I’m head of operations for Athom and responsible for orders and shipments to you, our customers.
I understand and share your frustration around the shipment of the Energy Dongle. We have run into several delays during production and shipping which have pushed back the delivery date to you.
We have recieved word from a number of our customers that they have recieved their Energy Dongle and we expect those of you still waiting will get theirs soon.
Some of you have expressed anoyance that retailers have recieved a shipment of Energy Dongles before our pre-order customers have. These we have only shipped to these retailers after pre-orders were fulfilled and even then, only a very limited number of devices were shipped to them.
I also expect that both Athom and other retailers will sell out of energy dongles very quickly. We will have to wait for a new shipment which we expect to arrive by April 30th.
I want to thank everyone for their patience and for bearing with us. You guys are awesome
Thank you for reaching out to our support and our apologies for the delay in delivery! The Homey Energy Dongle has become available as of this week. Your order has been shipped on 07-04-2025 - 09:29. Please note that it can take up to a couple of work days before your order arrives at its destination. It will be delivered through your regular mailbox, which means that your order doesn’t come with a T&T link this time around.
So main takeaway;
No track and trace link, which I can totally understand.
But sadly no communication on when yours was sent, unless you ask … and that for me was the main issue.
I made the following suggestion:
Just a suggestion as I have no real idea about the entire operation;
As it’s a mail order package, I get it does not get/need a Track and trace link.
But If I did not reach out I would have know, just like the others, nothing.
It would be really pro-consumer to at least let people know it has been sent at a certain date.
That would save a lot of people including you guys frustration in the entire “when is it coming” discussion.
Personally I have my answer, so it should be dropping soon. Communication-wise there could be a bit of improvement. But support was quick to answer (literally 2 minutes after my request I got an answer)
I see we do not send automatically send out a shipment confirmations for these orders. I can imagine this is something you would expect. I will see if we can add that.
Thanks for the update sir. This was in the end what myself but i would imagine a lot of people were looking for. I will reach out to support as the status of my order still is processing (which it has been since i ordered). That does not seem to fit with your timeline of
Hi @ChefsSlaad
It’s fair that you now indicate here that Homey has suffered several delays, it’s a shame that Homey (Athom) doesn’t inform us themselves, preferably by email.
It’s good to know that your retailers, and you yourself, have run out of stock. But what use is that to me as the first buyer on December 11, 2024? Do I really have to wait until April 30, even longer? I’m not easily dissatisfied, but I am easily disappointed.
I’ve been using Homey Pro 2023 for a while now and I’m very happy with it. The hardware and software you’ve made is great and I can recommend it to everyone. But this Pre-order really went a bit wrong and I’m quite disappointed that it hasn’t been shipped properly.
You are right, the emails we sent were light on information and were not very helpful. We will do better next time.
We let the excitement of the launch and the frustration about the delays get the better of us. And honestly, I did not expect the amount of response we got for our energy dongle. I thought the first batch would last a lot longer than it did.
Our original plan was to receive the dongle on Tuesday April 1st and ship them out after that. Retailers would get the dongles the week after, starting on April 7th. Of course due to delays at production and customs that timeline got crunched a we only started shipping out on April 3rd, but still shipped to retailers after the weekend.
Another issue is that we did not receive a timely confirmation from our warehouse that an order had been shipped out. This is still under investigation but should explain why your order is still ‘processing’, even though our warehouse tells us its already been shipped. I’ll keep you posted.
We have learned a lot of valuable lessons from this. And we paid for them with our community’s goodwill. So I apologize for the chaos we created during the launch.
Moving forward we will include a bigger buffer in our planning, to make sure we can deliver on our promise (or maybe ship a bit earlier). We will also make sure that pre-orders are shipped out to our customers (and preferably be in their hands) before we attend to retailers.
I hope this addresses your concerns and would like to thank everyone here for the kind and encouraging words, as well as your trust. You guys are awesome.
Hi @ChefsSlaad
Great that you want to help Phusebox check his package, that it will be shipped. But there is someone else here who would like to know what is going on. Because mine does not say shipped at all, it only says processing.
Are you going to help us all?
Sorry, but I am actually quite annoyed by this. Can’t someone from Homey (or whatever company name) take the plunge and open a topic here and tell what is happening now and what is going wrong.
Also read that the packages were sent without track and trace, how true is that?
