HTC Vive Pro, Buyer beware!

Nejtun

Moderator
Hey all,
As most of you know I am a HUGE VR enthusiast and currently there is no product on the market that comes anywhere near the performance of the HTC Vive Pro. I have however had a bad experience recently (which is still ongoing) that I have since discovered is not even close to a one-off situation.

Recently my Vive Pro stopped functioning correctly, so after many attempts at going back and forth with the online customer help I finally managed to get them to take the unit back which is still under warranty. For the record, I bought my Vive Pro on the day of release in April 2018 so as of today every single unit is still under warranty.

After almost 4 weeks of waiting (they quoted me "around 5 working days") I get an email lfrom the repair department stating that my unit can be repaired but I must pay for it as it malfunctioned due to misuse!

Now, I have never dropped it and due to the "bloody cold all the time" weather we are blessed with in the U.K my unit has rarely seen a drop of sweat, (sweat seems to be the main cause of people breaking their HMD's)

My damage, I am told, was the housing for adjusting the distance the lenses are set apart and required a new adjuster. When I first got my vive this adjustment lever was much looser than the one on my original vive but as it worked and adjusted properly I thought nothing more of it as I did not have another £900 Vive Pro to compare it to just laying around.

As far as I am concerned this is just a poor build quality issue which HTC should have rectified under warranty (in a timely fashion I might add) but instead they are charging me for it, the most infuriating part about this is that if I decide I don't want to pay , then they will charge me for looking at it in the first place and sending it back.

This level of customer service is totally unacceptable so I am just making this post to draw peoples attention to what they may be letting themselves in to when getting into untested technology with a company that has frankly piss poor customer service. After doing very very little searching I have found that many people have had similar levels of service from HTC to the point where one chap felt he had to make a video to bring this situation out into the open a little more.


I also need to add that VR is a new technology and I went into this originally knowing full well things can go wrong with something so untested but also expect to be treated as a valued customer, especially when payinig close to 4 figures for a piece of hardware (not that the price should matter on how a customer is treated)

As mentioned before, no company currently comes close to HTC for the VR capability so I am stuck using their product, but the moment something matches the performance I will jump ship without a second thought.

If HTC need an example of decent customer service they should look in the direction of EVGA who just last month sent me out a brand new GTX 980ti SC because the one I bought over 2 years ago stopped working, the guarantee you get with it was long gone but they will always have me as a customer for products down the line for replacing something that they have confidence should work well into the future.
 

Kenadian

Staff member
Site Admin
What they don't realize is you've been chirping for a while now on how awesome they are and how much we should all have one. You're one of the most vocal cheerleaders I've heard to date and this is your reward.

Have you bitched about it on Twitter?

I know when I'm really pissed about something I take it to Twitter and it usually equates to a much better Customer Service experience.
 

Nejtun

Moderator
I did actually, so if anyone sees my rather long twitter thread please re -tweet it! the more people that get on their back the better I think?
 

Deb

Moderator
That really sucks :mad: It always baffles me when a company has crappy customer service, its sort of like if you can't get that right, why are you in business?
 

Nejtun

Moderator
Soooooooo, further to this debacle from HTC, I received my HMD back today, in pieces........ the parts that they replaced ( not the right ones ) were just in the box! my original problem may or may not have been fixed (my first guess would be not repaired as the problem was electronic)

"But Nejt" you yell, "is it working again at least?" , well, I can't find out as I mentioned just now they sent me back the HMD and the big cable but NOTHING fucking else that plugs into my pc! This includes a link box, USB cables, power supply......
So now I have my vive lego and a slightly shaken customer service agent who left it far too long to put me onto someone else that could help me.

I have sent back the necessary pictures and luckily every conversation you have with the CS team is recorded and emailed to you once you are done with them (there have been a lot of these!) I am going to approach the bank next whether I get satisfaction from HTC or not as with all these pricey purchases I used a credit card as this is the best protection.

Not sure which way to go next if I can't get a working unit as unfortunately nobody yet makes a VR unit as advanced as the VivePro. Might be a case of waiting for the StarVR as that is the only thing so far that looks like it can match it.

The PiMax is super sketchy , the 404 error on their pre order site is not confidence inspiring not to mention it working/notworking/using workarounds to maybe make it work with various titles.

The Oddessy + from Samsung might be a contender but not enough improvement over the old one to rush out and grab it , wouldn't mind knowing if someone else has had a chance to try it yet?

High hopes for the valve HMD which has recently had pictures leaked as it is meant to have an even better field of view than the current headsets and uses the same screens as the Vive Pro, but no clue when that is going to drop.

I am quite pissed!!!
 

