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Nomad stands-delayed...
- Thread starter cosmic68
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The stand itself is... nice. It'd be really nice, but they cut that extra slot into the top at the 11th hour. Saying, at the time, "well, all the stand manufacturers were taken by surprise and had to make accommodations for the different chargers." Except I don't recall the other manufacturers defacing their stands in the process. This stand sold on the basis of having beautiful clean lines and sleek elegance, and they mucked that up considerably by cutting an extra hole in the front. Sure, that's a "minor detail and shouldn't be a big deal", but then, if I just wanted something functional and didn't care about looks, I could have made one out of spare Amazon boxes and masking tape, with a pair of scissors, in about 20 minutes (including prototypes!), and saved myself a boatload of money and aggravation. But they said, no, buy our stand, it'll look SO cool. And it almost did. It's funny, I also have the Mophie stand, which I bought while I was waiting, and it has an opening that will accommodate either charger, with a little spacer disk that sits under the charger if you're using the thinner one. That was an easy solution, and the Mophie stand remains elegant.
Nomad could have done a similar thing, but their stand is fashioned out of a single piece of bent metal, whose thickness was chosen to match the thinner charger. So they were kind of stuck. But there was a clear, straightforward solution: don't have a lip on the back of the stand to hold the charger in, instead have a separate piece that screws onto the back (think like a "+" sign with a screw at each corner, attached across the back of the hole in the stand), that hangs out far enough behind the stand to accommodate the thicker charger, with (just like Mophie) a spacer disk to sit in the bottom of the hole when using the thinner charger. And the extra bits would be out of view, so they wouldn't have to be crazy pretty. And the front of the charger would look just like it did in the original pictures. It wouldn't have increased the production cost of the charger substantially, but it would have added a number of extra steps and required sourcing a few additional parts. Now, the solution I've outlined doesn't take rocket science to figure out. I'm sure it must have crossed their minds. The method they chose didn't require any extra parts, just one adjustment to the CNC milling program that was cutting the hole for the charger. So they went with the solution that was cheap, fast, required as little extra effort as possible, and only DISCARDED ONE OF THE MAJOR SELLING POINTS OF THE STAND.
And, as an added benefit, if they had done things my way, the all-plastic sports charger wouldn't stick out the front of the stand so far. Note that this means, if you use the partly metal charger that comes with the steel watches, the charger will fit as planned (though with an unnecessary, and ugly slot cut in the front), but if you use the plastic charger that comes with the sport models, it'll stick further out in front of the stand than was intended in the original design.
But they were in a hurry to get their big order delivered to BestBuy on time, and to get us suckers who pre-ordered out of the way, so they went with the solution that was cheap, quick, and made the actual item, well, kinda lousy. They damaged a product they'd already sold, to get themselves out of a bind. From my viewpoint as a software developer, who has to design things to work with changing specifications all the time, I think it was really stupid of them to design to such close tolerances around an item they'd never had in their hands, with no room for fallback ("if you fail to plan, you plan to fail").
I'll keep the stand (because returning it would be still more hassle, and I wanted two - office and bedroom - anyway), and it'll work fine, but I'll be a bit annoyed every time I look at it. Thanks a lot for that, Nomad. Expect me to steer friends and associates away from your products in the future.
I happen to have both kinds of chargers (the plastic one came with my 42mm SGS, the deluxe, thinner, plastic-and-metal one is what you get if you order one separately - and yes, I just realized in the last pair of comparison pics below, the deluxe charger is upside down - but the cable is roughly centered between top and bottom, so it doesn't really make a difference in the dimensions which is the point of the picture). So, here, pictures of the two different chargers installed in the Nomad stand (and I was definitely going for detail over focus), and a comparison of the two chargers.
I have a Elevation Lab Nightstand, which has a soft velvet feel surface and semi-stress-release-sponge like feeling when it is press, which give a little play. I only have SS charger from my SS AW, but I bet EL-NS will work for both charger without any issue due to slightly sponge like play.
