Entirely regardless of price, a piece of equipment that is intended to be used near an aquarium, yet can be rendered useless by salt mist, is a crappy product. Just to set the record straight, an "industrial version" would cost nowhere close to 30k. The reason people don't buy other "smart strips" is because the apex integrates many other accessories, so you are forced to accept the eb832 if you want any benefit of the very streamlined apex system. My goodness, neptune doesn't get enough praise for how easy everything is to set up. It really is incredible considering all that has been integrated as they have. Sure the programming is clunky and leaves a lot to be desired, but a lot of people succeed with it. That said, the hardware is cheap as hell. It seems their products that interact directly with water are very well designed to accept that environment. Too bad that won't make any difference when all sockets are dead on your eb832.