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I understand that your review is based on your experience and as such, your opinions are derived from that. But my fear from the start was that because you cut your teeth with apex, your opinions would skew in favor of apex. I don't think the common viewer will be able to draw the same conclusion and take your final rating as a fair unbiased opinion.
Now that the videos are complete, I think that others should chime in and give their review based on the 20 criteria you set forth. It would be fair to have people rate their experience regardless if they're solely GHL or apex users. An even better review would be to have involvement from people with vast experience in both platforms. With very little experience with GHL, I want to convey my review of apex/fusion.
Appearance, Price, Mounting and Connection: Aesthetics and pricing are subjective, I personally don't have an opinion on the choices made in appearance, pricing and how to mount them, it's the companies prerogative as to how they move forward in those areas, none of us are going to make compelling arguments to change their minds, and as such my rating respectively is: 3 STARS, 3 STARS, 3 STARS, 3 STARS
Setup: It sounds like your experience setting up Apex was quite opposite of mine. I spent 4-5 hours trying to figure out how to connect to wifi and get started, I ended up initiating the apex via hard wire. I have never forgot that, and still makes me mad when I think about it. 2 STARS
Dashboard: 4 STARS
Speed: I've experienced on multiple occasions when I wrote code to an outlet and tried to save it, the apex would kick out and require me to log back in and everything that was written was lost. 3 STARS
Calibration: Agree 3 STARS
Programming for Novice: I agree that NS went through great lengths to make things extremely easy for novice users with tasks. The tasks function covers much of what a normal user would expect the controller to do. 5 STARS
Advanced Programming: I can see how apex gets a bad wrap on their approach to pseudo coding, and wasn't until recently when I read that it would take too much work to swap everything over to true boolean type coding and that the work around and answer to the "or" "and" statements was to add virtual outlets, which can become extremely complicated. But none the less, it enabled the advanced user to work around those limitations. 3 STARS
Expansion: Nothing to add to this. Apex pretty much covers all the bases with their modules. 4 STARS
Features: Can't speak smartly about this. except I would like to use this platform to convey how great it would be to receive an email/text alert for calendar reminders. Unfortunately I don't frequent the fusion app so the calendar doesn't work for me. It would be nice to have fusion remind me via a push notification. 4 STARS
Display: I have an apex display but never use it for anything but a quick glance at temp, pH, DKH. I personally use a discarded phone that is permanently affixed to a wall in the fish room for interface with apex. 3 STARS
Notifications: Apex needs to expand push notifications. 4 stars
Power mgt and graphs: Hands down 5 STARS
Support: Most CS entities have canned statements at the ready. And it seems they get an influx of simple complaints that are easily explained through the canned statements. Although when a detailed problem comes across their inbox, they don't take the time to read the problem in its entirety and fail to give it the proper attention for a detailed response. It takes multiple back and forth correspondents to get a competent response. Then going off your 12 hour turn around time, the solution may take days as opposed to getting the proper attention from the start. 2 STARS
Warranty: No comment. 4 STARS
Measurements: The obvious comment is the conductivity probe, absolutely garbage. I don't have a trident, and never will for the vary simple reason that I don't care to know my daily calcium and magnesium levels, that platform could've easily been used for N03 and P04. 3 STARS
Integrations: When it comes to integration, I think the topic should've revolved more around how well other products can be integrated into the different platforms, IotA doesn't seem to be as great as it's made out to be. Integrating products made by the same company should be seamless in terms of compatibility. Pertaining to calc and mag, the khD doesn't test for them because it's not necessary. And to drive home the idea that the khD is a better choice, you don't have a single source to purchase their reagent, a user can purchase it from many different suppliers which can easily lower operational costs compared to trident. 3 STARS.
3rd Party: See above 3 STARS
TOTAL: 67 STARS
I used 3 as the unit of measure when it met my expectation and anything above and below that reflect satisfaction or dissatisfaction. To me that's a fair assessment of my experience with apex. I would like to see other first hand reviews from people that use apex and/or GHL, of course those with experience in both would greatly be preferred.
Hey Derrick,I appreciate your time taken to provide your own review.
Please note that these videos are for FIRST time buyers and as such. Showing what to expect if you purchase either. It was never meant for anyone that already has it. As such going into this I was not bias toward either and made sure to be that way. When I did the final review I was able to expand on my findings and that was it.
GHL has Zero mounting options so I do not know how I can give them any credit on that. All of apex devices are mountable. Most of my findings again are relative to my experience and also most issues with both systems are typically user error.