Umm...wrong thread. There's both an elevation lab thread as well as a stands sticky up at the top of the accessories forum.
And, frankly, it's rude to respond to a detailed post with, essentially, "I can't be bothered to read, please just spoon feed me the part that I'm interested in." (Whichever part that may be - we're left to guess.) We are, after all, over 26 pages and 650 posts, and nearly two months into this thread.
Can the people who have received their stands confirm there is clearance between the charging puck and the stand itself?
As in, there is no metal to metal contact with the watch and the stand? Last thing I would want to do is scratch the watch when putting it on and off the stand for charging....
As in, there is no metal to metal contact with the watch and the stand? Last thing I would want to do is scratch the watch when putting it on and off the stand for charging....
It was a joke dude, relax. Had you not jumped immediately into hyper defense mode I would have commented further, but then you implied that I was illiterate. But whatever.
I will relax. But I can't really reply in the here and now in a manner suited to a post that you intend to make in the future, unless you make your intentions known. And I cannot have implied that you were illiterate, while we were in the middle of a written conversation. I implied that you did not learn to enjoy reading - you implied this much yourself with your original "tl;dr" message.
Feel free to comment about the Nomad stand.
Expand the picture on the previous page, and you can see the amount of both pucks that protrude.
i painted my premium charging cable black and plastic dip sprayed the cable black. i think it will look much better with the stand. Im going to buy the aluminum/silver one at best buy and have it powder coated black. I saw the space grey and didn't like it much. Didn't realize the puck was that much more slim i like that it sits slightly more flush.Well, I received my stand about half an hour ago. Nomad's original message to the shipper was on the 1st, and they got it into he shipper's hands on the 4th. It arrived on the 25th. That's three weeks. I've had packages from Hong Kong delivered here in five or six days, numerous times, and that includes the seller wrapping and sending, the package going through customs, the whole deal (and this via normal mail, NOT FedEx). This wouldn't be so annoying if they hadn't excitedly announced their shipping plans as "we found the best way to get your stand to you as quickly as possible." Instead of saying "we bought into the delivery claims of this shipper because they offered the lowest price, and we're repeating those claims to you without checking to see if they're true."
The stand itself is... nice. It'd be really nice, but they cut that extra slot into the top at the 11th hour. Saying, at the time, "well, all the stand manufacturers were taken by surprise and had to make accommodations for the different chargers." Except I don't recall the other manufacturers defacing their stands in the process. This stand sold on the basis of having beautiful clean lines and sleek elegance, and they mucked that up considerably by cutting an extra hole in the front. Sure, that's a "minor detail and shouldn't be a big deal", but then, if I just wanted something functional and didn't care about looks, I could have made one out of spare Amazon boxes and masking tape, with a pair of scissors, in about 20 minutes (including prototypes!), and saved myself a boatload of money and aggravation. But they said, no, buy our stand, it'll look SO cool. And it almost did. It's funny, I also have the Mophie stand, which I bought while I was waiting, and it has an opening that will accommodate either charger, with a little spacer disk that sits under the charger if you're using the thinner one. That was an easy solution, and the Mophie stand remains elegant.
Nomad could have done a similar thing, but their stand is fashioned out of a single piece of bent metal, whose thickness was chosen to match the thinner charger. So they were kind of stuck. But there was a clear, straightforward solution: don't have a lip on the back of the stand to hold the charger in, instead have a separate piece that screws onto the back (think like a "+" sign with a screw at each corner, attached across the back of the hole in the stand), that hangs out far enough behind the stand to accommodate the thicker charger, with (just like Mophie) a spacer disk to sit in the bottom of the hole when using the thinner charger. And the extra bits would be out of view, so they wouldn't have to be crazy pretty. And the front of the charger would look just like it did in the original pictures. It wouldn't have increased the production cost of the charger substantially, but it would have added a number of extra steps and required sourcing a few additional parts. Now, the solution I've outlined doesn't take rocket science to figure out. I'm sure it must have crossed their minds. The method they chose didn't require any extra parts, just one adjustment to the CNC milling program that was cutting the hole for the charger. So they went with the solution that was cheap, fast, required as little extra effort as possible, and only DISCARDED ONE OF THE MAJOR SELLING POINTS OF THE STAND.
