Great. I’ve found PayPal can be a little stubborn about getting your refunds, but no one dares lose their ability to charge a credit card, so the credit card companies are never argued with.
Good luck.
That sucks man. The Vita was in the middle of certification and they did release a RAAT-compliant firmware update (v1.6) but still need to pass certification. I’m keeping my hopes up that the company will still be around and continue offering their product. The fact that the site is still up and some sort of reply (albeit, automatic) can be taken as a small but good sign.
Covid and the US Administrations trade fight with China has not made it easy for any small tech businesses that source much of their parts from China. 
@Eric_Josue, Nativ is from Hong Kong.
It’s a bit hard to determine that on their website, but the terms and conditions on their website talk about Hong Kong law.
@danny Hello Danny. Yes, I believe they are incorporated in Hong Kong and I believe when you (try to) contact them you are reaching offices in HK. However, I think their manufacturing is subbed out to a 3rd party factory in Dongguan which is in mainland China in Guangdong Province not too far from HK. My contacts there are (or were) Sion reachable at Sion@nativsound.com or John Gowder reachable at Info@nativsound.com. But I would think you would be able to raise some response from Michael Li, the CEO and founder. He’s on LinkedIn here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-li-42728a117/?originalSubdomain=hk
@Eric_Josue. It does suck!! They did say they were having problems with COVID as the chinese authorities had closed the industrial park where the factory is located. But a month or so ago they told me that the park was opening and they were talking with officials making the final arrangements to get into the factory again. It was all imminent or so it was portrayed. If it is due to troubles such as this, then why not get the word out, explain it to the public? And if you still intend to be a viable company then why abandon the social media presence they evidently took such great care to grow. For instance, they have a big following on their page on Facebook. Yet, messages sent to them have gone unanswered for many weeks. And this is visible to anyone going on the page. So they seem quite happy to project an image of a company out of or going out of business. And of course, that will be a self-fulfilling prophecy! If I were Michael Li, the CEO, (and I wanted to stay in business) I would be all over social media and on forums like this explaining the situation and giving credible information (not a series of false promises) to maintain/build trust in my company.
I thought I would complete the loop regarding the outcome of my problems with a never-arriving Nativ Sound Vita as I posted above. I initiated the purchase guarantee procedures with Paypal and with my credit card company. The Capital One procedure requires a paper form that they send to you. That takes a while, so in the meantime the Paypal guarantee came through.
Just as Nativ stopped responding to my emails, they never responded to Paypal either. Paypal’s rules are that if the seller does not respond then the judgement is awarded to the buyer. So I received reimbursement in full. So glad I paid via Paypal using a credit card!
But the larger message here for others is that I think it is pretty clear that Nativ is no longer a going concern and probably should be written off as a source for your next player or for help on a Nativ you already have.
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Thanks for the update.
I bought mine and “activated” with Roon before the deadline and was able to get developer status so mine luckily will still work with Roon.
I’ll keep hopeful that they will turn up and get their s**t together.
Question - After talking with someone in support, I filled out the form for enabling my Nativ Vita (back in Nov) and haven’t heard anything since. Is there someone I should follow up with?
@danny - super excited for Roon version 1.8. But my Roon still hasn’t updated on my Nativ past Roon 1.7 (500). Is there any indication that Nativ Vita will be able to move to 1.8?
1.8 is not out yet. next week.
Hi Robert, lucky you, I am exactly in the same boat (ordered in April 2020) and unfortunately Pay Pal wouldn’t take my request because it is beyond the 180 days ( Because I didn’t know I could raise it with Pay Pal- Stupid me) and I understand why. I have raised this with Citibank but haven’t seen much progress. It is really quite annoying that the company after taking your money wouldn’t even be accountable to respond to a query around a delivery timeline. Its almost like they took advantage of the timing and are opening scamming the trusted customers. I feel like I have been robbed.
Sam…
So sorry to hear this. Yes, I too feel they have scammed their customers. It is shameful!
Got that.
Does Roon have any idea if/when with Nativ will be updated to 1,8? It looks like they’ve gone AWOL which is very disappointing - not Roons fault of course! But do you have any inside intel on them?
Hello David – No I don’t have any inside knowledge I’m afraid. The best I can offer is the two email addresses I used to contact them earlier. One is for a person named Sion, his address is/was Sion@nativsound.com. The other contact is a John Gowder in customer service and his address is/was info@nativsound.com.
–Rob
If I remember correctly, they are using the Roon Android app – if the Android app updates from the Google Play Store, it should update like any Android app using the Google Play Store.
If they are not using Google Play Store, I don’t know how they are managing updates, so it will require some process not controlled by Roon Labs to update.
If the device supports side-loading APKs, we do ship the APK on our downloads page.
I’ve tried email, Tweeting them, and anything else I can think of. No response. I get the feeling they’re not coming back. It’s a shame… I never tried to connect my Vita to Roon until after the developer cut off date, so right now, it’s a paper weight.
Yeah big shame. Roon with Vita is excellent - i do not know if there is a better way to enjoy Roon on a big, touch screen that can HDMI to a TV as well. Hopefully they will be back.
Ooh thats a good idea. Not sure if Nativ has a side loading APK - i pretty sure it does - will have a look into that. The concern is that i do the update, it doesn’t work and i can’t get the old version back!
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Argh! My Nativ fell over last night - has been working fine - is now saying it’s uncertified! @danny - is there any chance i can get it certified??
Has anyone figured if you can sideload the 1.8 APK on the Nativ Vita, and if so how it’s done?