They say that due to an error more orders are still on ‘processing’ but every pre-order should’ve been shipped. So yours too, at least if it was a pre-order. After launch orders, I don’t know.
If it has shipped, mine should’ve probably arrived already, or tomorrow at the latest. So I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.
I am sorry for my harsh words, but honest customers and learning from mistakes are the way you keep in touch with your community.
I hope you will be better prepared next time and make sure to keep an eye on the community during the launch. The ambiguous e-mails were noticed quite early on.
So you’re saying that I shouldn’t worry about what’s in the orders and that my package has definitely been sent and that I can expect it tomorrow, just like you? I hope you are write
As I wrote before, I am a bit disappointed that it is going this way. The exchange of mails did not go well, various reactions here on the community and no one who dares to open a topic and explain that something went wrong. To err is human, to admit is much more human!
The fact that I give a fierce reaction here on various topics is more to sharpen things up and with that I hope that people realize that you have to cherish good customers. Keep saying it, Homey is a great product, I am super happy with it and have already been able to sell it to several of my friends, family and colleagues. That is why this is a bit disappointing now, to be honest.
Let’s hope that everything goes well and that the Dongle is soon in the house to use. In any case, thanks for all the communication and we will wait patiently.
As I don’t know your order number I cannot really comment on the status of your order. I also think the community forum is not the best place for that kind of support. I would rather you create a support ticket for that.
What I can tell you is that:
All pre-orders have been shipped as of April 7th
All Energy Dongle orders placed between the launch on April 4 and April 9 16:30 CEST have also shipped
A small number of orders slipped through after 16:30 CEST on April 9th and will also ship today.
The the orders that contain an energy dongle are on backorder until we receive our next shipment, expected April 30th
We are still working to fix the issue that keeps your order status on ‘processing’.
Finally, I share your frustration. I completely understand that a fierce reaction comes from a place of passion and caring, and I really appreciate that. I want us to learn from this and am taking all of your feedback to heart
Hi ChefsSlaad,
Thanks for your update and insights on the delivery issues you encountered the past week.
I just found out by asking the support team that my pre-ordered (on 11th Dec 24) Dongle was sent via regular mail on Apr 4th between 20h00 and 21h00. I haven’t received anything yet, so in order to manage my personal expectations, could you let us know from where you have sent the pre-ordered Dongles?
I am using the PostNL app here in The Netherlands and there is no indication (yet) that they have processed the envelope and that I will receive the envelop tomorrow…
In comparison, I also ordered a product on Friday the 4th of April via Bol.com and I received the product in an envelop the next day… Let’s keep our fingers crossed that Murphy’s Law is not applicable here.
Valid point when there was no huge backlog, Marc.
But,
The response time of Support is over a month now for low prio tickets. Emile acknowledged @ Slack:
Hi @ChefsSlaad,
Thanks a lot for your update and I just created a ticket with my order ID. I hope to get an answer to this soon, so that I don’t have to wait days.
Now I just read from Gijsbert_Boor @Gijsbert_Boor the same thing as I have. I also placed my order on December 11, 2024 and have not received anything yet. I also use the PostNL app, but also from other postal service providers, and have not received anything yet. No notification, no package and nothing in the mailbox. I am also curious whether my Dongle has been sent and what we should do now. (If everything really was shipped on the 7th, it would have been on its way for 3 days now, that can’t be possible?)
I can also make a comparison, if I place an order via RoBBshop I will receive it the next day, nothing wrong with that. I could have bought it there now, I just received an email from them that they are for sale. Anyway, I am waiting for your answer.
Again, I have sent you my Order ID and hope that something will come of it.
Completely true and another problem we are working hard to solve.
What I intended to say is that I do not think it is wise to share this kind of information on a public forum. I want to avoid a situation where people accidentally share their home address or other sensitive information. That is why I would prefer to use our support form.
Ok .. im becoming a bit confused now … as I just got a mail " The package has left the building!"
But support noted to me " Your order has been shipped on [07-04-2025 - 09:29]" earlier this week as noted here.
So WHICH is true??? Well either this or what support said should be correct.
But honestly it’s starting to tick me off a bit. Be clear be concise, dont say Z then X.
Sorry Homey/Athom team but your communication now seems alllll over the place and you are losing more goodwill because of it to be honest.
