Siren App (Apple Store)

[wise871]

Another month almost gone. Hard to believe it will be March 2015 soon :roll:

Announced Nov 2013
Released Jan 2014
Original Enhancements Mar 2014
Limited Wi-Fi Feb 2015

I noticed they updated the original announcement video with a banner talking about the delay.

 

[mikewazowski]

Thread moved to the Tavern.

 

[XTS3000]

Rather than OWN IT, Paul keeps making excuses. The wifi dongle people can't supply us with proper firmware, Bla bla bla. I call shenanigans!! Everything else I know using the same exact chipset runs perfectly for years with no problems. Other manufactures can get their products to stream music for days and weeks without crashing using the same wifi chipset. Time to stop blaming others to cover up your own teams inapt ability to fix even the simple problems and bugs.

The problem is not with the wifi dongle, but the team working on it apparently don't have a clue how to control it. To blame the wifi manufacturer is simply a cop-out to cover your own reputation.

So Paul had the roadmap going into 2016 for the wifi. Well I guess we can all forget about the Analyze Features till maybe 2017 at the earliest. Paul even mentioned they are going to start working on the analyze features now. Huh? This was promised a year ago.

Paul has violated his own company mission statements by "promising something that they can't deliver". Paul promised wifi and analyze 2Q2014, now close to a year later and only 1/5th or less in getting the promised wifi working with app.

OWN it, or offer a refund. That only fair this late in the "game".

 

[guruuno]

Exactly!
Look, given the fact that this hobby is a highly specialized one, and the technology used is becoming more complex as time goes on, I can give the benefit of the doubt to the lag times to get up to speed.....within reason.
However, the major issue I see is the BS crap that allows companies to promote, speak, lure and trick end users into buying into something and then the companies not delivering on their promises, intentions or otherwise lies.
In the computer industry, this is know as "vaporware". It was adopted in the early days of Microsoft to generate revenue so the company could fund its research and development projects, and s they released software that did not work, they said, "next patch", "next release", etc., etc., and it still goes on today.
Many companies see this as their path to generating revenue, as well as creating a bunch of "beta testers" without costs (free, no money to pay developers, let the testers report issues, etc.).
Unfortunately, this is the way it is, nobody will win, as it has been accepted practice for years.
No different than any company selling a bill of goods and then cannot deliver the promises because of a multitude of problems.....but hey, come on Uniden, can you once again become a leader, a shining example of the way it SHOULD be, and make sure that these products are actual functioning, easy, implementable and not some daydream of a visionary that has grand envisions of a marshmallow filled sky with raindrops of la la la unacheivable goals?
Summary: Talk about development if you wish, but make sure it's a valid, doable feature before actually printing it on literature, boxes, sales paraphernalia , and then back peddling to try to fix it because it was not ready for prime time.
Alternately, do like other companies, have a closed beta team and have them assist, but heck, I just don't get it; boxes that were made, literature that was printed, and it's over a year, and it's not even a workable, releasable product, it's all a patch, a hack, a fudge fix, and then yea, you gotta be almost an engineer to figure it all out.

 

[WQPW689]

Brian Williams and Paul Opitz must be twins. Both full of lies and half truths.

It's a wonder the man even bothers to post here, when the forum allows such bilious personal attacks.

Edit: I see now the post has only been up for a few minutes and am not criticizing the Moderators, but I believe I've made my point.

 

[NWI_Scanner_Guy]

I concur.
Here we go again, same old lies, side-stepping, non-resolution until hands are held over the open flames and the cry for help screams out.....
Let's make some bets:
1> Uniden discontinues the BCDxxxHP and leaves all previous owners out to dry
2> Uniden goes bankrupt
3> The nay sayers get banned from these forums, because the negativity upsets Uniden

It took over a year to resolve (somewhat) the WI-FI dongle issue, it may not be over yet, but just because we have a bit of resolve, the rush to continue to address the advertising claims that have been falsely conveyed has slowed, and just like now that it took 4 years for Apple to address video failures on it's MacBook laptops, will it take that long or longer for Uniden to address it's issues (I think not, Apple has billions, not Uniden, they don't care, it's cheaper to abandon the users)

My 2 cents

I'm curious as to why you think Uniden would go bankrupt? You do realize they sell more than just scanners, right?

