48 days later....
This is the story of how I turned from wanting to be a giant cheerleader for this company, to being so frustrated that I will never spend another dime on their products again: I loved the idea of growing fresh veggies indoors for my family, and seduced by the slick marketing and my initial success, I purchased 3 units within the last year. I was quite happy until I started experience equipment failure in 2 of the units. The first time it happened, customer service was slow but adequate, and after sending me a new pump (which it turned out was not the issue) they sent me a new lid that fixed the problem. Almost the same day unit A got repaired, I noticed unit B's plants were wilting. I threw the new pump from unit A into B as I knew this would be a trouble shooting step. I verified that the pump was not the issue, and I reached out to customer support explaining the steps I already took. Thus started my long journey toward what should have been a cut and dried resolution. Their first response was to send me a bunch of links to generic trouble shooting steps, demonstrating that they did not read my email for comprehension. I emailed again, RE-explaining that the issue was the lid as I had already completed all previous trouble shooting steps. They responded that even though I had just changed the pump, they were going to send me a new pump, which is completely illogical. The new pump took two weeks to reach me (I live in a major metro area). I put in the new pump and reached back out (surprise!) to let them know that it was still not working. They confirmed my original suspicion that it was an issue with the lid, and told me my two options were to send in my current lid to have it repaired (at least a 3 week turn around) or to accept a refurbished lid that had been thoroughly tested and inspected by a specialist of some sort. The refurbished lid was purportedly the faster option and considering that I had been hand watering these plants 3x daily for weeks at this point I agreed. It took just shy of ANOTHER two weeks for the refurbished lid to come, and when it arrived, my heart sank as there was visible damage to the light plugs. I tried it anyway (each time you connect a new lid, it's a two person project that takes a minimum of 30 minutes if everything goes well) and it would not connect. I spent several days trying all the trouble shooting steps that I'd received from previously, and not only did it not work, but it somehow interfered with another unit, which then also had to be troubleshot. I finally got it to connect! Bad news though, was that the pump was still not engaging with this 'new' lid. I reached back out (the email train was getting quite lengthy), and after having me disconnect the lights for some reason, they offered to send me... a new pump. At this point I felt like a character in No Exit, and patience thoroughly exhausted, was about ready to claw my eyes out. I told them NOT to send me a pump, that I would put in the new pump from unit A (to replace the brand new pump on lid 2 of unit B??), to verify that in fact the problem was and remained NOT THE PUMP. In the course of changing the pump I lost my grip on the annoyingly short and hard to grip plug wiring, which retracted into the inside of the lid, and was unreachable by any means that I had available. At this, customer support finally agreed send me a new lid. I was livid by this point at the slow walking and told them that to make this right for me the two actions I would find acceptable would be a lid sent expedited, or for them to take this not quite 6 month old (at the original time of break down) unit back and refund me. They pretty much ignored this direct statement several times, defaulting instead to perky, meaningless customer service jargon (Don't worry! Sorry you're having trouble and rest assured we are well on the way to getting your unit up and running!) which was supremely irritating considering the inefficient, nonsensical approach to this problem. I pressed the issue regarding expedited shipping so I didn't need to wait two weeks for a part a THIRD time, and was told that due to stock issues, they were unable to accommodate this request (they did prompt me however to hurry up and return the busted lid to them- I assume this was not intentional irony). I was assured that they found this as unacceptable as I did (more patronizing customer service jargon) and offered me a $20 off coupon on my next purchase; after literally weeks of getting nowhere with an $800 non functional pile of PVC sitting in my living room, THIS is what they came up with to make things right. I told them to keep it, as I will never spend another dime on one of their products. Today, a working lid finally arrived, and my unit is operational again 48 days, conservatively dozens of emails, and 145 manual waterings later. I'm far more relieved than satisfied.