Why did Lowe’s stores feature an empty box with a picture of a CNC machine equipped with a Kobalt router?
I didn’t understand.
I visited Lowe’s stores a couple of times over the winter holiday shopping season, to see if there were any new tool promos, and came across this unusual Kobalt tools display.
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Lowe’s stores were advertising Kobalt oscillating multi-tool blades and a Kobalt compact woodworking router, and there was a large empty box with a picture of a gantry-style CNC router.
I snapped some pics as a reminder to look into it, and moved on.
As it turns out, the router comes with an ER11 collet that makes it “ready for CNC makers using end mills.”
It’s a moot point now, I guess, as Lowe’s slashed the price by 40% and marked the router “unavailable for purchase online.”
There was no press release.
There was no launch video.
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Lowe’s and Kobalt didn’t even talk about this in a social media post.
There was no explanation in stores, just an empty box with a CNC router on it next to a couple of promo trim routers.
It was a “limited time buy” at $100. Now it’s $60 and seemingly no longer available.
I guess they’re only interested in drawing attention to things like their Metaverse and NFT project.
This was a good idea, but it suffered from having seemingly zero follow through. Lowe’s and Kobalt tried something new, but it was a swing and a stop.
Kentucky fan
Lowe’s really needs to figure out what they want to be and how to actually achieve it. Lowe’s is the only big box store in my area but quite frankly I find myself going to ace or the local mine supply to buy tools instead of Lowe’s.
SamR
Same for me. I often buy my tools via Amazon and HD’s online store, and I prefer dealing with waiting rather than going to Lowe’s! It is a depressing place!
Mopar
Same here. My closest HD and Lowes are about a 90 second drive apart, with Lowes being closer, but it’s so dark and depressing I usually go the the HD instead, Plus, HD often has free shipping. If I know exactly what I need in advance, I do check both stores, occasionally Lowes is a fair bit cheaper on an item. Plus, they have a better system if you pay in advance to pickup. HD I have to go to the service desk, wait in line, and then wait for someone to find the item in a back room and bring it up. Lowes has lockers right as you walk in, you simply scan the barcode they sent to your phone and your locker door pops open.
TMQ
Home Depot also has lockers at the front of the stores. At least in my neck of the woods
Tom L
When I go to any Lowes, I have learned NEVER to expect any employee in any dept to have the knowledge necessary to reliably answer ANY question I may have about ANY product they sell. This company might as well transform themselves into large humanless warehouses where one’s only purpose is to but a product they already know everything about. It’s obvious that Lowes is aware of this issue.bc their solution is to make all store employees scarce. The result is the same: Appeal only to consumers who already know everything about the product they intend to buy.
Also, remember when HD actually had plenty of knowledgeable employees roaming their aisles and motivated to help customers with expert knowledge? Am I dreaming? Maybe I’m just imagining HD used to be like that. Now, HD and Lowes are pretty much exact clones of each other.
Aaron W
I agree! My Lowes used to have two retired plumbers working the plumbing aisle. I spent so much money there because of those two guys. They were so knowledgeable especially about working on old houses. They were let go because of reasons. Now I go to HD or local non branch hardware store.
Joel T
I worked at lowes tool world last year and left with notice because of their erratic hours . I am a 30 year farmer/mechanic and a 20 year machinist . Full time hours are better but they chose a inexperienced teenager for an opening over me with better pay. I have a two year diploma in machine and tool tech. One most aggravating things was they insisted you giving technical help in plumbing and electrical regardless of wether you had training or not.
Gabe
Am I the only one old enough to remember the failed craftsman compucarve? Wasn’t a failure because of the machine. We just learned that marketing highly technical machines to layman masses probably wasn’t a good idea .
William Adams
It was an interesting effort. I considered buying one for a while, but it was out of my price range, so I wound up w/ a Shapeoko 1 used off eBay which I refurbished.
Apparently they’re making another go of it w/ a “Raven CNC”.
Shawn Haskin
I recently picked up a carve Wright to add to my tools. Have a couple of 3d printer, a desktop CNC, and a laser engraver as well.
Saw the Kobalt bax as well, and wondered why no CNC.
