After more than 13 months of waiting for some customers, PlusUs, has advised that they will finally begin shipping their LifeLink charging cable this month.
It’s been a long road full of mis-steps and failed communications from the company, which originally promised the LifeLink would ship in early 2014.
Communication has been spotty from PlusUs throughout the last year or more, with their last update to customers arriving in November last year advising ‘Your LifeLink pre-order is getting ready to ship’. Obviously this did not occur and over two months later, customers have still not been contacted with further updates.
We contacted PlusUs and a representative advised the following update:
All LifeLinks pre-orders have been manufactured and are now with our fulfilment company. Order shipments started processing yesterday and will continue for the next week to 10 days.
As indicated by the emails in November this was all to be completed well before the new year. For various reasons this was not possible and they are all being processed now.
It’s timely to remember this wasn’t a Kickstarter project with a nebulous shipping date, it was a tangible order for a product. PlusUs has also proven that they can actually ship products, with their LifeStar premium USB cables launching and shipping within a couple of months.
So, what went wrong? During the last year, PlusUs has blamed manufacturing issues such as getting the design and materials making the cable ‘just right’, as well as a lack of Lightning adapters in the lead up to the iPhone 6 launch. PlusUs also advised last year that they had tied in their manufacturing run of the product to make both the microUSB and Lightning adapter versions in the same production run, meaning that customers waiting for microUSB cables would have to wait for the shortage of lightning adapters was resolved.
PlusUs has not answered queries on whether they will offer anything to compensate LifeLink customers for the extended delays and lack of communication.
Waited almost 14 months for the damned thing and less than 10 uses and the lightning connector falls off… wow…..
They flat out lied in past communications, claiming that tooling for manufacturing had begun when their blog revealed later that it hadn’t started until months later.
Nice concept, the charity aspect gave me some warm and fuzzies, but I’ll never buy from them again.
Oh. I remember this thing from the distant past. Its just a USB cable, isn’t it? Don’t understand the drama.
I had asked them for an update by email a few weeks ago, with no response. As Lucas says, I’ll believe they are shipping the cables when I actually have mine in my hands.
Likewise I asked them a question regarding my micro USB cable order as the email they sent regarding the confirmation of the shipping address implied they might be sending me an apple lightening cable. No acknowledgment or response to my email of a week ago.
I won’t beleive it until it’s in my hands
I have mine! Three Lifelink cables arrived yesterday.