Complaint of Chasing Abandoning Gladius Advanced Pro

[Eternal Angler]

So I saw this complaint from a Gladius Advanced Pro owner on the Official Chasing Owners Facebook Group, it is rather disheartening considering the Advanced Pro costs around 2000 dollars and Chasing stopped showing support and updates for this model, and it's only around 2 years old. I mean it's one thing for GoPro to do this with $400 action cameras, but underwater drones that cost upwards of $2-5k...

I guess he bought 7 of the Advanced Pro drones too, so I guess it was around 10,000 Euros... yikes...

I'm not sure what the typical span of support life is for aerial drones, but I expect it be be longer than that.
I think the official release date of the Standard version was July of 2017 on Indiegogo

Here's the owner's complaint.

Guys, can we trust Chasing?

After two years a product (7 gladius advanced PRO) that costs almost 2000 dollars (and euros) is discontinued and they say we cannot even do the upgrade the very product asks to do???

I posted here very recently a query asking to please help with a firmware upgrade that the drone is asking for.

And the reply I got from Chasing Innovation is that the drone is UNABLE TO DO the upgrade...

Oh, come on... If the drone requires that specific upgrade, how come it is unable to do it?

How can you fully ABANDON a two year old product???

Seven of these... seven!!! in the wharehouse are now paperweights???

More than 10.000 eur ? damn...

This was my response to them:

Now tell me:

HOW CAN WE TRUST THEM?

Who know, maybe next year M2 will be out of support as well...

----------------------------------

Hello.

I don't know what to say.

in my point of view:

- a two year old product should still have support; No one expects to spend more than 10.000 euros on something that won't be supported 2 years after. Not in this category of products. Now I am left stuck with SEVEN gladius advanced drones that have no use at all.

- if there was a firmware upgrade that the software RECOGNIZES to be for THIS drone model, then the drone MUST BE CAPABLE to do the upgrade. So writing to me saying that the drone can't do the upgrade sounds very very strange.

I ask you to PLEASE go to your backups and find the firmware upgrade from 1.5.0.7 to 1.5.1.2 and send it to me.

Please tell me that somewhere in your archives that file exists.

And send it to me and tell me where shall I place it in my android so the app knows where to find it and upload it to the drone...

If not, how do you expect we can trust you and spend more than 2000 eur on a drone if in a year or two it will not be supported anymore?

That is no way of making business, my friends... we need to feel trust in you.
I'll be waiting for your feedback.

Best regards

Hello, Fernando

Thanks for reaching out, this is Tomas from Chasing support team.

Very sorry that Gladius Advanced Pro has been discontinued, and this drone is unable to upgrade.

There is a trade-in event for Gladius Advance Pro users, please kindly check details by https://www.chasing.com/service-support/upgrade-service

And here I'm adding my collegue Yonne to help if you are interesting in the trade-in event. Her email is: hi@chasing-innovation.com

Any questions please feel free to contact.

Best Regards

Tomas Meng | Global Support Team
Chasing Innovation Technology
tomas@chasing-innovation.com
www.chasing.com

Original complaint

 

[Eternal Angler]

At least they have sort of a trade-in program, it's actually called an upgrade service. You seem to just keep your own model underwater drone while just giving them the serial number, your drone has to be under warranty. And they don't seem to give you much discount on a Gladius Mini, $200? Better off selling the Gladius Advanced on eBay, craigslist or Facebook Marketplace I'd say.

Remind you, Advanced Pro was also their first generation startup underwater drone, so maybe little leniency on Chasing...

I have heard worse stories with startups and completely ditched underwater drones like the Fathom One, I suspect quite a few people got burned. That's the risks you take, especially when purchasing the older used underwater drones on ebay and elsewhere, new hobbyists that get into this hobby should be aware... Again, at least Chasing offers a trade-in program!

We’re going to try to do what we can, but unfortunately there will be no refunds on anything since there is no more money left. In addition to the debt we owe to some of you, we owe a significant amount of debt to our manufacturer and other contractors.

 

[YoucanPhil]

They resolved this issue. Said they will support all models from now on.

 

[KanakaROV]

Good info on the Advanced Pro debacle. Many of these companies are rather new and I am sure there is a lot of product innovation to be rolled out in the next five years or so by the for runners.

 

[Eternal Angler]

Yeah, going to be a few more underwater drone companies going bankrupt like Fathom One too I expect, especially during the pandemic. My personal opinion, Chasing is a quality company, definitely in the top 3 consumer drone companies, but they've had a few problems here and there just like any company.

I am quite excited to see what roles out with the technology, I'm already blown away with the robotic arm videos I'm starting to see... M2 and V6s is a lot more stable than the Geneinno T1 for grabbing things! Can't wait to see what's in store for this hobby, I'm in 100%, love it!

 

[NICK PALUMBO]

What about people like me that finally could afford this and bought from a person that knew all these problems,in an effort to rip me off.he sent me the package, minus both chargers, stopper on the outside of the body and no app .also parts inside jiggling around.i actually got it turned on,i could see the camera,and motor runs,but the remote doesn't work and there's no way ro control it this way. it says "cannot found media disk,need repair"
what's this?
sad to have this happen to people like me.i just started a rescue and recovery project and needed this to help others

 

[SpartaMe]

Yeah, going to be a few more underwater drone companies going bankrupt like Fathom One too I expect, especially during the pandemic. My personal opinion, Chasing is a quality company, definitely in the top 3 consumer drone companies or other armies is like playing that old table game we all know and love, Eldfall https://eldfall-chronicles.com/

I am quite excited to see what roles out with the technology, I'm already blown away with the robotic arm videos I'm starting to see... more on that if you become a cbd distributor

Thank you, you helped a lot.

 

[Flatfish]

I had signed up to be a beta tester for the Kickstart program of the Fathom One. I never received a drone to try out but I followed the development. My opinion was they were too much influenced and modeling after Drones used in the air. They didn't build in the capability to go slow, hold a position and zero in on something interesting. Loops roles and jumping out of a pools doesn't cut it for what we want in an ROV for the water. Having had experience with cameras deployed from a boat (Drop Camera) on a tether in the ocean were the visibility is mostly limited, speed is not useful at all. The videos from the Fifish V6s with the robotic arm sold me on the capability of the V6.

 

[aldoborain45]

useful information