MiLifePlus: Bluetooth Health Sensor For iPhone and Android | Hacker News Reader

MiLifePlus: Bluetooth Health Sensor For iPhone and Android

indiegogo.com

41 pointsashleyw43 comments

There is no way this product will ever ship. Greg, what are you even going to do with 150k or even 250k or 1mm? You already burned up almost a million bucks on this exact same idea when I was working for you and it was a huge waste because of your terrible execution and stubborn reluctance to seek or take any advice from anyone whatsoever.

The market has judged you and found you lacking. Cede your resources to a more efficient actor in the market and go home.

It's unfortunate, even if MiLife+ turns out to be everything as described, my and most others experience with WakeMate was terrible. From poor hardware, to a buggy app, to the general indifference of their customers' suffering, does not instill confidence in any future products related to WakeMate.

Shouldn't there be an extensive apology blog post that apologizes for the failures of WakeMate and contrasts that with what MiLife+ will be in both product and quality of service?

I couldn't agree more. This company stains the name of YC in my opinion.

I bought a WakeMate in Jan 11, it stopped working within 3 mos. So I emailed support, they asked me to fill out a Refurbishment Request Form (a Google doc). I did, but they never responded. I emailed again... no reply. $100 down the tube... just threw it in the trash last week in fact.

I defended these guys when they had the bad USB plugs that caught on fire. I'm an entrepreneur too, I get that hardware is a pain... support is a drag. But I also know I've absolutely bent over backward to help paying customers... I've easily spent several hours helping customers paying for a $29/mo account on many, many occasions. It's just inexcusable to completely ignore customers.

Don't forget just abandoning the Android version completely, without bothering to tell anyone. I really don't believe they are going to support the new Android app any better.

It's not exactly giving me confidence when there are tweets like this one: http://twitter.com/wakemate/statuses/218007015379845120

Seems slightly unethical to use you former companies twitter account (and email list it seems, based on the ad I received) to market for your new company.

Is MiLife a new company? If so, did they buy the assets of WakeMate? Or is it the same original entity that YC has equity in?

Yes, it is a new company: http://twitter.com/wakemate/statuses/218002374436995077

Twitter account now changed name from "Wakemate" to "Greg":

https://twitter.com/#!/wakemate

It's still taking an account that was used exclusively for things relating to wakemate and using it to market a completely different product. Look at the history for the account, it's pretty clear it's not just a personal account that had been used for wakemate stuff.

Exactly, this is weird. Till march, @wakemate twitter account was asking saying its email address is arun at wakemate.

I was about to order one, even though I had to wait a long time for my wakemate. However, after reading this thread, I've decided against it. Too much drama.

I got this email from Arun this morning:

Hello WakeMaters!

MiLife+

Many of you received an email this morning concerning a new product called MiLife+. I want to make it clear that WakeMate is not affiliated with this product in any way.

Today was the first time I have heard of this product and I am shocked at the way it was promoted to WakeMate customers. Our mailing list was used without our knowledge by a former WakeMate employee, Greg. Fortunately no other user information was compromised and I am deleting the mailing list.

For those of you who have donated to the Indiegogo project I have contacted Greg and Indiegogo and it is being taken down. You will all receive your money back.

What’s Next?

I poured my heart and soul into this company and though we stumbled along the way I believe that we provided something of value to our customers. However, as many of you have guessed, we have exhausted our capital and will no longer be making any more WakeMates.

Currently our plan is to keep the service going while we work on open sourcing the technology. Hopefully this will ensure that you can continue to enjoy the product and its benefits even after the company no longer exists.

I am very sorry for the unsolicited emails. This email list will not be used again.

all the best, Arun Gupta co-founder of WakeMate

I first heard of this via email ... an email that had a spelling error, associates itself with Wakemate (but is a different domain) and when I visited the Wakemate site, find it is offline.

Up until I saw this HN link, I had assumed the Wakemate accounts had been compromised and marked the email as spam.

Given the issues they had with customer relationship/communication management with Wakemate, it looks like they haven't learnt from their past mistakes.

It might as well be compromised, it looks like someone who had access to all the wakemate info has decided to start marketing a new product from a new company using all the old wakemate accounts: http://twitter.com/wakemate/statuses/218007015379845120

Arun from wakemate here. This is the first I'm hearing of this. Trying to get a handle on the situation now.

Also the website is up at www.wakemate.com. (not working without the www but we will fix it.)

Edit: working without the www again.

I'm going to echo everyone else's concerns here and say that the drama from wakemate, lukewarm-to-nonexistant support, and now just letting the wakemate domain expire altogether have not exactly inspired confidence in this product. Maybe if a year down the road, it seems to be useful, I'll pick one up.

There's a lesson in PR here, though. I'm normally all over these types of products. This should have been the easiest sale in the world.