Kentucky fan
Yeap the ace I go to has knowledgeable staff and they stick around for a while. Lowe’s is a revolving door and treats employees awful nowadays. I spend more money to go to ace or the local hardware stores/ mine supplies. I weld for a living and the weld supply I use is talking about getting a line of dewalt and Milwaukee cordless stuff in as well just because Lowe’s sucks so bad here.
Hunter
Which mine supply store do you go to?
mizzourob
There is no mystery, the full story on this Kobalt router is actually public on the V1 Engineering website here:
https://www.v1e.com/blogs/news/kobalt-router-featuring-the-lr3
Stuart
No press release, no social media post, no YouTube video, no mention at all – just an empty box with CNC artwork sitting on top of promo-priced oscillating multi-tools. That’s mysterious to me.
Jason
You just need to get your for you section right. I was notified almost immediately. But I have a 5×10 shopsabre CNC lol
Chris
I have a 4×8 Shopsabre and no one told me…
Jared
How would someone who is just CNC router-curious ever find out? I’m not going to sign up for marketing emails based on something I’m not doing, but might try.
MM
It seems like a really odd marketing screwup. Why would someone, in this case Lowe’s, promote a CNC router without any information pertaining to the other half of the equation: the CNC machine itself? They needed to either offer CNCs for sale which use this router, or at the very least link to or list compatible models.
This is like walking into an auto dealership and seeing they have specials on engines but don’t have any cars.
Aza's Built to Code
Ugh, I thought about you guys when this was being released. Reached out to Ben.V on LinkedIn. I’ll try to ping you too in the future.
Patrick T
The link shows up for me with an option to purchase at $100 with delivery as soon as tomorrow. Maybe the availability is regional for some reason?
Jason
I also have shipping available, as well as in store pickup. $99
Aza's Built to Code
Yes we’re seeing price vary in different regions. I picked up a discounted Kobalt Router yesterday, Lowes Issaquah WA, paid $69 + tax. 5yr warranty…
That was despite website being wrong about price, wrong about availability, store layout being wrong, and inventory system being wrong. Shared details in https://forum.v1e.com/t/kobalt-router/40492/527?u=azab2c
Stuart
It changed since yesterday.
I’m betting someone from Lowe’s saw the post or increased interest and did some stuff. Things like that happen a lot.
It went from “save $40.01, ends April 26” back to full price, which seems a bit shady.
Patrick T
I think we discovered their marketing strategy. Lol.
Watcher42
I saw this first pop up on there website 2 weeks ago for 60$ original price $100 and like Stuart first said stated ends April 29th,yet not even 2 days later a 24hr clock countdown appeared get this price before January 29th and they were in stock at most Lowe’s around me ( San Antonio,TX) at that price point abd all I was going to go ahead a.nd pick one up and in its description at the time it mentions it’s CNC capabilities and all but then over to the reviews it has decent rating of 4.2 but the negative reviews were d about compatibility issues and the like. And due to those I hesitated and did not purchase. Then on January 30 price went ” back” to $99 and was out of stock across San Antonio online yet in store if you went there in at least 3 of the stores I went thru all has a nest lil stack of them in a end of aisle or end cap display all marked at $99 with same CNC arm pictured with no explanation I was/ am curious but also wary of what again I agree with is shady shell have type advertising or their minimal ” advertising” on a new product. I actually like Kobalt brand both hand and power tools but like with HD Ryobi/ rigid etc I try to at least do as much research as I can before purchasing and this I think has been a miss from Lowe’s which more and more is becoming to common with Lowes in general not just with their Kobalt in house brand but many of their sales and promos are more if your lucky enough or just plain stumble across s it in store or thru sheer dumb luck on their web page or in appyiu would never even know. And sadly enough as others have connected I have found more knowledgeable and better equipped to handle my 20 questions on a purchase I’m needing info at ace or a local hardware store (the few still left anyway) HD is too mixed of a bag when it comes to help or knowledge. I liked this at first but Lowe’s soured it with there shady online vs B&M store promo BS-
Aza's Built to Code
Hey, I picked up a discounted Kobalt Router yesterday, Lowes Issaquah WA, paid $69 + tax. 5yr warranty…
That was despite website being wrong about price, wrong about availability, store layout being wrong, and inventory system being wrong.
https://forum.v1e.com/t/kobalt-router/40492/527?u=azab2c
I messaged Ben.V about this router a few months ago. I should have pinged you directly. Others and myself reached out to Maslow folks too. What other CNC forums are people here hanging out at?