 

[DSC45]

This may be a good time to close this thread.

 

[mikewazowski]

As long as the discussion remains respectful, the thread will stay open.

I'll remove the comment about UPMan. I believe the line "don't shoot the messenger" would apply here.

 

[guruuno]

Because when a product does not deliver, and the company cannot recover from the potential lawsuits, it is cheaper to reorganize. Read about nursing homes going bankrupt, as an example. The lawsuits are mounting, they go under and reorganize. I can scour the web for more examples, but this is the American way......history proves it

 

[marcotor]

It always amazes me when a business or service company runs into a rough patch, how many consumers suddenly become experts on how they should run their business.

 

[guruuno]

So, nobody needs to be an "expert" to know that false advertising is bad business. Gee, maybe I can sell Purple Widgets that transport me to Pluto, oh, I'm sorry I took your money, we can't get you to Pluto right now, but we are working very hard on it and it should be released real soon now. Sheesh

 

[Jay911]

So Paul had the roadmap going into 2016 for the wifi. Well I guess we can all forget about the Analyze Features till maybe 2017 at the earliest. Paul even mentioned they are going to start working on the analyze features now. Huh? This was promised a year ago.

I had unsubscribed from this thread when it got moved, but stumbled across it just now and feel compelled to correct the above.

Paul's statement about the 'roadmap' referred to the entire radio, not wifi. Read carefully:

I actually have a firmware development roadmap that goes into 2016 for these models. Not all the deliverables on the roadmap have been approved for development, but I'm pushing to get as much as I can into these models. Despite the release of some other models, I expect these two to be our flagship handheld and mobile platforms for many years.

It doesn't specify that it's for the entire radio, but it's implied well enough with the comment about deliverables, and that these are going to be the company's flagship models.

He also didn't say they were going to "start working" on the analyze features now. In fact, the exact words were "our next focus will be to complete the analysis functionality for both the BCD436HP and BCD536HP" (emphasis mine). The 536 currently has some analysis features functional from within the RH536 PC application or by directly controlling the radio in serial mode. I've only got Motorola and P25 systems in my area, so I can't test things like LCN finder or other EDACS/LTR features, but the Current Activity, Activity Log, and other features familiar to HomePatrol-1 and -2 users are working just fine.

Sorry to rain on your "bash Uniden" parade. I'm out again - just try to at least base your nonsensical babbling on fact.

 

[NWI_Scanner_Guy]

Because when a product does not deliver, and the company cannot recover from the potential lawsuits, it is cheaper to reorganize. Read about nursing homes going bankrupt, as an example. The lawsuits are mounting, they go under and reorganize. I can scour the web for more examples, but this is the American way......history proves it

Well, I'm still waiting to see proof that lawsuits have been filed against Uniden. There's been a crapload of talk about it, but until someone can post a pic / pdf of actually filed paperwork, that's all it remains....talk.

But, as with everything in life, time will tell.

 

[wise871]

We shouldn't have to rely on using analyzer via some PC software when it was suppose to be self contained within the radio. I know it's just a peace offering until they finally develop the internal analyzer features. I'm actually looking froward to 2016 to see how far the x36 will come along and if we're still in the beta stage of software development. The same folks will still state things happen and it takes time. For those who defend, what is consider a reasonable amount of time? Just remember we're talking about something that was developed well into 2013 before its Jan 2014 release. It took a year just to get this far.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Boatanchor]

Bad CPU choice is coming home to roost?