Did anyone else catch that they said Kickstarter in the video and its clearly on Indiegogo?

(link to YouTube specific time, but its the same video from Indiegogo) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCZQvguYTqg&feature=playe...

Kickstarter doesn't allow "Exercise and fitness products", "Health and personal care products", or "Medical and safety-related products".

http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines?ref=footer

Right, I get it -- the video just shouldn't say Kickstarter when it's hosted on Indiegogo

Having gone through a bunch of wakemates that stopped working or were DOA's, their horribly unresponsive service as a result of that (and not to mention their botched launch), I have absolutely no faith in this team being able to deliver.

Which is a shame because the product itself, like the wakemate before it, sounds very cool.

I hate to be piling on, I'm sure this is an unpleasant enough thread for the Wakemate team to read, but MiLife+ is a pretty horrible name. Wakemate was a great name. MiLife+? Come on, even Microsoft names their products better than that!

I agree. WakeMate was a great same. MiLife is too close to MLife, the insurance company.

Hi everyone. Arun from wakemate here. This is the first I'm hearing about any of this. Trying to get a handle on the situation now.

I'm usually excited about these things, but count me out on this one. I was an early backer of Wakemate (pre-ordered over a year before it finally launched). I have yet to receive everything I paid for, the product itself was defective, and I could never get any responses from customer support, so I'd rather not go through that again.

This seems to be the same thing as a fit bit, jawbone up, etc. Except worse in that it requires a phone and unlike the fitbit, will interpret tooth brushing as vigorous exercise. On top of that, it requires a subscription. The BodyMedia series of devices are better than this one and are the same price.

And even worse, still, in that it's being offered by the same people behind the WakeMate disaster: broken promises, long waits, defective units, poor software, non-existent support, and power plugs that burst into flames.

Remember when they promised that they were going to ship power plugs that didn't catch on fire? They never did that.

Not to nitpick, but the spelling mistake in the email announcement doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

I came to say the same thing because things like "Click here for all the detials or to order" completely turned me off and made me think their mailing list got hacked and some new spam magnetic balance bracelet was being announced.

Would have loved some final communication from the WakeMate team. They seemed to just quietly fade away. I was one of the fortunate ones who got sent a replacement wristband when mine stopped working, but now I only use the app as a basic alarm without the wristband.

I can't imagine getting anything else from their team unless I heard some explanation of what happened with WakeMate.

In December I finally received this email after they realized the devices were not compatible with iPhone 4S:

To be perfectly honest, as you can probably tell, things have not been going well for us. We simply don't have the cash to fix the problem. We likely will not be selling anymore wristbands though we will continue to keep the service running for existing customers. I'm really sorry!

all the best, Arun

I will say that even though the outcome sucked, Arun was always very pleasant and helpful in our numerous email exchanges.

Thank you! Arun from wakemate here. This is the first I'm hearing about any of this. Trying to get a handle on the situation now.

Also as always, if you have any WakeMate related concerns please email me: arun[at]wakemate.com!

I'm really interested in this, but to be honest the drama from the last product makes me hesitant if I can trust the company. I'll probably wait until they for sure have them in stock.

It also looks like they took down the website and app for Wakemate, which seems to have come as a surprise for the dozens of people that were still using the product.

I seem to remember something about the app simply uploading its collected data to their site where all the analysis happened. Is a Wakemate device even useful without the site, or did they just hang all their remaining customers out to dry without so much as a public announcement? Another argument for not just data portability but vendor independence.

It sounds like this is news to the rest of the team, it's just one person who's gone off on his own and taken the twitter credentials and email list

Looks like they decided I'm not sleeping enough, as their intro video plays like a lullaby.

Reading this it sounds like the WakeMate team split up and Greg now has a new company that is trying this MiLife+

How are they tracking diet automatically through the wristband? Can someone please explain that to me?

I'm guessing it probably comes from the app on your iPhone just like WakeMate interfaces through a mobile phone for setup and the rest.

It makes the wrist thingy kinda irrelevant, but maybe they correlate your heart rhythm with the food that you ate or something.

I haven't followed the drama from the WakeMate product. I just used it to wake up at the right times and it did a fine job at that.

I think the drama is that, for many people (myself included), WakeMate didn't do that. It would not charge, or sync, or lose connection overnight, or any other number of problems.

Granted, their customer service offered to help me out but others weren't as lucky.

How does this thing know when I'm eating or exercising? I assume it's got a gyro and accelerometer; how does it know if I'm doing squats or just waving to a friend on the street?

By the way, the wakemate.com domain was expired.

The concept (Wakemate) is still pretty good. Why is no one else taking a run with it?

Have you checked out LARK, they do the same thing that Wakemate did...

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