Hello All,
Today I finally got my Vertex Cerebra controller and figured I would post my first thoughts.
I do want to start with the far from pleasant release and how this was handled by Vertex. As most know, the original release date was June 20th. This was quickly pushed to the 24th which was not a big deal. This was followed up by delay after delay . The units originally were not even ready to ship out from Germany. Why set a release date. Once they were shipped they provided new dates for arrival which were quickly pushed back as they realized not everything had been shipped. In the mean time they are telling customers and stores that the product has arrived when it hasn't... Come July 12th and most of the product has been shipped out.
With all that being said this is based off of ~5 hours of use and I will update it as I use it more. I will split this up into a couple of sections:
1. Packaging
2. Controller
3. Multi-Bar/Power-Bar
4. Probes
5. Software
6. Overall Thoughts
I ordered the Prima package, Power-Bar, Conductivity probe, optical level sensor, and a float level switch.
1. Packaging
Similar to most Vertex products, packaging for both the Prima Package and the Power-Bar are great. Lots of foam and everything fits snuggly. As for the probes and sensors, they are in very basic cardboard boxes no padding at all. This shouldn't cause any shipping issues.
2. Controller
Build quality overall is top notch. The controller is fully enclosed in aluminum except for the side caps which are plastic. This is a little disappointing and I don't think it would take much to make those aluminum as well. Being plastic, they are also a slightly different shade of black so its easy to see its a different material. The ports on the back are fairly easily accessible although with bigger hands it is a little tough to get to them since they are inset quite a bit. I am having an issue with the USB connection between the controller and the power-bar being loose and the power-bar resets on slight touches. I have not figured out if this is a cable issue or if it is the connector on one of the devices. Overall I am impressed with the unit and am not too worried about accidentally splashing water on it.
3. Multi-Bar/Power-Bar
Just like the controller, the build quality is great and enclosed un aluminum. They again used plastic for the end caps. For a power-strip it is a fairly large unit and could be problematic for some people to find room for it. The mounting hardware supplied is meant for horizontal mounting only. You can still mount it vertically as I did but would have been a little easier with slightly different mounting brackets. There are also no screws or anchors included to mount the unit to the wall so make sure you have that. The clear window with the led indicator is a nice feature to quickly look at for reference or debugging purposes. The units do use mechanical relays which you hear clicking when they change state. Being mechanical I am also curious about longevity for these relays especially if they are controlling equipment that gets switched a lot. The last complaint is the lack of a USB port on the Multi-Bar. Since the temperature probe is a USB connection and all other probes connect to the Multi-Bar it would make sense to at least have one available. The cable attached is fairly long but it does end up being a bit of a stretch to get to the controller.
4. Probes
I have not had a lot of time to mess with the probes and part of that is because the temperature probe is quite thick and did not fit into my probe holder. Once I get more time with them and a new probe holder I will update this section.
5. Software
The Cerebra seems to be running on a custom build of Android 2.3.7 (Gingerbread). There have been some concerns about security since this controller is running on Android. Seeing that this is running on quite an old version of Android, this is a valid concern, as it was last updated 4 years ago. The unit seems to be fairly responsive most of the time but does get caught up every now and then. The resistive touch screen is my biggest issue so far as scrolling is quite difficult especially on a list with buttons. I understand why they went this route as using capacitive with wet fingers would be even worse. For the initial setup I would suggest getting a keyboard and mouse and for any small changes after you can get by with your fingers. Configuring the outlets is fairly simple and can be done very quickly. I do have my concerns because of the simplicity though. With it being very simple, will people be able to do more advanced things that you can do with code on the apex? I also noticed that the icons are sometimes slow with updating their current status. At first, along with the USB connection being iffy, the controller seemed to be turning outlets on and off randomly. This subsided after I updated the controller so that seems to be fixed. They are also still working on the C-Cloud part and have not ported the software over to Amazon servers so it is not working yet. This also shows that this was a very unorganized release which does not look good on the company. Seeing how long it took to get the actual hardware, I would be surprised if this part is ready by the 18th, which is what they are currently saying.
6. Overall Thoughts
After a very disappointing release I do think this controller has a lot of potential but it shows that it is a first release. Most of the issues do seem to be software related which can be fixed with updates as some already have. I do see a lot of possibilities coming once the "Development Package" is released and users and companies can create third party apps. I do have to wonder why they are running on such an outdated version of Android and hope it is kept more up to date in the future for security reasons.
I hope this gives a some people a little bit of info on this controller and I can't wait to see how it progresses over the next few months and years.
-Lars
Today I finally got my Vertex Cerebra controller and figured I would post my first thoughts.
