Keysight officially lost the plot - don't buy if you're a hobbyist

[hpw]

in europe those specific conditions would be ignored in any consumer claim if the consumer purchased the device through legal channels.

Right. If you are in EU - buy from EU distributor and you are covered. One that I know is batronix.com (not affiliate, just satisfied customer).

I am not    so to setup a LLC with paperwork & each year costs after 10 years more 

[Nominal Animal]

I finally found a good reference for Finland: The entrepreneur and unemployment security, from TE-palvelut, the government organization that handles this stuff.  Main point:

You are not entitled to unemployment benefits if you are fully employed as an entrepreneur or through self-employment.

When one is employed elsewhere and has a side business, everything works fine.  But, if you resign, you will automatically be classified as a self-employed or an entrepreneur, and will not get any unemployment benefits at all.  If you get laid off, the situation gets murkier, and you usually have to go through quite a paperwork battle to show that your side business has never been profitable enough to classify as self-employment.  Unfortunately, if you did manage to make a nice extra from your side business, you will be classified as an entrepreneur, and get no unemployment benefits.

I used to run a limited liability company from '97/98 up till 2005 or so, and handled all the paperwork myself.  (I even got training for myself to do that; as well as for copyright law and licensing issues.  It was quite profitable, but broke me, because I am not a business type person: I just want to fix all problems I get my grubby little hands on, and am very easily exploited; rather naïve, really.  Burnout, depression ensued.)  My family is also full of entrepreneurs; we're the work-work-work kind of people, for good or bad.

The Finnish tax office is actually extremely helpful (for companies and entrepreneurs); one only needs to contact them as early as possible, and they'll work hard to help you.  If you suspect you may be handling some tax issues wrong, I can warmly recommend you contact them.  In my experience, they were more than happy to help with any issues regarding taxation; they even offer help in tax planning.

The TE-palvelut, on the other hand, well, they're run by a completely different set of metrics, and it is in their interest to categorize as many people as possible as entrepreneurs, and that leads to the perceived curb-stomping of unemployed entrepreneurs in Finland.  It's not the people, it's the metrics used to control that office.  This is the root cause of the problem, and due to cultural issues (Finland having a politically weak small-to-medium enterprise sector, compared to say Germany), is difficult to fix, even when lots of people acknowledge the problem exists.  Some of the parties could even be classified as anti-entrepreneurs, more for semantic and ideological reasons than practical or taxation reasons.

There are ways to avoid that, even in Finland, by setting up a group of interconnected companies.  However, even thinking about that literally gives me hives (urticaria), so if anyone is interested in that, I recommend they contact a business angel (experienced entrepreneur/CEO) through one of the business incubators, since they too will be familiar with such arrangements, and are often happy to help new entrepreneurs.

[tautech]

in europe those specific conditions would be ignored in any consumer claim if the consumer purchased the device through legal channels.

Right. If you are in EU - buy from EU distributor and you are covered. One that I know is batronix.com (not affiliate, just satisfied customer).

I am not    so to setup a LLC with paperwork & each year costs after 10 years more 

Which by itself is enough to buy a damn fine scope !
Or enough to set up a fine hobbyist lab.

[hpw]

in europe those specific conditions would be ignored in any consumer claim if the consumer purchased the device through legal channels.

Right. If you are in EU - buy from EU distributor and you are covered. One that I know is batronix.com (not affiliate, just satisfied customer).

I am not    so to setup a LLC with paperwork & each year costs after 10 years more 

Which by itself is enough to buy a damn fine scope !
Or enough to set up a fine hobbyist lab.

May call it a hobby dealing as retired engineer with companies as named and dealers, witch do not provide the required support & provide fixes... so 

Selling is one thing and the companies behind (most Asian) even have no incident tracking, so they finally are fishing with issues on the dark moon ..

 

[madires]

And regarding employment while having a company - well - you might have been lucky. If a company goes through a redundancy round - they will use any excuse in the book to get rid of you - especially in place where it is hard to get rid of people. So having a company thereby potentially "voiding" your employment contract can be an issue.

It's similar over here. If someone is employed and wants to start a side business he should ask his employer for an approval. Otherwise it could become a reason to fire you. In case of a hobby business most employers won't disagree, but you have to ask first.

