For anybody who has an Infinity or is thinking of purchasing one, I have an important, and disappointing update. I've had the robot since about the start of August 2021. It hasn't been in what I'd call "heavy" use. I didn't use it all summer. So I'm guessing I have somewhere between 80-100 hours logged on it. And in that short amount of time, it has broken.
Apparently the versions that they made initially and sold to Kickstarter backers has very cheap materials in it. From what I have been told, when it goes on sale to the wider public next year, over 70% of the materials will have been replaced because they were not good enough.
I was doing my standard set of warm up drills, looping against moderate under spin, when I heard a noise come from the unit and the balls would barely dribble out of the robot. I sent an email to the general email for the robot group and didn't hear a thing. So after a couple of days I contacted the general Joola customer service and they said that they'd seen my message and were surprised that nobody from that group had gotten back to me. After another couple of days I heard from Matt H. at Joola.
He gave me a video with suggested steps to take to attempt to fix the issue. Apparently, the issue I have is similar to one where screws are coming loose inside of the unit. So I bought the proper things I needed to attempt the fix, followed the steps in the video, still no luck. Re-did the steps a couple more times, still nothing. The lower wheel just won't turn. So now I wait for the warehouse to hopefully have time in the near future to get me a new core.
Speaking of the quality of parts, the screws on the inside are unbelievably poor. I took the screws out and put them back in maybe 4 or 5 times, and the metal is so cheap that the point where the screwdriver is supposed to grab and turn the screw is flattened out, so it can no longer grab the screw. I once again purchased more equipment to attempt to get the screws out so I can attempt to lubricate the parts. But at this point, I'm thinking this is an issue with the gears.
I'm pretty disappointed that the materials were so cheap that they broke so quickly. The functionality that I got for the price, I now understand why. And the pace of the response has been too slow for my taste. The robot has become an important part of my exercise routine, and I am also trying to learn new things with tournaments coming up. With the Kickstarter I also got a basic iPong, but after having the Infinity it's like comparing a Prius to a Lamborghini. Having the response of "we don't know when we will resolve this" is not terribly encouraging.
Matt has been very nice and I appreciate his efforts, and understand he's a bit at the mercy of others when it comes to fixing this. But when I look at other companies and their service levels, such as Power Pong or Newgy, the level of service and response time when there's an issue just doesn't compare. Joola needs to get things straight in terms of service before selling this on a wider basis.
At this point, given the poor quality I (and apparently others) have encountered, the fact that it only has a 1 year warranty, and the lack of a support structure to resolve issues quickly, I cannot recommend the Joola Infinity robot at this point. What good is nice functionality if it's not trustworthy. Wish I'd just saved money and purchased a Power Pong or Newgy.
_________________ "The greatest teacher, failure is" USATT Rating: 1725 Blade: Stiga Cybershape Carbon FH Rubber: Butterfly Tenergy 19 2.1 BH Rubber: Dr Neubauer ABS3 1.5
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