Griffin Technology: A fine company going down

Griffin Technologies was one of my favorite companies. Alas, they're going downhill fast.

I bought their AirClick iPod RF remote and discovered, as have others, that the range is very limited. It's less useful than an IR remote. I thought the problem might be RF interference with the home security system, but changing location didn't help. Their FAQ suggested changing the battery, but when I opened the device I found the battery was epoxied in place. I tried calling tech support, but got a message saying they were in an "all day meeting". Then I tried emailing tech support and got this message:

502 Proxy Error:

Proxy Error
The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.
The proxy server could not handle the request GET /contact/email.php.
Reason: Could not connect to remote machine: Connection refused

This doesn't look good.

Update 9/29/06: Well, they did end up doing better. Once I got a human being on the phone they were quite happy to have me send in the unit, which they were sure was defective. I didn't want to spend too much time on this, so I just tossed in the component I was sure was broken. Wrong one! I was ok with that and forgot about it. Today, out of the blue, Griffin sent me their current AirClick. Now, it's not at all suited to what I wanted to do (control iPod output to my stereo) -- it plugs into dock connector and prevents charging, but it was quite nice of them. I'll see if I can figure out a use for it and if I can't I'll give it away. I think it's intended for an iPod in a backpack, but it's kind of a silly device.