update to previous review:
Downgraded this to 1 star. Team responds fast to complaints but has not been able to solve any of the issues. The sound is the worst of any modern deice, the video is low res poor quality and contrast. you can basely recognize people. I have been trying to return these for months but keep getting responses like 'everyone at Nucleus uses this and loves them' and we have improvements coming. None of the improvements came. Do yourselves a favor and don't waste time or money on an unfinished very poor quality product.
Some feedback:
1. Looks and feels cheap for a $100+ product. I was a bit surpised as I was expecting something a little more solid feeling.
2. Needs an adjustable table stand. I think Nucleus should replace these with something with tilt adjust. Even some cheap picture frames have a way to adjust tilt. Wihtout this it does not work in our kitchen and I may send them back because that is the main room I bought them for.
3. The setup software is mostly good except for a few ambiguous items. For example there was a easily visible Next> button during settup, and then at one point the Next> button was labled Excellant. I had no idea what to press or that this was a button I should press to continue. I searched the interent because I thought it was hung up with no result. I finally tried pressing Excellent and it progressed to the next screen. This would normally be OK, but it is inconsistant progression through the setup. Write Excellent! off of the button and have the button labeled Next> would be better. There are several items like this during the setup that caused minor frustration that could be worked out. It needs a outsider to go through and give feedback. It looks like it was done by engineers too familiar with the device.
4. Also the description of the functions are hard to find. It took me several hours to discover that if I set up a remote it will not see all the rooms in my house, but only the one that it was invited from. That description is buried deep and it should be clearly explained in the first description of the Remote capability. I was trying to decide if I wanted to send one to realtives, but only wanted them to access one of the home devices so I did not end up buying one. I found out 2 days later how this worked. So now I will wait and see if the system has value. Every time I use it I see minor issues that deflate my interest. The more I use it the more I am thining it was a poor investment in an unfinished product.
5. Sound quality is not very good. I understand the small speakers but the ability to send to blue tooth speaker, to our Sonos speaker or a speaker jack would be a huge improvement. This should have been done on day 1. I am dissappointed by this lack feature that many cheaper devices have.
6. Alexa does not work well. It cannot give any command to the Nucleus itself such as turn the volume up or down or connect to another Nucleus. I found this a useless addition and turned it off on all our devices. It does not understand Alexa commands near as well as Echo and giving slow broken syllable statemtns to it so it will understand is not fun. It appears this is unfinished so I wonder why it is even included other than for marketing the device as Alexa compatible. It is basically useless since it does not understand many Alexa commands.
7. Video image quality is not very good for the devices I have. The contrast cannot be adjusted and mostly we see silohuettes and shadows. I guess the video is compromised for internet streaming, but this is internal on our high speed LAN so the video should be much better. Our Playstation camera is far better.
I feel that this is an unfinished concept. I think the concept is nice and like the device, but feel I purchased something that is unfinished and priced much too high. I could not honestly recommend it to anyone yet and am considering returning these until certain improvement are made: adjustable table stand, better sound quality (bluetooth or external speaker capability), Alexa actually is functional rather than a gimmick, video image quality improves.
Description
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Nucleus to the rescue! It's PRICELESS.
My Nucleus story, aka "Why I'll be a fan of this startup for life": We purchased a Nucleus 3-pack after my mom fell and suffered a skull fracture and brain injury. She lives in Massachusetts and my siblings and I are spread throughout the country, and while we've been able to make some trips to see them, it's impossible to be there for her full recovery. Mom's pretty tech-savvy for a 78-year-old, addicted to Facebook and accustomed to Facetiming her kids and grandkids often several times a day. Her 89-year-old husband Ray is another story: the iPad intimidates him and he often forgets to even hang up the cordless phone. While mom was in the hospital Ray couldn't go visit her because he's so susceptible to infection. We often had difficulty connecting with him because he'd forget to hang up the phone and the battery would die. To help the family stay connected my husband and I purchased the Nucleus. It has transformed the way we've been able to communicate at this difficult time and into the future. At the push of a button on our Nucleus or its mobile app, the Nucleus in mom and Ray's house turns on and we can see and speak with him and make sure he's okay (priceless when the phone is dead and we're thousands of miles away, worried about his safety). The "always on" setting is incredibly handy for this purpose. With the mobile app--also priceless--mom can also connect with him from the hospital or rehab, which has given them both tremendous peace of mind and has brought their stress levels down considerably. We also sent one to my husband's parents in PA and while they were accustomed to FaceTiming us, they really appreciate the ease and convenience of having a dedicated terminal for this purpose. Gone are the days where they have to root around or race up or down stairs looking for the iPad when they hear FaceTime ringing. The quality of video on recent calls has easily been on par with Facetime, though the wide viewing angle makes it easier to fit more people in the framing. We had one instance early on where the video and audio weren't in sync, with video hanging up occasionally, but it hasn't happened since. On the contrary, twice in the past 24 hours we've been unable to connect via FaceTime due to bandwidth or other issues but able to connect using Nucleus. The product is new and they're still working out some kinks (we've had to reboot a few times), but customer service has been extraordinary. How extraordinary? After we set up our account the head of their product team emailed me and asked for feedback on our experience. There was a real person at the other end of that email, and when I described how we were using Nucleus to stay in touch with mom and Ray after her fall, he offered best wishes for her recovery and then asked for her address,saying the team at Nucleus wanted to send her something. The next day a bouquet of flowers arrived from the Nucleus team wishing her a speedy recovery. Have you ever seen such customer service? How could you not love--and root for--this startup? Nucleus is a new product, and there's a small but clearly passionate and hardworking team behind it. Their tech support team was on top of any issues we've run into, and the product has been critical in keeping our family connected during this difficult time. With its wide-angle camera and "always on" feature I've also loved using it to spy on my dog during the day. It'd make a great baby monitor too. And with the mobile app, all my siblings can connect without investing in their own unit (though I suspect they'll be buying one soon as well). Whether you have tech-challenged older people in your life living a thousands of miles (or even a block) away or just want to keep an eye on kids playing in the next room, we highly recommend it!
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