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TH05 Recall Notice


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Hi everyone,

I recently received an email from BPlus offering a full refund on the TH05 because it did not get final approval and has compatibility issues with Macbooks. They also said they will no longer offer it for sale as of this time, even going as far as recommending I purchase a Magma Express or Sonnet Echo. Did any of you get the same email? This email came out of nowhere and was not prompted by me via any support claim.

Cheers.

Bplus product Brief (PDF)

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Can you please quote the email you received, word-for-word? Wondering what's going on. I found the TH05 worked perfectly as described, delivering 88% of the performance of the Sonnet Echo Express/Magma box at less than 1/3 of their price. An absolute bargain.

It would be a terrible shame if BPlus are to discontinue the TH05. Guess Sonnet/Magma/OWC don't have to worry about returns where users purchase a TH05, get near their performance and pocket a stack of change.

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Here is the detail of the correspondence. I know it's a legitimate set of emails because it was originally a reply to the paypal record they had of my purchase. I am not likely to return my board because it's working fine for my purposes and is used for a mission critical machine in my business. This is sad if they are stopping production.

First email:

"Recall notification.

Dear ****,

Thanks for your interest in our TH05.

Since this item is engineering sample which hasn’t got final approval yet, and there are still some compatible issues existed between MacBook and them.

If you agree with this recall activity, we are pleased to refund all price to you as soon as we could.

Please contact with us for further return procedure.

Sincerely yours,

******."

Second email after I complained about how I can't return it because I use it for work purposes:

"We are very sorry for this situation.>

As we are not able to provide TH05 any more, so we think it is muchsafer >

for you to use other products in case that TH05 is broken. >

We think "Magma ExpressBox 3T" or "Sonnet Echo™Express and Echo Express Pro" >

can work well. >

https://thunderbolttechnology.net/products?tid=8&field_company_nid=All>

In the future, we would like to provide similar product, however, weare not >

able to provide at present. >

>

For return and refund information, we will send another e-mail toyou >

for detailed information. >

>

Again, we are very sorry for it and thank you for yourunderstanding. >

>

>

Best Regards, "

Next email after I asked for the technical reasons for the recall:

" TH05 will be no longer available in the future.

So, there is no replacement when TH05 in your system is broken.

Also, it is not recommended to use engineering sample for your product.

That is why we propose to use other certified Thunderbolt products.

Thank you for your understanding.

Best Regards, "

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I think they started selling them before crossing the i's and dotting the t's with intel... which probably didn't get its licensing cut from them because they were formally still in product development mode.

There's likely nothing wrong with the actual devices. Intel's lawyers simply got them in hot water.

Lucky I got mine...

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Does seem to be a legal issue. Intel has been very closed minded with who has been allowed to officially use thunderbolt. Hopefully this gets resolved.

Really does make you wonder about Intel's take on thunderbolt... the fact that they aren't supporting one of thunderbolts biggest uses makes it seem like they want thunderbolt to die off :/

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I wouldn't jump to conclusions. I suspect intel doesn't want people using TB for graphics until AMD and/or nVidia have their shit together (hotplugging support etc) to sanction it.

It doesn't work.

We're all just looking away (and not hot unplugging our enclosures) but if they stopped threatening their partners out of supporting graphics the general public would see that thunderbolt as an ecosystem (including windows support, osx support and gpu vendor support) is not yet grown up. And that would rabidly hurt its adoption outside our little technically-minded niche.

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The eGPU adoption has always been held back by the hardware companies in this industry. Laptop manufacturers don't want people to extend the lifespan of their laptop, or prevent them from selling models with better GPUs inside them. The GPU makers such as Nvidia probably are very uncertain about this business as well. It's a damn shame. It would have been standard long time ago to plug in more powerful devices replacing the weaker ones inside the laptop, but that's not good business for the laptop makers.

Not saying that this is related to the disappearance of this BPlus company, but it's kind of typical. As pointed out, could be Intel pulling the strings here. But hearing about Thunderbolt years ago, then sitting and waiting for it, then they give Apple 1 year exclusive head start, and then it still takes 2 years before we see it from PC makers... and then another before any support for it, and... yeah.

I bet the years will continue to pass by, and we'll see little to no support for mainstream eGPU solutions. Or very expensive, or subpar, ones.

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bplus.com.tw, hwtools.net, and adapter.co.jp are still up, just updated with TH05 missing.