However, there are more things to consider when running a hobby business in Germany. I know of a few cases in which people were forced by the revenue office to close their hobby business after a few years because of the lack of profit. The revenue office in another district might be fine with that.

[Someone]

In the end the government is not going to waste time & effort on doing all the accounting for companies that have a revenue which is close to zero.

Here in Oz your govt shift the responsibility onto you in the form of Business Activity statements. You collect the tax and you do the administration for them, thank you very much.

And even if you're not selling any widgets, you still are required to sit down and do the paperwork 4 times a year in addition to your regular annual income tax preparation.

More country specific derailing! Also, in Australia for the example discussed here it would be annual simplified reporting:
https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Business-activity-statements-(BAS)/Due-dates-for-lodging-and-paying-your-BAS/

Apologies.

No worries, the government likes to change the rules fairly frequently so it pays to check what the current parameters are. So you could sign up for simplified annual reporting this year and get forcibly moved to some other more onerous process in the future!

[rox77]

i appreciate your recommendation. i know them, not a bad distributor but their after-sales service still has a lot of room for improvement. although it may surprise you, in my experience the best distributor i have found is amazon because their after-sales service is unbeatable and, if after some time a problem is unsolvable, they do not hesitate to offer you a full refund. unfortunately, their offer is not as wide as i would like it to be. may be a little more expensive when purchasing the product but if there are problems as returns and shipping are free, it undoubtedly pays off.

in europe those specific conditions would be ignored in any consumer claim if the consumer purchased the device through legal channels.

Right. If you are in EU - buy from EU distributor and you are covered. One that I know is batronix.com (not affiliate, just satisfied customer).

[bson]

Surely that has to make a significant difference to the price that you charge in each case?

Are you permitted to charge consumers more than businesses?

Either way, you'd need two completely different pricing structures, two entirely different sales organizations, and two entirely different support organizations.  In other words, Keysight would need to add a consumer business unit.  Clearly they have no interest in this.

So the subject is perfectly correct - Keysight doesn't want consumer business, with an important qualifier: in the EU.  In the U.S., no worries, because laws differentiate between goods being industrial or consumer goods, not whether the buyer is a business or not.  Conversely, when a business buys a coffee maker or other consumer product, they get statutory consumer protections.

[SMB784]

This is a really disappointing development.  I have always wanted to own a Keysight scope for my personal bench, however I cannot in good conscience give them my business with this kind of attitude towards the hobbyist end of the market.

It is also my experience that companies who cater to industry clients often do not provide quality support to the education & university research sector of the market who buy in low volume and on an infrequent basis.  Judging by what I have seen, I expect this behavior to bleed over into their education clientele as well.  Shameful.

[SilverSolder]

Surely that has to make a significant difference to the price that you charge in each case?

Are you permitted to charge consumers more than businesses?

Either way, you'd need two completely different pricing structures, two entirely different sales organizations, and two entirely different support organizations.  In other words, Keysight would need to add a consumer business unit.  Clearly they have no interest in this.

So the subject is perfectly correct - Keysight doesn't want consumer business, with an important qualifier: in the EU.  In the U.S., no worries, because laws differentiate between goods being industrial or consumer goods, not whether the buyer is a business or not.  Conversely, when a business buys a coffee maker or other consumer product, they get statutory consumer protections.

Are you saying that hobbyists do get full warranty/service in the US,  but not elsewhere?

I have noticed the US Keysight eBay listings all say "for professional/industrial use only"....

[scopeman]

I can not believe that Dave has not commented once on this thread.

Sam
W3OHM

[tautech]

I can not believe that Dave has not commented once on this thread.

Sam
W3OHM

He did 5 times here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/keysight-(lack-of)-calibration-other-services/
But not even a peep here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/a-broken-34470a-and-keysights-terrible-customer-service/
 

[NekoBrinch]

If you as a private person bought it from keysight, they should support you. If you bought it from a dealer, the dealer is your support, and you cannot expect any kind of support from keysight.
That is fairly normal. It is actually the law in a lot of countries to protect the customer. The dealer will have a huge amount of responsibility towards the consumer. The law protects the customer even if the dealer is not able to get the desired support from the manufacturer they (the dealer) is still responsible for handling whatever issue you have within the 2 years warranty that is mandated by law on all consumer goods as a minimum in Denmark where I live (EU). In the US I know this is different.
That is also why keysight eBay will not ship to Denmark (I guess). They do not sell directly to private consumers. Like commodore did not do, only through dealers.

