apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Love these! They're my favorite wedding gift to give to friends. My first set (from 2003) just died, and I was thrilled to find out that Vessel offers a 25% discount to owners of the older version who want to upgrade to the set with replaceable batteries. They took back my old Candelas for recycling, too.

Having been burnt twice by Vessel - once by my Candelas working for exactly one (1) evening, then by Vessel charging me and never shipping new batteries, I will wait to see if these work better. Sister Rae - please report when you can.

I read the article and couldn't help but be repulsed by the snobbish response of DWR:

Despite the higher price, it has sold well in places like the MoMA Store and Vessel’s first nationwide retail chain, Design Within Reach. Barbeau says the retailer expressed interest in earlier Vessel products but told him they were “not expensive enough.� He adds, with a laugh, “Finally with the Luau we nailed it — by making the price really high.�

It makes me sick to think that DWR operates like this. I have made several purchased at DWR over the yeras, but now I think I have spent my money there for the last time.

I had two sets of Candelas and loved using them, but BOTH sets stopped working after a few weeks! :( I hope that Oxo has some better engineering to put into Vessel's products.

I too will wait and see after buying two sets only to have one charging base die very quickly (and no simple recourse to deal with it; still only have one functioning base). The 8 Candelas each hold charges of varying durations but few close to as long as they should.

I love Vessel's products. I'm really excited to take a look at the demi-glow candelas in particular. My guess is that, by partering with OXO, they transfer the quality control and customer service responsibilities (which both can be hard to monitor when demand gets above a certain level for a small business).

The Vessel store in Boston is getting more and more foot traffic nowadays, since they are right next to the recently-completed Chinatown park. It's the first of the park spaces created by the surface area created by the "Big Dig" to open.

bought a set about five years ago and had no problems -- loved the idea and like the new styles

I'm curious, SisterRae (or anyone else with this knowledge) to learn more about the 25% discount for owners of previous versions. I, too, purchased a set that lasted barely half a year, and they just sit and gather dust now. I'd love to give the new versions a chance, but can't find any info. on their site (that I've found so far) about this 25% discount. Do you need to contact them personally? I tried to do that when my set died years ago, and NEVER received a response, so hopefully there is an easier way. (Though maybe customer service is better, with the OXO merger?)

I emailed Vessel to ask if there was a way to repair my set, or safely dispose of it, and they gave me a code to upgrade to the new version. It was UPGRADE435 (hopefully it's ok to post that here) - may have changed by now, but it worked when I ordered from their site in July.