I see now a days any changes brings by ather it’s a hole in customers pocket. Nothing free concept or customer friendly. Clearly I see ather is not customer friendly and will not take this forum seriously. Not everyone rich who take this bike there are people who are middle class and ather should think about them. I was a big fan of ather and told lot of good stories and feeling proud to have one. Now I clearly suggest ppl not to go for this bike unless you have Enough money to pay them as they ask. Hoping one fine day ather will hear customers and help them
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We’ll announce details about this shortly.
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Ather should focus on connectivity with mobile phone. May be via Bluetooth or wifi …this will solve everything…
How Abt option of android dashboard on ather 450 for all 450 owners at a minimum cost.Brand building exercise by ather …what say? On a serious note atleast a Option…already after shelling out 1.25 lakhs we find our vechicle outdated within 5 months of purchase.
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How Abt option of android dashboard on ather 450 for all 450 owners at a minimum cost.Brand building exercise by ather …what say? On a serious note atleast a Option…already after shelling out 1.25 lakhs we find our vechicle outdated within 5 months of purchase.
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Well things change You said this earlier as well
But things change I understand I remember attending the open house in Feb and Tharun saying that an upgrade for our dashboard to the 450X dashboard is in the works but that changed.
We don’t exactly need the 450X dashboard with the Snapdragon and all that. All I’m trying to say is, especially after reading a lot of the messages on this group, a lot of people don’t see it as a payable upgrade to just move from 3G to 4G, but if we were offered with an extra bluetooth connection bundled with the upgrade, it will be easier to push people to upgrade their dashboard. Just a suggestion.
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I understand that we will have to pay for this upgrade, since it involves a lot of work and cost for Ather. I’m completely ok with paying for that, depending on the cost 
. I hope Ather doesn’t charge a premium for what is an essential upgrade to the users. And I do feel sorry for the users who bought their vehicles recently.
What I don’t understand is how Ather got blindsided on an issue that , we, the initial users, have been pointing out for a year or more. We had shared news articles around a year back where Vodafone had mentioned that they would be discontinuing their 3G services soon. But Ather chose to bury their heads in the sand, and kept pushing the can further down the road. Now, they appear surprised that Vodafone is stopping their services within a few days, when we have been shouting from the rooftops and asking for a backup option for the past 1 year. I thought startups were supposed to be agile and not be doddering dinosaurs like the big legacy companies.
Already, the maps load extremely slow on a 3G network. Imagine watching the maps load on 2G network. It would probably remind me of my dialup days 
. And this is going to be the situation for the rest of the year.
I was one of the relatively early adapters of Ather and I used to recommend it to everyone. But I have been left extremely disappointed with the recent moves from Ather, right from the design decisions in the 450x, to the increase in costs of the subscriptions plans., and now this situation, that could have been easily avoided if they had listened to us initially.
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Customers should not be charged for the upgrade, this is not our fault.
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When I first tried a test drive in 2018 I spoke about it with Ather rep in store. If Ather was listening to test drive customers by this time they would have in better stage. Neglected feedback will always give disasters.
This was just to ride on customers they were blocked on their stubborn decision on connectivity.
Every Ather customer have smartphones no doubt in it. If the alternate connectivity like even USB / Bluetooth connection they should have kept as backup option thinking as futuristic plan.
Seriously we need to approach CONSUMER COURT : 1800114000
http://www.consumerhelpline.gov.in/ for clarification
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They didn’t care about 3g shutdown for such long time even when it was asked in open house discussion where they said they were working on solution which obviously they didn’t till last moment. Now on top of this due to their choice of connectivity we are forced to to pay for upgrade which shouldn’t be in such early life of product.
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Lot of changes…lot of effort to keep your bike upgraded…lot of money to be spend on subscriptions and upgrades…I brought my Ather to keep it for the life of it…was confused whether to take subscription or keep my vehicle off the grid…you have made my choice easy… signing off from all this hussle…I am not upgrading…not subscribing…my Ather will be a free bird… The hardware has been working well so far for 1.5years…built quality is good…that’s all I need in a scooter for now, not worth spending a penny more to this ever-changing technology upgrades…especially on a vehicle.
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There will be challenges we have to face it but 5g is in reality . Tomorrow u guys keep changing the hardwares is it. my suggestions is tat you guys have to work on 5g transition module too.
Airwave technology is bound to change and there are chances that 4GLTE could become obsolete as well in a few years from now. What would be Ather Energy’s approach then? Another upgrade???
Just do away with embedded SIM in the dashboard. Provide connectivity between the rider’s phone and the dashboard (hardwired or wireless) using a dedicated app on the phone. All updates and ride statistics can be through the phone as and when connected to the scooter and whenever user wants to. Its pocket friendly for the user as well. He or she will adapt to newer connectivity (5G, 6G etc etc) as and when required. I expect the mechanical hardware to last longer that that in the ICE vehicles. Let us enjoy the lifespan of the vehicle rather that being bound to the technology within the vehicle. Take conenctivity via phone. This would be somethinig like Android Auto or Apple Carplay connectivity. Of course there is no ride statistics in Android Auto or Carplay. But note that Maruti Suzuki gives an option of an OBD unit through which one’s phone is connecteed through an app and all ride statistics can be obtained. May be that Ather can think on similar lines. Let not a user feel that the precious Ather 450 is losing its value because of airwaves within a short time (just 5.5 months of ownership in my case) Thanks.
