UPDATED August 25, 2011: If you have a Zx3 with the charging issue, read through the article, but be sure to see the notes at the VERY bottom about how you MAY be able to work around the problem if you are out of warranty.
UPDATED August 24, 2011: Beth LaPierre, Chief Listening Office at Kodak, was responsive to my comments about our experience with the Zx3 and worked with me to find an agreeable solution. After shipping back camera #4, we will be receiving the newer model Zx5 with its own one year warranty. I believe that is a fair handling of our issue. Still, there was no “official” word from Kodak that this is as widespread of a problem as the hits on this site would indicate. Just in August, there have been over 740 hits on THIS article alone. I still believe it would be a chance to Kodak to turn lemons into lemonade for everyone (including overall consumer relations) to possibly issue a recall or at least make public their acknowledgment of this issue.
UPDATED August 12, 2011: The charging issue has cropped up again, this time on the FOURTH camera in a year. That means that, under the warranty, we will have needed at least five Zx3 units to make it through twelve months. The problem started a couple of weeks ago, but I’ve been too busy to sit down and begin contacting Kodak about it again. It gets a bit discouraging to have to do this over and over for a simple consumer product. Does anyone have any experience with the newer Kodak Zx5?
UPDATED April 18, 2011: See notes at the bottom to read an update on this from other users experience charging issues with this model. We’ve gotten a surprising number of hits from Google and other search engines from people searching for terms like this:
- kodak playsport charging light doesn’t come on
- playsport zx3 does not charge (or won’t charge)
- kodak playsport troubleshoot charge
- kodak playsport battery not charging
- kodak playsport charging problem
- kodak playsport stopped working after charging
- my kodak camera will not charge
These are all individual search terms people put in search engines just in the month of April. Houston, we have a problem. Kodak, will you acknowledge it?
UPDATE FROM MARCH 2011: After having the third camera for half a year, the problem started happening again. In speaking with a tech support rep through chat, he indicated that this was a firmware issue (!!!???). Firmware? He had me to pull the battery out and the memory card and try plugging the charger into the camera. The camera wouldn’t charge or come on. I got it to flicker for just a fraction of a second by adjusting the charging cable where it enters the camera. That was it.
Again, this rep would not answer a direct question as to whether or not this is a known issue with these cameras. The recourse was to send in the camera for RMA/replacement while it is still under warranty. I’m thinking, “So are you going to send me another defective unit which will have the same problem???”
Kodak needs to fix this problem and redesign the charging port to be tighter, stay tighter, not loosen up over common, every day usage and KEEP CHARGING the camera like it is supposed to. Otherwise, they are telling consumers that they are out of luck dealing with Kodak. (What DO you do when the warranty runs out on what might be termed a shoddy product?) Kodak, time to weigh in.
ORIGINAL POST FROM AUGUST 30, 2010
I thought it might be helpful to someone else to post the results of a recent CHAT session with Kodak “support.” The issue is that the supposedly waterproof camera Kodak makes wasn’t charging the battery after only a few days of use. While I have mixed feelings at this point about the camera and Kodak’s “support,” I must say that Best Buy was very easy to deal with on the returns. Items marked in RED indicate an inordinate amount of wait time for a response from the Kodak “support” representative. [Read the rest of this entry...]