Geeky Thoughts

Thinking of buying the JioFi device by reliance or to be precise any device by Jio?

Please don’t, they are not simply worth the amount you pay for, you might be risking your life or body parts. Listen to my story first please

Going with the hype I bought a Reliance JioFi 2 device in August 2016. Happily I used it for the features which Jio provides. However 10 months down line I noticed that the backside of the device started showing cracks.

I opened it and saw that the battery has swelled up to a bad condition.

Look how alarming the swelling is:

I contacted Jio over telephone and social channels in June 2017, it had been just 10 months and I was expecting a repair or replacement of the battery. I was requested first to go to a lyf service center to get the device repaired. I went there and spent around 2 hours of precious time to get an answer that the warranty on accessories is 6 months and I will have to pay for the battery. I denied paying and told them that it was not a fault of mine.

I decided to press Jio further on Social channels.

@JioCare jiofi device getting damaged due to expanding battery inside it. check images. my contact details dm'd to you already pic.twitter.com/vDbIIKOMAt

— sajal (@sajalb) June 24, 2017

For the next few days 9 days to be precise, I had to make every Jio executives understand why it was not a fault of mine and as per them, they had tried hard but their superiors is not ready to give me a replacement. I was fed up, time is more precious. So after that I kept on using the Jiofi device.

To sum up: I should be ready to pay up 600-700 bucks for repairing #JioFi device every 6-8 months. Photos Videos & Blog coming up. RIP! #Jio

— sajal (@sajalb) July 3, 2017

Dear reader, please understand I am not a cheap guy, at least not when it comes to Technology or gadgets. I pay jio 999 for bimonthly plan for the jiofi device, but this scenario made me understand Jio can never be a good hardware vendor. They are importing cheap products from China and trying to dump them in India.

Here’s a twitter search, a reddit post and another reddit post which shows that I am not alone there are several users like me. I am lucky that mine had not blown causing major harms.

And ideally I should just throw away the JioFi device, because even if they provide me with a replacement battery, then also there is no guarantee that same thing will not happen with the new one, why bother with such a cheap company.

Recently Apple had a similar issue with their first generation apple watches, they have handled it very amicably for the few users who got a faulty battery by replacing their device even with a upgraded apple watch model.
Refer 9to5mac

Now I am sorry that I somehow thought Reliance Jio had the possibility of growing up just like other Big tech companies, I was highly mistaken.

Now that Jio is coming up with chinese cheap JioPhones, I am sure they will have similar cheap accessories, which they will give 6 months warranty and make sure they start getting payments from hapless poor people.

To update if you are still thinking of getting the JioPhone or JioFi or any Lyf devices.. please don’t do suicide. It might burst and cause harm to you and your family, refer the reddit posts above.