An Open Letter to Mark Ely CEO at SimpleTV | Updated

Mr. Ely,

I’m writing today to make you aware of the issues I have been experiencing while trying to get my SimpleTV unit setup.  As of the writing of this post I’ve heard nothing from your support staff since my last communication on February 5th, 2014.  At no point in the nearly 50 days since I started this journey have I been able to complete the setup of a SimpleTV unit.

Being an early tech adopter, I possess far more skills and patience than your regular customer.  To that end, not only have I spent a great amount of time working on the suggestions of your support staff to fix the issues but I have also been researching online in an attempt to solve the problem on my own, I haven’t had any success.

As a recent cord cutter I was delighted to see your SimpleTV version 1 with a lifetime premium subscription available on woot.com for only $95.  My thought was if the unit worked out well for me I would pick up your second-generation model to use as well.  However since I first plugged in the unit I have had nothing but trouble.  Your support staff takes days to respond and also to reply to anything you send them.  I have offered several times to get on the phone to further discuss the issue with them only to have my suggestion ignored.

At this point I’ve come to accept that the SimpleTV purchased, as a Christmas present will never work.  I’ve just given up.

Based upon my experiences with your company so far, I really don’t expect a response to this open letter.  I’m going to send it to your attention via email and also post it to your company’s Twitter & Facebook accounts.

My expectation for no response is based in my current belief that SimpleTV just does not care about my issue.

It pains me to have been treated this way on several levels.  First, this is just poor customer service.  Second, I was really excited about the product and eager to work it into my cord cutting toolbox.  Third, after reading the news of your planned expansion into to Europe this year, it just seems you are planning to grow no matter the cost or the current status of your product or service.

In the link below, I have posted a pdf of all my communications with your SimpleTV support staff via email.  The only redacted parts of this email contain my non-public information that I wish not to be posted on the web.

Correspondence with SimpleTV support staff

SimpleTV Company Information (via CrunchBase)

Update1 03-09-14

Mr. Ely responded to my posting very quickly and apologized for the service that I encountered.  After further correspondence I agreed to take another Simple.TV unit (my third) and try to get it setup again with assurances that tech support would work with me on the problem.  Although I offered tech support my phone number on several occasions they never did attempt to contact me in anyway other than email.

Once I got the new unit installed I experienced the same problem again the channel scan just stopped at the 5 minute mark and refused to proceed.  The tech at simple.tv seemed to be unable to determine what the problem was or how to fix it.  I am using a Mohu Leaf Amplified antenna (which I understand is the indoor antenna of choice for cord cutters) and it works very well on every tv in the house, it just seems that the simple.tv unit does not like it for some reason.

In the end I asked for a refund and decided to part ways with the company.  They granted my request and I am going to call the matter settled.

This was such a promising product and I understand it works for many people, it still disappoints me the company was unable to get it to work for me.