[inaxeon]

Meanwhile, in this thread:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/agilent-8753es-a24-microwave-transfer-switch-substitute/

The designer of my instrument, and still a Keysight employee has been helping me repair it.

[SilverSolder]

Meanwhile, in this thread:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/agilent-8753es-a24-microwave-transfer-switch-substitute/

The designer of my instrument, and still a Keysight employee has been helping me repair it.

Humans 1, corporations 0 

[Anthocyanina]

Hi,

well let´s hope for those loop holes in the interest of KS.
But then ... I didn´t get any reply from those good people over here when I asked. 

regards
Calvin

Hmmmh ... I wonder what happens to those who won devices on Keysight Wave? Will they also be denied service? 

Well, this was the situation as of yesterday:

I do wonder why Daniel from KS that frequents here has seemed to have gone AWOL however I'd bet his inbox is getting a bashing.

Well, the Keysight give-aways from Dave's raffle last April still haven't shown up, and I think Daniel has probably gone from "embarrassed" to "can't show my face in public".

Last time I heard from him in respect of that was 19th August last year. Part of me is going "Can't really complain, we are talking free after all", another part is going "Keysight eh? Lucky you changed the name or Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard would be turning in their graves.".

Hi everyone, I'm back from holiday break and a rough string of getting sick, sorry for the absence.

A couple things:

1 - Wave /  KU Live 2021 prizes - many are still in the works, some have been delivered. TBH it's been hell but I'm working on it. Those of you who might still be waiting can please feel free to reach out. I'm trying to prioritize the winners for folks like Dave as well.

2 - business vs. hobbyist - I can't say much more than what I've already said on the matter, but it's a legal thing and I'm doing as much as I possibly can to internally advocate for potential alternatives and solutions. As it stands now this is the situation, though. That being said, it's not a terrible idea or terribly expensive to have a small business setup somehow (at least in the US) for a number of reasons. I'm definitely not providing legal advice/business recommendations nor do I advocate doing it, but that's one possible way around it. Maybe folks could even work together on something like that...

-Daniel

I wonder if anyone has contacted Daniel after this and gotten a response?

[rteodor]

Just got the boot from Keysight a few hours ago for an oscilloscope but I am going to insist.
At least in my case the sales representative pointed me to a local distributor. So I will check with them.

I got burned with a Siglent rebranded Axiomet oscilloscope. The specs were fine but in reality the firmware was bad. Really quite bad. And so far, after some years, I found no way to update it.
That is why I am afraid of going with lesser options. That is why I want the good stuff, the Agilent quality stuff.

My 2 cents opinion is that KS will (or should) update the site to redirect small and unimportant "few thousand bucks" buyers to local distributors. They _are_ buyers after all KS can pass them to the "little friends" for profit.

[tautech]

I got burned with a Siglent rebranded Axiomet oscilloscope. The specs were fine but in reality the firmware was bad. Really quite bad. And so far, after some years, I found no way to update it.

My 2 cents opinion is

Worthless.

Axiomet burned you by not providing updated firmware. Period.
It's not and has never been Siglent's responsibility to provide firmware for any of their rebrands as you can't load Siglent firmware directly onto a rebrand as they're configured differently.

Some using CFG files have been able to upload Siglent firmware onto rebrands however when this is done the instrument identifies as a Siglent and thereafter can only accept Siglent firmware.

[Bassman59]

I got burned with a Siglent rebranded Axiomet oscilloscope. The specs were fine but in reality the firmware was bad. Really quite bad. And so far, after some years, I found no way to update it.

My 2 cents opinion is

Worthless.

Axiomet burned you by not providing updated firmware. Period.
It's not and has never been Siglent's responsibility to provide firmware for any of their rebrands as you can't load Siglent firmware directly onto a rebrand as they're configured differently.

