RED Ti (Hydrogen One Titanium) delayed. Compensation: $1300 Aluminum for FREE!

“The post I don’t want to make” as stated by RED founder, Jim Jannard, telling pre-order Ti (Hydrogen One Titanium version) customers that the Ti is going to be delayed because the 1st run was a total fail. However there is a light at the end of the tunnel – a $1300 Hydrogen One Aluminum as a compensation! 

The risks of developing cellular products

As we have explained in our previous post, there are many obstacles when developing cellular products in regard to the very complicated certification processes related to cellular devices. RED has taken a significant risk here and that should be admired. The R&D combined with certification processes when developing (and also manufacturing) a cellular products is extremely hard. It’s also huge challenge to develop from scratch cinema cameras, raw codec and so on, but this is a whole new animal.

Jim Jannard words on H4Vuser:

This one is killing me. Trust me…

The 1st run of Ti is a disaster. All fail.

I told you how difficult Ti was to make but I was assured by our ODM and vendors we would make enough for the pre-orders. We didn’t.

So what does that mean?

Our pre-order Ti customers are the highest order. Not only did they commit to paying the full price of the highest priced model 14 months ago, they had to patiently sit through the Houdini launch and watch from the sideline.

If I were a Ti pre-order customer, I would be pretty pissed off… so I assume that is the common reaction for all of our customers in this position.

I can’t go over there and make them myself, or I would. All I can do is do what I think is fair… as if I was the customer.

We will send all Ti pre-orders an aluminum HYDROGEN 1st when we begin shipping them. Additionally, when we finally do make Ti models correctly, we will send that to you at no charge. You are allowed to keep the aluminum as well.

All RED cameras are made in California at our factory in Orange County. We have control over everything. Unfortunately, we are not in the same position with HYDROGEN. We are left to rely on the schedules and representations of our suppliers. In this case… we were let down pretty severely.

I have put my helmet on and am ready to field any questions about this.

All RED cameras are made in California at our factory in Orange County. We have control over everything. Unfortunately, we are not in the same position with HYDROGEN. We are left to rely on the schedules and representations of our suppliers. In this case… we were let down pretty severely….95% of Oakleys were made at our factory in Foothill Ranch. 100% of RED cameras are made in Irvine. It is much easier to be accurate with dates when I can see 1st hand what is going on.

Final thoughts

In my opinion, we should appreciate RED founder for addressing consumers and telling them the situation as is. It’s truly appreciated to tell the truth. Moreover, the compensation is fair enough. Let me add my last sentence of my preview post: I have worked as a senior product manager in an international medical company which decided to jump into the cellular adventure. The company was bankrupt. Hopefully RED is not going into that route.