I am posting this with mixed feelings. I love D-Box. I think D-box adds an element to watching movies that’s amazing. I do nothing but tell people that it is the only way to watch movies.
That being said…
I have had Jaymar chair setup with the haptic hub (3 chairs and 2 hubs) for 2 years now - I believe I was one of the first/early customers of this chair series hub bundle. At the price point for this chair system I feel that it should be pretty much a plug and play system that should have little to no issues. The chairs themselves have been great and I have had no issues with them – solid and well built. As for the haptic hub, the same can’t be said…
In my two years with the system, I have had to troubleshoot and reset the haptic hub more times than I want to count. I have had to work with customer support on multiple issues, multiple times. I have had at least one hub replaced under warranty, maybe two (?), but because of the number of issues I have had to work, I can’t quite remember. Luckily those were in the first year of having the system and were replaced under warranty. I have had most if not all of the issues others of this system have had – jolting chairs, system not updating, chairs not communicating properly, trying to demo the system and it just won’t work, etc. I have gotten to the point of babying the system where I set it up so it has a straight wire connection to the internet/network and only use the microphone to recognize movies to try to minimize anyissues. Still, I continue to have problems…
Now, my main hub inexplicably stopped working over the holidays - power comes on, but it won’t talk to anything (won’t come up in app). My spare hub which I hadn’t connected/turned on in awhile (since it was my spare), wouldn’t update when I connected it to replace my non-working hub. Support finally got it to update its software, but then it wouldn’t talk to the chairs. After just powering it off and on at the switch on the unit it now is just going online and offline intermittently in the app and is completely unusable. So, I am back to trying to work with D-Box support to try to fix this new issue (currently on-going). Now I am wondering am I out a 2nd hub (which is not even 2 years old) within a 3 week span?!
I understand this is somewhat of a new system (the hub) and there would be some issues, but for the price I paid for the system and the current price point now for this chair bundle system (much more than I paid two years ago) I can’t help but think that if I had it all over to do again…I likely wouldn’t. As it stands, it looks like it is $2,020 to replace the hub (so far I haven’t been given the option to see if old one could be repaired). Not only is that a tough pill to swallow, I am also wondering if am I going to have to replace a hub approximately every two years (?) with all the multiple hub problems I have had.
I WANT to love this system. I WANT to enjoy and brag about this system. In fact, I have done exactly those things WHEN it works – it is wonderful and amazing. Not a single person who I have demo’d the system for hasn’t been anything less than blown away. But when it doesn’t work or there are issues, which is way more often then it should, it is frustrating and stressful and so unsatisfying. I look forward to getting my chair and “D-Boxing” away…but too often I find myself sitting in the chair, popcorn ready only to get up from my chair with some choice words and end up troubleshooting for hours and fiddling with equipment getting more and more pissed off. Sadly, this was my early retirement gift to myself… I feel like I should have gotten something else.
I’m at a point/cross roads…do I continue to sink money into this system (another $2K for a replacement hub) hoping it will be better “this time” or do I just cut bait and call it a very expensive lesson learned. Not sure I can drop more money on a hub that doesn’t have a better, stronger, long-term warranty…I need D-Box to show they believe in this hub as much as I want to believe in it. I need to know it is going to last a lot longer than ~2 years and/or (preferrably and not or) at least be priced at a more reasonable replacement cost.