Some using CFG files have been able to upload Siglent firmware onto rebrands however when this is done the instrument identifies as a Siglent and thereafter can only accept Siglent firmware.

If "Siglent" is the brand name on the product and in the documentation, then Siglent is responsible for supporting the product, including firmware updates.

To claim otherwise is ... oh, I don't know, being a shill.

[rsjsouza]

My 2 cents opinion is

Worthless.

Salty much? His sentence following talks about Keysight...

If "Siglent" is the brand name on the product and in the documentation, then Siglent is responsible for supporting the product, including firmware updates.

To claim otherwise is ... oh, I don't know, being a shill.

The Axiomet is a brand, so Siglent wouldn't show on its fascia...

[tautech]

If "Siglent" is the brand name on the product and in the documentation, then Siglent is responsible for supporting the product, including firmware updates.

To claim otherwise is ... oh, I don't know, being a shill.

It's not, there's no indication on a rebrand other than on maybe the PCB who the OEM is....rebrands work like that. 

[rteodor]

Well, my initial deal was with Axiomet that is true. And yes, Axiomet is completely opaque. There is a big empty void on its firmware page.
But if customer satisfaction is important maybe Siglent could have at least kept some firmware somewhere. Its name is in the USB descriptor.

@rsjsouza: the picture is for a newer model with a 800x480 display. Mine is even older, it has a 480x234 display.
A feeling strikes me while I am writing this: Axiomet might be the purge of old Siglent stock. This would be fine because at least the hardware is not something to throw out. The marketing instinct tells that Siglent should have a little more consideration on the brand name and not hide behind the Axiomet finger.

My subjective opinion is that Siglent alone has one of the best value for the money currently. Its offering is really attractive to budget restricted clients like me.
Yet here I am spending a very good amount of money on a KeySight oscilloscope to cure fear and frustration.

Returning to the OP subject: it seems that buying a KS product is not that hard. The local distributor even has slightly better price. And concluding from the delivery time its stock seems complementary the KS stock.
I will speak again when I will see the thing on my desk.

[2N3055]

Well, my initial deal was with Axiomet that is true. And yes, Axiomet is completely opaque. There is a big empty void on its firmware page.
But if customer satisfaction is important maybe Siglent could have at least kept some firmware somewhere. Its name is in the USB descriptor.

...

A feeling strikes me while I am writing this: Axiomet might be the purge of old Siglent stock. This would be fine because at least the hardware is not something to throw out. The marketing instinct tells that Siglent should have a little more consideration on the brand name and not hide behind the Axiomet finger.

It is called contract. When you manufacture equipment for somebody to put their name on it, you usually sign contract that you will never engage their customer. Ever. Axiomet was supposed to get firmware from manufacturer (whoever it is) and publish it on it's web site.

Axiomet has no connection with Siglent. Axiomet simply rebrands all of it's equipment from random manufacturers...
Your speculations are just wrong and dismissing.

Problem is not with Siglent manufactured scope, nor Siglent. Problem is that you bought a product from a a brand that has bad support. If you had bought from Siglent or Rigol or several other non A brands that do decent job supporting customers you wouldn't have problems.

You seem to have some problem, thinking that world should behave differently to you than to anybody else because it would suit you... And then you take offense if it doesn't.

And now you're deliberately want to buy equipment from a manufacturer that plainly says that they won't support you, for the equipment they do manufacture...

Do you sense the pattern here?

[tv84]

Why are deans contributing in derailing this thread?    I thought I'd entered the wrong thread...

[rteodor]

When I bought it I only compared the price and the specs. And then I had way fewer options than today. Rigol and Siglent were not even available to me at that time.

You seem to have some problem, thinking that world should behave differently to you than to anybody else because it would suit you... And then you take offense if it doesn't.

Do you sense the pattern here?

Quite right. I worked before with Agilent so I just assumed that I buy it and then use it and that is all. It never occurred to me that I will ever need something more a.k.a manufacturer support.
Or to put it in some popular saying "I was born in a Mercedes" so I am naive into believing that all businesses think on long term.

So this is the pattern. That is why I am buying KS now. But if I am wrong about KS and I will need their support too please advise before I make another mistake.

PS: Should we move to another thread ?