Nope thats not true. bplus.com.tw is down (providers default page is shown) and all international support emails are handled by this domain.

try to send an email to [email protected] or [email protected] (who's the girl writing me about the recall).

If I knew some mandarin I'd probably write the chinese support -_-

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I'm getting not much back from Masaharu @ BPlus about the reason for the recall...

Dear Mr. Nando,

Thank you for your e-mail.

> Appears some users are getting a TH05 product recall notice.

> Can you advise what is going on here?

Yes, TH05 now needs to recall.

As TH05 is not Thunderbolt certified product, so all of shipped TH05

must be returned to us.

So, please help us to ask TH05 users to accept TH05 recall.

For the detail, we will send e-mail again to all of those whom

purchased TH05.

To which I've asked further and haven't yet received a reply as yet . . .

Will you be providing a functional replacement for the TH05 in the near future? If so, what timeframe (weeks, months?).

I and other users with TH05 have found no issues with the product. It's a far more economical solution than Sonnet/OWC/Magma provide yet yields near their performance level. I'm guessing you'll have trouble getting those users return the product when they are very happy with it, me included unless there is some promise of a functional replacement in the near future.

I'd be guestimating Intel putting the hammer down to protect other premium vendor's such as OWC, Magma, Sonnet in getting a decent return for their Thunderbolt investment. BPlus' TH05 gave 89% of their performance for less than a third of the price. Relative to these other products, the TH05 was an astonishingly good deal.

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I've also been harassing them on their surprisingly-active Facebook Page. When asked about why they stopped, here's their response:

Thank you for inquiry!

As TH05 and TH03 are not Thunderbolt certified products, so the quality does not satisfy requirement, even though works fine in some environment.

We know it is very inconvenient for you, however, we would like you to understand this case to enhance whole quality of Thunderbolt market.

We will send another e-mail for detail about return and refund soon.

Thank you again for your understanding.

Thanks!

All signs point to Intel got angry and forced em to stop producing Thunderbolt products. I've asked them if they're going to try to become compliant or if they're just going to give up altogether. Waiting for a response to that...

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just got a follow up from them on Facebook after probing them about what the deal was with Intel:

Thank you for your inquiry.

From present Thunderbolt policy, it is difficult to release certified TH05, because enclosure is required for PCIe adapter.

So, we will plan to release another product TH04, which is almost same as PE4H v3.2b but has Thunderbolt port instead of ExpressCard.

We hope you will like it!

Thanks!

that sounds great! no eta given though

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Got a reply to my question about a replacement for a TH05 and when. It's similar to what Kloper received. Seems the Thunderbolt group want enclosures before they can certify the product. While I'd like to help BPlus, I will not be volunteering my TH05 back. It's got deluxe parking on my desk :)

Thank you for you to care about us, and sorry for late reply.

We are ok.

> Will you be providing a functional replacement for the TH05 in the near future?

> If so, what timeframe (weeks, months?).

We would like to develop TH04, the product is almost same as

PE4H v3.2b, but has Thunderbolt port instead of ExpressCard.

PE4H V3.2 (PCIe x16 Adapter)

We hope we can release it in Summer.

> I and other users with TH05 have found no issues with the product.

> It's a far more economical solution than Sonnet/OWC/Magma

> provide yet yields near their performance level.

For these PCIe adapter, enclosure is required for Thunderbolt

logo / certification, so other company's ones are also in enclosure too.

We still believe TH05 is good, however, we also can understand that

Thunderbolt group requires high level quality by certification

because they do not want to see bad interoperability issues

in market especially in pioneer days for Thunderbolt to be notorious

to spoil Thunderbolt future.

> I'm guessing you'll have trouble getting those users return the product

> when they are very happy with it, me included unless there is some promise

> of a functional replacement in the near future.

Recall is a kind of trouble but is also very important lesson and process

for our company and also for the future.

Actually, it is much more trouble for us that we can not gather shipped

TH05s back to us.

We promise we will provide TH04 as early as possible.

So, we would like you to cooperate us to gather all them back!

Thank you again for your kindness.

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I too received this email.

I replied asking why I need to return it.

Still waiting on a reply, would I need to return it if they ask?

If it was a safety recall where the product contained toxic materials dangerous to your health or had electrical faults that could damage your notebook then I'd be inclined to return it. Neither of those is true. Masaharu advised above "We still believe TH05 is good".

So BPlus can ask for you to return the item but it's at your discretion. You've paid for it, are now the rightful owner so can do with it as you please.

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