Kenadian

Staff member
Site Admin
This is patently ridiculous and just shouldn't be happening. Another thought, you may want to take to Reddit on this issue and see if you can get someone to respond there.

Also, I don't know if it will help at all but I retweeted you today and copied SteamVR.
 

Nejtun

Moderator
Cheers Ken, going to go with reddit as soon as I got more from Vive so I actually have something to work with , right now I am a bit up in the air, need to speak to HTC customer service tomorrow morning
 

Deb

Moderator
That really is incredible, I have never heard of such a thing. Seems they would be open for lawsuits.
 

Nejtun

Moderator
To be honest, they have already lost a customer for an extremely tiny market in the first place and whatever possible sales they would get from a current customer recommending to their friends ( every sale counts when your market is small) but above all I just want a working product.

I will clearly never buy from them again but this still leaves me without until something gets done. If i could go somewhere else right now, I would and then take my time sorting HTC's horseshit out.
 

Kinger

Core
For what it's worth there have been a few posts by folks picking up Samsung O+'s in one of the flight forums I frequent for DCS and comments have been mainly positive with almost every user keeping it instead of returning it to the store for a refund. From my limited understanding, the resolution provided by the Vive Pro and the O+ is very similar?
 

Nejtun

Moderator
Cheers mike, I have been checking this out today myself , although it has the same screens and res as the vive , the colours are quite washed out and the tracking leaves a bit to be desired ( apparently ) keeping my eye on this though as Samsung are supposed to be dropping the price of this for black friday ( much to the annoyance of the people that just bought it )
Fingers crossed !
 

little P

Super Mod
I just noticed this thread blimey...

Have you still got your original vive to tide you over?

I'm really surprised actually, I had an issue with one of my lighthouses and contacted HTC about it via the customer services link on their website and they sent me out a replacement one no questions asked. Considering they are around £120 I thought that was jolly decent of them. All I had to do was send them a pic of the lighthouse which showed the faulty magnet and they sent me another straight away.

Hope it gets sorted out for you mate, that's a lot of money for something which isn't working properly and so new as well.

Are you sure you didn't smack yourself round the head playing ping pong again?
I've been following the pimax HMD's very closely and the 8k X looks like it's the one to watch, oled screens and no screen door with native 4k in each eye, not upscaled from 1440p like the regular 8k. 5k+ has very little screen door and very crisp visuals, clearer than the 8k but is using lcd panels so blacks are grey compared to oled which isn't acceptable imo.

We are still a way away from the perfect HMD... but at least we are moving in the right direction. I shudder to think what kind of power we are going to need to run that pimax 8k X though, the 2080Ti can't even run the 5k+ at 50fps let alone the 90fps required. Permanent reprojection with a £1,300 GPU... hmm.

I'm calling shenanigans on star VR early, it's going to be ridiculously expensive as it's really not aimed at individual buyers but commercial applications. We are still a generation or two from achieving the equilibrium between HMD's and GPU's with the 4K in each eye and high FOV imo.
 

Nejtun

Moderator
I think you were quite lucky @little P my first controller from my OG vive lost all its D-pad feeling, after the warranty. HTC wanted £120 to fix it (if they could they said) so I bought a brand new one from scan.co.uk for £100 instead. Turns out it was a super common problem where a small patch of rubber inside the controller needed to be re seated ( properly I might add, as it wasn't secured in the first place) and it was as good as new.

I only found this out from some youtube searching and spent £7 on a set of tinny tools that meant i could open the controller up. This seems to be typical of a lot of the vive problems for people again and again. Once again though, I am totally aware that this is all new tech and can break in ways that will always be new, it is the CS afterwards that has left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Regarding the PiMax, it seems to be the 5k + that is the best purchase atm, even to the point that the company are offering people with pre orders of the 8k a swap to the 5k+! although who is getting that to run flat out I have no clue , it seems very greedy. As for the 8k X, I am not even sure that is anything more than an idea right now. The PiMax isn't really something I am looking at so much though as its looking like March or later for people that were not part of the kick starter or even later if the kick starter people have more delays.

Been looking more at the Samsung Odyssey Plus which seems like it is as close to the vive pro as anything right now just with slightly shittier colours, its released in the states already but still no word of when it is going to be available in Europe.
As an aside, anyone thinking of getting an Odyssey, WAIIIIIT until next week as they are already showing on Samsungs U.S site as $200 cheaper than retail for the black Friday sales.

I am seriously considering running 4k triples at the moment though, (my card would still have 6 million pixels to spare before anyone says "you can't run 3 x 4k monitors!!") I would miss the VR but getting screwed around like I have been with no competition to turn to is really not worth the hassle.
 

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