Happy hunting!
AzaB2C (shared unboxing on YT)
William Adams
The subreddit /r/hobbycnc on Reddit seems moderately active (though some content gets pulled away to brand-specific forums).
Julius Rosen
Why buy something without a review especially when there are so many good products out there already
Bill D
Lowe’s marketing and local merchandising always seems to lag way behind what is on the website, and what is in the pipeline, apparently
Kent
The router is the tool, the CNC rig is a design by one of the people that helped Kobalt design it for makers and its to show how you would use this particular router compared to a traditional trim router.
MM
This. The router alone is the product. Having read the link from mizzourob above, the CNC device confusingly pictured in the Lowe’s displays is the “Lowrider CNC V3”, which seems to be an open-source project from V1 Engineering.
Rafe
Probably dropped the price because Kobalt isn’t known as a higher quality brand and you can get Bosch, Makita, etc trim routers typically for less than $100. ER11 collet isn’t very expensive either. Can’t imagine using a Kobalt trim router for any CNC work anyhow. You have long run times, especially with small machines, and trim routers get pretty hot when you run em for a while.
Shaun
I thought about replacing the Makita on my MPCNC with this when V1 Engineering started pushing it, but decided to go with the RoutER11 that Openbuilds has.
SlowEng
Picked one up for 39.97 at my local lowes today. Saw this post and though this would make an awesome auxiliary spindle for my lathe and mill.
George Swindle
It looks like the cheaper router is not brushless and the $99 versions are brushless
Stuart
It’s corded. Aren’t they all brushed motors at this price point?
William Adams
I’m not aware of a corded brushless trim router — do you have a link for one?
The only ones I’ve found are battery powered.
I’d be very interested in a brushless trim router which is 65mm in diameter and which either is corded, or which has a power system which replaces the battery and connects to wall power
James
This is not to buy it is just to show options you can use the trim router for. The CNC router is called lowrider and it is an open source project.
Blaine Edwards
Looks like they are trying to create the “Lowe’s Rider” CNC machine.
James Holliday
The empty box is to show that this is designed for CNC machines. When it was released, I made the LowRider3 cnc machine. Mostly 3d printed, which I did. A simple weekend project and super cheap. Today, my 4×8 foot LowRider3 just finished cutting a torsion box table for me to mount it on next. Not bad for maybe $500 all in.
kent_skinner
I’m not a fan of HD, but I *never* go to Lowes. Once every 3 or 4 years I find myself in one, thinking “it couldn’t be a as bad as I remembered”. 5 minutes later my cart is abandoned, and I’m out the door.
This product is *exactly* I think Lowes is a joke. They just can’t pull their stuff together for more than a week. What’s the tool brand of the day? What return policy will happen this week? What product will roll out, then disappear? Will there be any employees who know anything?
My final straw was trying to buy a set of sockets. They had a “lifetime warranty”. I asked the tool crib cashier, and they didn’t know what the return policy was (receipt required, will they break up a set to replace a single socket, store return, etc). They had no idea, so they called a manager. 10 minutes later the manager showed up and had no idea – they even contradicted themselves and suggested it would be easier to mail warranty returns than bring them to the store.
My time is valuable to me. I won’t waste it on fools, or companies that are run by them.
Johnez
Seems like a missed opportunity for cross marketing that could have got the greater public aware of these cool machines. That CNC machine looks pretty cool.
Aaron Roberts
It’s 40.00 bucks in-store only now
Stuart
Thanks!
It went from $100 to $60, to $100, and now down to $40, but in-store only, and there’s no way to check inventories online. I was at a Lowe’s store a few days ago and there were no sign of it.
Robert
I just picked one up in New Iberia, LA for $24.92+tax