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I’ve been thinking, and I understand upgrades cost money. I also understand that simply giving the option to connect to network via your phone was put aside because there are costs with respect to software development and maintenance costs, as well as API usage costs.
However, you guys know that you can give the ability to connect bluetooth tethering via a phone, put still charge a subscription for usage of smart services right? This way, the costs of carrier network usage will not be paid by Ather, and hence you guys can give cheaper subscription plans. It also gives infinite future proofing, as bluetooth will always be backwards compatible, and new phones will automatically use newer generation connection tech.
It is definitely worthwhile to provide bluetooth connectivity, and save on network costs that you have to pay. Almost all Ather users already have mobile data plans. Access to smart services will still cost money, due to API and dev costs.
I feel like this should have been the way Ather handled this in the first place, and should be the way Ather handles it in the future too. Of course for remote smart features, a sim and network connection is still required, but that should be made optional, and there should be different subscription plans for those that also want always connected SIM.
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I don’t think Ather foresaw the Jio effect, heck even established network providers failed to do that.
Bluetooth as an option would have added additional cost in terms of hardware and software. When they already have a 3G modem, why bother with any other form of communication protocol.
They went with a single unified protocol for all data transfer needs and it made sense to do it at that time.
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Yes it’s understandable that they didn’t foresee this, but at least from now, it’s pretty clear that at least once in a decade, there will be a shift to a new generation of network connectivity, with an older generation being phased out.
Bluetooth modules nowadays are very cheap, and if Ather is anyway going to have to disassemble the dashboard for this upgrade, they might as well add Bluetooth too. This way, there is never a worry of complete obsolescence. Those who want to use smart features can do so even a decade from now, by paying the required Ather subscription fee and using their mobile data.
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I think most users completely understand that you cannot plan for all the market dynamics. But I feel this was a complete own goal by Ather.
We had asked this during last year’s owners meet and they said that they were working on a paid upgrade for the users. But from the current response, it is clear that they were not working on it and have just started working on it after Vodafone blindsided them.
Instead of making the current version better, like they had promised initially, they were concentrating on making a newer version of the scooter where they could brag about being the fastest scooter by 0.1 sec, while almost completely ignoring the user feedback asking for more range.
Maybe they thought that since we have already bought the vehicle, it doesn’t make sense to invest more money on us unless absolutely necessary. Which is where we are currently, since they have been forced to work on an upgrade for the existing users.
If they had listened to us, the upgrade would have been ready months before the Vodafone announcement and not 5 months after Vodafone ends their service.
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Why Ather decided to use Vodafone 3G - we can’t blame them much… Coz the decision might have been taken much before 4G rollout… Even during Ather 450 launch time, when 4G was coming up, not many would have expected 3G to shut-down soon… (But I was sad for them choosing Vodafone, because they were the last 3G entrant and worst 3G operator in Bangalore)
We all speak in hindsight. But, Volte and Jio changed the landscape in India so soon… Even Airtel who were stubborn not to bring Volte were forced to bring it.
But, what was surprising and disappointing was that they took it lightly. Because, many have been pointing about 3G shut-down almost for an year… In fact, Airtel already officially announced 3G shutdown of few circles more than 8-9 months back…
And, even practically, the number of 3G towers were reducing across operators… If you had a 3G only phone, you must have faced serious detoriation in network quality for few months now. So, it was only a matter of time when they do, NOT if.
For some one, who could build Ather 450X with lot of internal changes quickly and surprised all of us, this 4G upgrade module should have been easier. They would have realised their miss regardless of whether they want to accept it or not.
Personally, I am okay to pay for 4G upgrade… But, this being an oversight from Ather, the cost should be subsidised by Ather even if it means a loss to them.
In terms of customer satisfaction, you over-delivered on first year and now if you reduce that for cutting costs, you are going to see 
and 
faces.
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@abhishek.balaji How much would be the estimate of this upgrade from 3g to 4g
And also
The subscription plans cost might change right because of this upgrade.
But I feel that price increase of the subscription plans need not be necessary as the 4g data plans are as low as 3g isn’t it since 3g is almost obsolete now
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I think the point which was tried to be made was rather than asking to pay for for just the 4g upgrade, you can offer an updated dashboard all together (not saying swap the 450x dashboard to 450 …but an upgraded dashboard for 450 altogether) with all the features mentioned like 4g, bluetooth, android and faster processor… would make for a much better deal for the upgrade (if at all they can price it correctly) rather than just expecting us to pay for an issue in the product within the warranty period.
Hope ather listens to their customers…
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