And, as an added benefit, if they had done things my way, the all-plastic sports charger wouldn't stick out the front of the stand so far. Note that this means, if you use the partly metal charger that comes with the steel watches, the charger will fit as planned (though with an unnecessary, and ugly slot cut in the front), but if you use the plastic charger that comes with the sport models, it'll stick further out in front of the stand than was intended in the original design.
But they were in a hurry to get their big order delivered to BestBuy on time, and to get us suckers who pre-ordered out of the way, so they went with the solution that was cheap, quick, and made the actual item, well, kinda lousy. They damaged a product they'd already sold, to get themselves out of a bind. From my viewpoint as a software developer, who has to design things to work with changing specifications all the time, I think it was really stupid of them to design to such close tolerances around an item they'd never had in their hands, with no room for fallback ("if you fail to plan, you plan to fail").
I'll keep the stand (because returning it would be still more hassle, and I wanted two - office and bedroom - anyway), and it'll work fine, but I'll be a bit annoyed every time I look at it. Thanks a lot for that, Nomad. Expect me to steer friends and associates away from your products in the future.
I happen to have both kinds of chargers (the plastic one came with my 42mm SGS, the deluxe, thinner, plastic-and-metal one is what you get if you order one separately - and yes, I just realized in the last pair of comparison pics below, the deluxe charger is upside down - but the cable is roughly centered between top and bottom, so it doesn't really make a difference in the dimensions which is the point of the picture). So, here, pictures of the two different chargers installed in the Nomad stand (and I was definitely going for detail over focus), and a comparison of the two chargers.
42mm Space Gray Sport on metal-and-plastic charger (the thinner one that you get if you buy the steel watch, or if you buy a "spare" charger, which is what I did). Yes, it's not sitting completely "square" on the puck - I "let it find its own center". It's basiically sliding/rotating about the center (concave on the puck, convex on the watch) surface, until the upper part of the strap comes into contact with the stand. I'm not anticipating any metal straps (have the black and green sports straps and the black leather loop), so this is not a problem for me.
The cord presses into a channel on the back edge of the stand, from just to the right of the watch (where the newly added slot points) to the bottom. It sticks out a little bit, but you have to be pretty close to staring down at it to see the cord - if you imagine a line coming straight out from the front of the watch face, perpendicular to the (top angled part of the) stand, if you get up to that line, or nearly so, you can see the edge of the cord, but much below that line and the cord is hidden. I have mine in an odd place (about eye level when seated, on a bookshelf next to the couch), so I can't see the cord at all.
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A few more questions if I can. Do you see the cord coming out of the charger (where that notch was put in) when the watch is on the stand? Also I'm planning on putting it on our glass topped night stand. How is it for stability and do you think it could scratch the nightstand glass?
Thanks again. USPS hasn't updated my package yet today. I know weather hasn't been so great in the midwest the last few days and hoping mine at least made it out to the west coast on a plane today. Thinking for me it will be either Saturday or Monday and I think the nightstand will be the best place for it but don't want to break or scratch the top.
Thanks again. USPS hasn't updated my package yet today. I know weather hasn't been so great in the midwest the last few days and hoping mine at least made it out to the west coast on a plane today. Thinking for me it will be either Saturday or Monday and I think the nightstand will be the best place for it but don't want to break or scratch the top.
Probably wouldn't have been popular as it sounds like a lot of families already have both the sport and the AW in their homes. It's really a shame that the chargers weren't manufactured the same. Probably done by two different suppliers. Just seems strange Apple needed two versions. I suppose Nomad could do another version at some point and make the stand a bit thicker to make the stand as it was intended but one thing my husband mentioned is that for production purposes the cost of the metal would go up, shipping weight costs might be affected from factory to warehouse and possibly when shipping to customers, and the unit cost might be increased to cover. As it is, some people have dismissed Nomad and a few others manufacturers' stands at being too expensive at the $60-70 range.
