of the displays (we use I2C), we have a little concern on the warranty shipment policies. We have discovered in the short time we've had the displays that both displays have some design defects that require shipping them back to Canada (from Georgia) to get firmware updates. The GLK24064 does not perform the I2C reads from the display like the user's manual says it does. We were told that version 5.4 corrects the problem (we have 5.3). On the GLK12232, the I2C protocol doesn't work at all. There seems to be a 'mod', which requires 'lifting a pin' from a RS232 chip and jumpering one of the RS232 pads. We have been unable to get this mod to fix the I2C operations. We were told to send them back for update.

However, the warranty policy of M.O. is that only AIR shipments are allowed for warranty repairs, which puts the shipping costs at $50+ dollars. We think this policy is unfair? Particularly, when the displays have definite design flaws that prevent them from working like the user's manual states.

We haven't as of yet received an answer from M.O. on the reasoning behind their strict AIR shipment policy on warranty repairs. We were told simply that 'No Ground shipments are allowed'. With a policy like this, is M.O. discouraging sending defective product back by having high shipping costs? Do their products have that many problems to warrant such a policy? We have to justify and document all project components, and why we choose and do not chose them for all our govt. projects. We don't think our customers are going to allow us to choose a product that has this type of expensive warranty policy, particularly for design defect situations. It seems a little suspicious.

Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated for those who have sent their displays back for warranty repair. We are simply looking at the long term outlook of using the M.O. displays in our govt. products and how to justify their use.

Thanks.

Sutton Mehaffey
Lookout Portable Security

[Larry]

Sutton,

We have discovered in the short time we've had the displays that both displays have some design defects that require shipping them back to Canada (from Georgia) to get firmware updates. The GLK24064 does not perform the I2C reads from the display like the user's manual says it does. We were told that version 5.4 corrects the problem (we have 5.3).

Unfortunately you must have gotten the display prior to when we realized that there was a problem. As you know, our general policy is that we will reflash any display with the latest firmware, if you can get the display to us. For code security, we do not allow customers under any circumstances to have our ROM files so they can update their own unit. For that you'll have to wait for our next generation of display.

On the GLK12232, the I2C protocol doesn't work at all. There seems to be a 'mod', which requires 'lifting a pin' from a RS232 chip and jumpering one of the RS232 pads. We have been unable to get this mod to fix the I2C operations. We were told to send them back for update.

The GLK12232-25-SM has been undergoing a revision to R2.0 lately, and only within the last week or two have engineering samples even been available. We have addressed all of these old bugs with the new revision, and have had excellent feedback from a few customers that have helped us test the new revision.

However, the warranty policy of M.O. is that only AIR shipments are allowed for warranty repairs, which puts the shipping costs at $50+ dollars. We think this policy is unfair? Particularly, when the displays have definite design flaws that prevent them from working like the user's manual states.

We don't use UPS Ground because we are located in Canada, and any ground shipment has to be cleared through a broker and custom fees payed. In the end, we would have to bill the customs fees back to you which would make shipping via air end up being cheaper.

With a policy like this, is M.O. discouraging sending defective product back by having high shipping costs? Do their products have that many problems to warrant such a policy?

Flat out, no. In these two circumstances, there has been a problem. In one you got caught in the lurch, finding a bug before we even knew about it. For the second, this is a bug that we knew about and were already working to get a new display up and running. We admit that both of these are our fault, and want to make things right. As for the accusation of problems, flat out no.

Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated for those who have sent their displays back for warranty repair. We are simply looking at the long term outlook of using the M.O. displays in our govt. products and how to justify their use.

Because this is our problem, and we want to make this right, we will ship at no cost to you a new GLK24064-25 with the latest firmware, and an engineering sample of a GLK12232-25-SM rather than have them shipped to us for repair, and having to ship them back. In the end we decided that it is cheaper for both of us to do it this way.

I haven't heard of any of our international customers having a problem with this policy, as upon further inspection it makes more sense to ship via air.

Larry
Matrix Orbital