Hydros Maven is Delayed

[Inkmouse]

This thread has taken a large turn. Going from simply providing updates on the status of the delay. To calling anyone who actually likes hydro's fanboys or accusing them of getting kick backs for support?

I've had my hydros collective setup for a couple months and have had zero issues with the setup. Minus my X10 seemed to be missing the little ferrell at the end. I contacted their support and they shipped my the missing ferrells no problem. I have it managing everything from the lights, power for almost everything, powerhead control, and alk testing.

Would I like to have gotten the Maven? sure. Is it a deal breaker that it didn't come out? No, I bought the hydros because after alot of researching, I liked the design and setup better. I have no interest in trying to script out advanced features on the Apex. In the end I can still go with something like a reefbot lab or a mastertronic and adjust the dosing based on the results.

If you like Apex, good for you. It literally just comes down to personal preference.

 

[Dr. D]

I’ve had fantastic support from the Hydros team. Among the best support I’ve had from any company, ever. And no, I don’t work for Coralvue. I’ve never received anything from them that I didn’t pay for. I’ve never used Apex, and have nothing nasty to say about them. This reminds me of the Ford/Chevy arguments my family used to have. Didn’t like that and don’t like this.

 

[BeanAnimal]

This thread has taken a large turn. Going from simply providing updates on the status of the delay. To calling anyone who actually likes hydro's fanboys or accusing them of getting kick backs for support?

Except that isn’t actually what has happened….

 

[Inkmouse]

Except that isn’t actually what has happened….

Except it is? If I had to summarize the last several pages, it boils down to a TLDR:
*People arguing Apex is cheaply made
*People arguing that Hydro's is "a bunch of Half-Baked ideas poorly implemented"
*Random retort basically stating that Hydros is bad and saying otherwise is to be a hydros "fanboy"
*Comment by you that "n2585722" is compensated by CV for constantly supporting them (This one I think was meant jokingly but wasn't received that way by others)
*Buried in the middle of all of that is you replying once to someone who actually just wanted to know if there was any updated information on the release. technically what the thread topic was meant for. Probably the only on-topic post in the last couple pages. So, thanks for that at least?

edit: quoting the actually useful post so people don't have to dig 2 pages through all the stuff I listed above.

Carlos from CV gave a response a few days ago, that was basically "nothing has changed in what we said... so sit tight and it will come one day".

 

[BeanAnimal]

Hi - Context in conversations important. You appear to be focused on only part of it. But to classify this conversation as a fight between haters and “fanboys” is silly, as is the use of the term fanboy to begin with. The word is meant to stir the pot.

In any case, if that is all you get out of the various conversation and exchanges, then your own bias would appear to be at play, which is fine, but don’t pretend that it is not. Nobody called you a fanboy and the exchanges here are rather cordial.

Everyone here is entitled to their opinions and having an open venue where we can discuss them is great. Not all conversations fully adhere to the thread title.

Happy reefing!

 

[n2585722]

I’ve only used Neptune customer service a few times over the years and I’ve never once been passed off to a fellow hobbyist. It was always Neptune employees helping me.

For Hydros, I sent CoralVue an email for help and was passed off onto a user to help me out. They didn’t have any authority to replace anything or do advanced troubleshooting. Just simple stuff and then I was told Carlos would have to take over.

I have never been ask to help someone by CoralVue. Are you sure they were not one of their employees. They do have several that answer support tickets.

 

[rtparty]

I have never been ask to help someone by CoralVue. Are you sure they were not one of their employees. They do have several that answer support tickets.

Positive they were not an employee. That was made by clear by them and Carlos who sent them to help me

 

[Redemptioner]

Your are one suspicious fella

But he is also correct.

There are several Coralvue employees in the forum that do not disclose they are working directly for them.

There is also the Coralvue group (aka Don's group) who receive rewards from coralvue and coralvue use the group to promote and side load and cross promote any forum/socials with the word hydros in it. They seem to think they are not coralvue employees but if you are receiving regular rewards (call it "beta testing" if you like), then you are indeed under a commercial remuneration arrangement (payment) with them even if no money is directly exchanged. These are on top of the tubers who are also being paid to promote the products (which most of them are pretty good at disclosing they got the items for free or paid to promote).

 

[Scottiemac]

I'm not sure what the issue is. There are a number of CV employees both here and on the Facebook group. While they may not come out and rage that they are employees, it becomes quite clear that they are. And so what?
There's also people in the FB group who may not be CV employees, but are perhaps given incentives to help people in that group. Again, so what?