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Mine is out for delivery. It has said chicago the last 5 days and today it said out for delivery. I live in GA.
This morning mine is in the area at 4:55am, but not officially "out for delivery" yet, so figuring it will go to my local post office first before it says that. All the same keeping an eye all day on the tracking so I don't miss it if it does comes today.
BTW my tracking said Arrived at USPS Facility/Chicago for the past 2 days but suddenly tracking jumped to the West Coast early this a.m. at 2:53. And it does say Departed from Facility locally. Can't wait to open the box. I liked the space gray coloring of CarlJ's but my MacBook Pro is silver so went that route to coordinate if I ended up with them both on my desk instead of the stand on my nightstand. Curious to see what the ratio is of space gray to silver here.
BTW my tracking said Arrived at USPS Facility/Chicago for the past 2 days but suddenly tracking jumped to the West Coast early this a.m. at 2:53. And it does say Departed from Facility locally. Can't wait to open the box. I liked the space gray coloring of CarlJ's but my MacBook Pro is silver so went that route to coordinate if I ended up with them both on my desk instead of the stand on my nightstand. Curious to see what the ratio is of space gray to silver here.
I ordered my stand March 18. It has recently escaped from detention in Chicago, found it's way to my area, and is now out for delivery. In the meantime, of course, I ordered a much cheaper but equally functional stand. I had also ordered the Nomad Pod, but cancelled it and got my refund. No more Nomad for me, thanks.
Update on those order numbers I was following from Nomad's twitter posts: One delivery yesterday in NYC, 3 attempted deliveries, Out for deliveries today in Jackson, TN; Cumming, GA; Alexandra, VA; 2 in Ft. Worth, TX; and Milwaukee, WI. Rest of them are at some USPS facility. So sounds like a busy delivery weekend for stands across the U.S.
Here are some more random angles, to give an idea when/how much the cord is in view. Also, the stand has a hard rubber (or rubber-like) foot on the bottom, should be fine on most any surface.
CarlJ those are probably some of the best photos of the stand I've seen. Thanks for taking the time. Have to say it sure looks sexy and has nice curves. I see now what you mean about the cable barely visible from the backside view. With my silver version it should more or less blended in and the back side will probably be facing a wall anyway.
I know some space gray guys have painted their cabling or thought I read about plastic dip used (forgot how it's spelled but used that product decades ago on some pliers and it does have a thickness to it) but being a charger that's passing an electrical charge wouldn't plastic dip possibly build up some heat within and not be a smart thing to do?
I know some space gray guys have painted their cabling or thought I read about plastic dip used (forgot how it's spelled but used that product decades ago on some pliers and it does have a thickness to it) but being a charger that's passing an electrical charge wouldn't plastic dip possibly build up some heat within and not be a smart thing to do?
Hi phantomsd,
We're actually constrained on processing refunds by a time limit from the credit card/bank itself--and this is something that is out of our control. This is actually quite frustrating for us as we offer a 100pct satisfaction guarantee and of course take full responsibility for all shipments landing safely at the recipient's address. When we need to offer a refund, for whatever reason, after the time limit has elapsed, we generally go for PayPal as it's the quickest and easiest way for us to reimburse the customer. It's a bit annoying, but it's the best solution we've found for processing refunds quickly when the time limit has passed.
Sincerely,
Noah
CEO | Nomad
We're actually constrained on processing refunds by a time limit from the credit card/bank itself--and this is something that is out of our control. This is actually quite frustrating for us as we offer a 100pct satisfaction guarantee and of course take full responsibility for all shipments landing safely at the recipient's address. When we need to offer a refund, for whatever reason, after the time limit has elapsed, we generally go for PayPal as it's the quickest and easiest way for us to reimburse the customer. It's a bit annoying, but it's the best solution we've found for processing refunds quickly when the time limit has passed.
Sincerely,
Noah
CEO | Nomad