I do want to start with the far from pleasant release and how this was handled by Vertex. As most know, the original release date was June 20th. This was quickly pushed to the 24th which was not a big deal. This was followed up by delay after delay . The units originally were not even ready to ship out from Germany. Why set a release date. Once they were shipped they provided new dates for arrival which were quickly pushed back as they realized not everything had been shipped. In the mean time they are telling customers and stores that the product has arrived when it hasn't... Come July 12th and most of the product has been shipped out.
With all that being said this is based off of ~5 hours of use and I will update it as I use it more. I will split this up into a couple of sections:
1. Packaging
2. Controller
3. Multi-Bar/Power-Bar
4. Probes
5. Software
6. Overall Thoughts
I ordered the Prima package, Power-Bar, Conductivity probe, optical level sensor, and a float level switch.
1. Packaging
Similar to most Vertex products, packaging for both the Prima Package and the Power-Bar are great. Lots of foam and everything fits snuggly. As for the probes and sensors, they are in very basic cardboard boxes no padding at all. This shouldn't cause any shipping issues.
2. Controller
Build quality overall is top notch. The controller is fully enclosed in aluminum except for the side caps which are plastic. This is a little disappointing and I don't think it would take much to make those aluminum as well. Being plastic, they are also a slightly different shade of black so its easy to see its a different material. The ports on the back are fairly easily accessible although with bigger hands it is a little tough to get to them since they are inset quite a bit. I am having an issue with the USB connection between the controller and the power-bar being loose and the power-bar resets on slight touches. I have not figured out if this is a cable issue or if it is the connector on one of the devices. Overall I am impressed with the unit and am not too worried about accidentally splashing water on it.
3. Multi-Bar/Power-Bar
Just like the controller, the build quality is great and enclosed un aluminum. They again used plastic for the end caps. For a power-strip it is a fairly large unit and could be problematic for some people to find room for it. The mounting hardware supplied is meant for horizontal mounting only. You can still mount it vertically as I did but would have been a little easier with slightly different mounting brackets. There are also no screws or anchors included to mount the unit to the wall so make sure you have that. The clear window with the led indicator is a nice feature to quickly look at for reference or debugging purposes. The units do use mechanical relays which you hear clicking when they change state. Being mechanical I am also curious about longevity for these relays especially if they are controlling equipment that gets switched a lot. The last complaint is the lack of a USB port on the Multi-Bar. Since the temperature probe is a USB connection and all other probes connect to the Multi-Bar it would make sense to at least have one available. The cable attached is fairly long but it does end up being a bit of a stretch to get to the controller.
4. Probes
I have not had a lot of time to mess with the probes and part of that is because the temperature probe is quite thick and did not fit into my probe holder. Once I get more time with them and a new probe holder I will update this section.
5. Software
The Cerebra seems to be running on a custom build of Android 2.3.7 (Gingerbread). There have been some concerns about security since this controller is running on Android. Seeing that this is running on quite an old version of Android, this is a valid concern, as it was last updated 4 years ago. The unit seems to be fairly responsive most of the time but does get caught up every now and then. The resistive touch screen is my biggest issue so far as scrolling is quite difficult especially on a list with buttons. I understand why they went this route as using capacitive with wet fingers would be even worse. For the initial setup I would suggest getting a keyboard and mouse and for any small changes after you can get by with your fingers. Configuring the outlets is fairly simple and can be done very quickly. I do have my concerns because of the simplicity though. With it being very simple, will people be able to do more advanced things that you can do with code on the apex? I also noticed that the icons are sometimes slow with updating their current status. At first, along with the USB connection being iffy, the controller seemed to be turning outlets on and off randomly. This subsided after I updated the controller so that seems to be fixed. They are also still working on the C-Cloud part and have not ported the software over to Amazon servers so it is not working yet. This also shows that this was a very unorganized release which does not look good on the company. Seeing how long it took to get the actual hardware, I would be surprised if this part is ready by the 18th, which is what they are currently saying.
6. Overall Thoughts
After a very disappointing release I do think this controller has a lot of potential but it shows that it is a first release. Most of the issues do seem to be software related which can be fixed with updates as some already have. I do see a lot of possibilities coming once the "Development Package" is released and users and companies can create third party apps. I do have to wonder why they are running on such an outdated version of Android and hope it is kept more up to date in the future for security reasons.
I hope this gives a some people a little bit of info on this controller and I can't wait to see how it progresses over the next few months and years.
-Lars
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Please keep the updates coming. I too am VERY concerned with the version of Android it feel like that is the flavor that was out when they started developing this 7 years ago and they never updated. Clearly with Android 7 looming here later this year Vertex can do a much better job of getting this thing updated, to your point massive security upgrades have come over the flavors and they really need to get that addressed.