Is this any different than all of the BRS videos that are essentially advertisements for products owned by the company that owns BRS? When was the last time you saw a Hydros video on the BRS channel? You won't, because their parent company also owns Apex. They own Aqua Illumination and Ecotech Marine, too. Won't see many videos by BRS featuring other lighting brands.

The point is that it's all marketing. So some Coralvue employees talk glowingly of Hydros without disclosing that they work for CV. So what?

What we should be worried about more is why Coralvue has been silent on the Maven since the announcement last spring. Other than the video stating that they wouldn't have it out on Black Friday, we've heard nothing about it. No how-to videos. No promotional videos. No updates on features.

 

[AdamD76]

I might have missed it but is there a price yet?

 

[Nor'easter Reefer]

I'm so close to jumping into a hydros controller but this maven thing has me on pause a little bit. An update would be nice.

 

[mmorrison55]

I might have missed it but is there a price yet?

It’s currently listed @ $1200 on saltwateraquarium.com, but of course it’s not actually for sale.

I could have sworn that hydros products used to be available on BRS. They sure are not listed there now, which is a shame. Don’t know what’s going on there, but don’t care, I can give myhydros money to other vendors.

As someone just getting back into the hobby, I was on the fence of which to go with, apex, hydros, or ghl. Ghl got rave reviews, but seemed to be the most limited of the three in terms of things you could do with it, and maybe had a bit higher of a learning curve, but it got very good reviews.

Apex, seemed to have the most options for what you could do with it, but I too did not like the idea of having to “program” it. Turns out, you don’t have to program it to control things, but you can do advanced options by adding some programming commands if you wanted.

Hydros seemed to be the new kid on the block and while didn’t have as many accessories and things you could do with it like the apex, it seems they were being more innovative and trying to catch up if you will. And no programming needed. As a bonus, I pr3ferred the style and look of hydros over apex. While style and looks should not come into play, I must admit, they do for me. If I picked a controller on looks alone, I’d rank them hydros, GHL, then apex, but that’s just me.

Back to topic re the Maven. This is where I have to give props to apex. Their trident has been tried and true for several years now, and seems to be relatively problem free for the most part. It just works. Their new NP seems to be iffy. So I assume it’s the nitrate and/or phosphate auto testing that is hard to do with all of these auto testers on the market.

auto testers must not be an easy product to develop and bring to market. Look at the Kamoer reef factory spa. It’s been delayed for how long now? The reef kinetics reef bot, the focustronic matertronic are released and available to purchase, but receive pretty bad reviews overall.

So instead of bashing hydros for delaying their maven, I’m inclined to thank them for not rushing to release a product that is not fully ready. I hope they get things worked out and will release a fully working 5 test machine. Once they do, I likely will dip my feet in the hydros water.

To be fully transparent, I was lucky enough to find a guy who was breaking down his tank, and I got a good deal on all his apex gear. It includes a trident. I have recently hooked it up, and it’s working as expected. I hope they eventually work out the kinks of the np and come up with a future trident that does all 5 in one unit.

So while I’m currently using the apex, I can see a future where I switch to hydros or at least integrate both hydros and apex into my regime.

 

[mmorrison55]

Another thing, I’m not sure who’s to blame here, but my biggest issue I have with controllers, is they seem to lock out manufacturers. I think it’s more Apex to blame and to some extent ecotech.

I like ecotech and have their return pumps, versa doser and mp40s, so unfortunately that kind of means I’m locked into apex in order to control them with more than just basic controls like power on/off.

Someone mentioned they are all owned by same parent company. If so that explains a lot, but still wished that if I were to go with hydros someday, I could have all the control options for my chosen gear.

 

[lombeard]

I could have sworn that hydros products used to be available on BRS. They sure are not listed there now, which is a shame. Don’t know what’s going on there, but don’t care, I can give my hydros money to other vendors.

Neptune and BRS merged if I remember correctly, so it would explain it.

 

[drolmaeye]

I could have sworn that hydros products used to be available on BRS. They sure are not listed there now, which is a shame. Don’t know what’s going on there, but don’t care, I can give myhydros money to other vendors.

Neptune and BRS merged if I remember correctly, so it would explain it.

My understanding is that Aperture Pet and Life acquired BRS and Neptune (as well as a several other reef-related companies). For some time after that, BRS carried HYDROS.

Recently, I believe BRS moved toward only carrying (1) product lines that were part of the Aperture Pet and Life portfolio or (2) product lines for which Aperture Pet and Life were the sole North American distributor. At that time BRS discontinued several great lines like HYDROS, Reef Octopus, and likely several others that I just can't recall at the moment.

DISCLAIMER: This is just my understanding, I could be wrong and would be happy to be corrected.