There has been much conjecture on the problems surrounding the Wifi dongle, but personally I have a feeling that Wifi and the dongle is being used as a convenient scapegoat for other serious hardware related problems.

Others have suggested, rightly or wrongly, that the wifi chipset/system is being used in other applications with few problems. If so, this leaves the distinct possibility that the problem actually lies elsewhere.

As an owner of a 436HP, I knew virtually the first day I owned the device, that the cpu was being overtaxed by even the basic operation of scanning, writing audio/log files and U/I operation. Anyone who owns one of these scanners is aware of the keyboard delays and occasional non-response of button pushes or feature activation. This can only be due to the keyboard interrupts or scanning processes being delayed due to other routine, high cpu load tasks.

It would appear therefore, that the cpu in the x36HP line is simply incapable of running all the existing (basic) processes in a timely manner, letalone advanced features like wifi streaming, analysis etc etc etc..

If this is true, Uniden made the fatal mistake of overestimating the capabilities of the RISC processor in the x36HP at the drawing board stage and for the last 12 months+ they have been trying to software engineer process efficiency gains to eek out enough spare processor power to reliably run the streaming app. Time will tell if they have succeeded.

This does not bode well at all for the other, more advanced analysis functions though as Uniden are obviously placing a much higher priority on the making the streaming process work in the 536HP than functions like analysis (which would potentially benefit more users/owners since more 436HP scanners have/will be sold).

 

[tumegpc]

This whole WiFi , Analyze mess could have been resolved months ago if UPMan and Uniden would have been up honest and upfront with us from the beginning.Uniden has accomplished more in one week with the help of RadioReference members than Uniden did in over a year with their "Phase 1 of our app-supporting firmware release".

And what about the 436HP owners - what Phase will we see the Analyze feature? Is the Uniden team so bad that they can't even port over that feature that has been available for years in their HP-1?

The Analyze feature would benefit ALL *36HP owners.

 

[Voyager]

This whole WiFi , Analyze mess could have been resolved months ago if UPMan and Uniden would have been up honest and upfront with us from the beginning.Uniden has accomplished more in one week with the help of RadioReference members than Uniden did in over a year with their "Phase 1 of our app-supporting firmware release".

And what about the 436HP owners - what Phase will we see the Analyze feature? Is the Uniden team so bad that they can't even port over that feature that has been available for years in their HP-1?

The Analyze feature would benefit ALL *36HP owners.

If you read the SIREN UPDATE thread, UPMan has been keeping everyone updated all along - being honest and upfront.

I love how people say this or that works on other products, so it should be trivial to port it over to the scanner, but then they complain that Uniden thought the same way they do, but found out differently.

Haters just gotta hate. The fact that they blame others for thinking as they think is just proof it's nothing more than hate.

 

[nosoup4u]

Although some of the rants have been outrageous at best, bear in mind that many people been sitting patient for a year now with nothing to show for it from Uniden and are completely frustrated. I have been in the hobby for over 25 years now, and the other time I have seen people get irate to any extent was the Pro-92 control channel fiasco, and that does not even come close to this. I don't think any of us who bought these scanners last winter expected that a year later we would have nothing to show for it as far as updates go (I don't mean just the wifi, but any sort of updates or advanced features).

I don't believe that Uniden set out to mislead anyone, however that is how things have ended up. To make matters worse, they made no status updates, and only did when the message boards here went out of control. Most of these Uniden "Haters" did not start out that way 13 months ago. When the wifi issues came up early last year, they could have changed gears and worked on bug fixes and the advanced features while the vendor worked out the bugs, instead they sat there like a deer in the headlights while we sat here with an incomplete product.

Let the haters hate. Uniden has earned it.

 

[guruuno]

Amen

 

[Dafe1er]

Most of these Uniden "Haters" did not start out that way 13 months ago.
Let the haters hate. Uniden has earned it.

100% Correct. I for one 13 months ago was not hating on them. Now well....