[Handy] A Few Things to Get Off My Chest (June 2024)

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1

I wanted to counter the overwhelming positive light in which the Handy is shown and to ask if any body else is in the same position. On top of this - it seems like a lot of people are “suffering in silence” here?

The Handy team seem to know/acknowledge this is an issue but I have seen very few posts from users on the same.

I purchased the Handy back in late 2022, it worked great and the syncing / connection would work uninterrupted a solid 95% of the time.

I used DeoVR before graduating to Heresphere for the increased functionality/ better playback options etc. and still had no issues.

Fast forward to early 2024; stable connection to the servers via home wifi becomes unachievable - I raise this issue 5+ times with handy support over email and each time it’s suggested that the issue is not server-side and I am an idiot who forgot how to network and should just try the same steps again and again.

I have seen a few (like three, max) posts from official Handy staff accounts which acknowledge there is / was an issue with their API / server (though the latest post I have seen literally says it is because of problems with undersea cable infrastructure between EU and APAC… seriously?).

These replies / posts are either on here or r/TheHandy and I would add that I completely disagree with the decision to shut down r/TheHandySupport. This is all to say I have spent an EMBARRASSING amount of time (both prior and after these ‘official’ replies were posted) trying to fix what I was told repeatedly was a home-networking issue.

So my question is - what now and when are we going to be told what the actual problem / timeline for a fix is?

I saw posts saying that the main issues complained of in recent months were fixed, and there was a good week or so where that was the case but now it’s back to before.

I can’t stay connected for longer than 30 mins without everything timing out / losing sync and I know it is not anything to do with my specific set up or network.

Would also add:

handyfeeling.com will 99.9% of the time refuse connection through wifi unless I have a VPN layer (doesn’t even need to be a VPN based abroad… just won’t connect directly if there isn’t one - I am UK-based).

I can ping the handyfeeling.com server all day and not drop a packet but the second I plug in there are issues.

The Handy will connect to the handyfeeling.com servers using a hotspot and mobile data but with this type of connection it will no longer recognise to the toy via the VR app (i.e., DeoVR or Heresphere) if I do so - meaning this method is now useless as a workaround.

I have run network analytics for interference with other 2.4ghz devices and this isn’t it either. I have disabled LAN, I have gone as far as to switch off all other 2.4ghz devices to make sure it is not an interference issue.

The Handy Tech Support bot (even if useless anyway) is currently not online / unavailable to me as well.

With all the above, I am getting very frustrated as it takes too long to set everything up just to have these issues which make the Handy essentially unusable.

I either can’t get it to connect to begin with or (worse) it works for 20 mins and then seemingly "bricks’ itself out of the network mid-stroke.

Anybody else?

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I only had issues with connection a few weeks ago which they also acknowledge and took a few days for them to get fixed, but since then I dont have any sync, upload or connecting issues anymore (I am from Germany). Afair there was also the problem this year with one of the big undersea cables having issues so people from asia had problems connecting to their servers. Otherwise I don’t have any problems at all. Works great except for that one week three weeks ago or so. Also using Heresphere and Quest 3.

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I have had occasional bouts of persistent connectivity issues. There were no changes on my side or with my home network, but HereSphere would not be able to reliably upload scripts.

In every case the problem was immediately resolved by connecting to the Handy Connect app and switching to a new Handy key. This has fixed the issue multiple times with multiple Handy units.

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Hi charlie

Sorry to hear you are having issues.

I you are up for it, we could do a live debugging session with you to try to get to the bottom of the issues you are having with your device and the handyfeeling connectivity issues.

If you contact us on discord we can setup a date and see if we can try to figure this out together.

2 Likes
5

Hey man, sorry to hear about all your troubles.

Like Lars mentioned, we can do a debug session! If possible, can you share the email you used to reach out to our customer service? I want to find all the possible info so we can help you solve this on the session.

Hope you’re having a great week!

1 Like
6

Overall love my handy, but have noticed scripts not properly starting a few times in a 3-5 pmv session using funscripter.io. Symptoms are the video will start playing but script won’t. I just pause and then play again and the syncing starts.

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I once found that 2.4GHz beamforming made my handy’s connection unstable, no clue if this is still the case, but i still have it disabled.

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Thanks - I will reach out.

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I’m going to liase with the support chaps but (just in case) are you abke to please explain more?