 

[Scottiemac]

I could have sworn that hydros products used to be available on BRS. They sure are not listed there now, which is a shame. Don’t know what’s going on there, but don’t care, I can give myhydros money to other vendors.

BRS makes what they call educational videos. However, in these videos when referring to a controller they would only mention Apex, saying things like, "hook this up to your Apex controller" or "monitor this on the Apex app."

Though presented as educational, the videos contribute to the marketing of their own products at the expense of competitor products. Aperture owns both BRS and Apex.

This opens them up, potentially, to antitrust issues. Easiest just to drop the Hydros line. Plus, BRS is so big that if they only offer one controller brand people may buy that instead of shopping around to see what else is out there. If BRS sells it then it must be the best, right?

I remember when they did it. They put up their remaining Hydros stock priced at pennies on the dollar. Coralvue had to contact them to fix the prices as it wasn't fair to other vendors. I had a Hydros Kraken in my shopping cart, ready to buy, and then they removed it before I could complete the purchase.

A lot of people were upset about it and wanted to boycott BRS. I thought, so what? It's their business to do what they want. BRS isn't going to go out of business just because they don't want to sell Hydros, and it's not like BRS was the only place you could buy the products.

 

[JeffB418]

I remember when they did it. They put up their remaining Hydros stock priced at pennies on the dollar. Coralvue had to contact them to fix the prices as it wasn't fair to other vendors. I had a Hydros Kraken in my shopping cart, ready to buy, and then they removed it before I could complete the purchase.

Most sold out before BRS could “fix” the pricing. I know because I snagged a kraken as a crazy price and know many others who did too. Stuff went FAST.

 

[Cabinetman]

I was so excited for this Mavin unit to come out but my hope is fading. I belong to both apex and coral view Facebook groups and both seem to have lots of issues. A good portion of them seem to be user error. I read through this entire thread and those saying that Apex gear is just cheap gear. It is just cheap gear for what it does a unit that automatically test nitrate and phosphate for under 1000 bucks come on guys. What do you expect a rocket ship for that money? I’m quite happy with my apex gear. I rarely have any issues and I have like 8 power bars. 3 tridents. A bunch of modules and 35 lights being controlled by it. I’m not saying Neptune is better cause I’ve never had a hydros however I need equipment now like the tridents. And hydros just isn’t there yet. I just know if they don’t get thier act together they are gonna loose a lot of respect because with every passing day that you can’t buy the maven it becomes more apparent that they pulled a fast one to keep people from going Neptune.

 

[n2585722]

I was so excited for this Mavin unit to come out but my hope is fading. I belong to both apex and coral view Facebook groups and both seem to have lots of issues. A good portion of them seem to be user error. I read through this entire thread and those saying that Apex gear is just cheap gear. It is just cheap gear for what it does a unit that automatically test nitrate and phosphate for under 1000 bucks come on guys. What do you expect a rocket ship for that money? I’m quite happy with my apex gear. I rarely have any issues and I have like 8 power bars. 3 tridents. A bunch of modules and 35 lights being controlled by it. I’m not saying Neptune is better cause I’ve never had a hydros however I need equipment now like the tridents. And hydros just isn’t there yet. I just know if they don’t get thier act together they are gonna loose a lot of respect because with every passing day that you can’t buy the maven it becomes more apparent that they pulled a fast one to keep people from going Neptune.

The Maven will come out once they have it ready. We will probably not hear anything until they have units ready to ship to the dealers. I have the Hydros controllers and I get temp, pH, ORP, salinity and alkalinity readings from my Hydros. I do the rest with Hanna checkers like I have been doing for years once a week. I can add the readings into the Hydros app from the Hanna testers . I still do a alkalinity test with Hanna once a week. I have more than one temp, ph and salinity reading from my Hydros so they can be double checked that way. So I am willing to wait for the Maven. The only difference it may make is I can use the calcium input to dynamically dose my All For Reef or at least I am going to give it a shot. Now I can just adjust the daily dose in the schedule based on the readings. Here is a screenshot of my testing page in the Hydros app. The pH and salinity readings on the second row of inputs on the right are realtime readings from the probes in the iV alkalinity test vessel and are only accurate at a certain time during testing and are normally set to invisible but I like being able to see them when testing is taking place. The sampled readings from those probes are in the first row. I need to do calibrations on the pH probes the one in the iV is the newest one and was calibrated 128 days ago. The regular one is over a year old and it has been a lot longer since it was calibrated. One of the salinity probes is in the iV so it is isolated from the tank itself but it is not real time. The other salinity probe is in the refugium section of the sump.

 

[mgdth]

I like turtles....