Hydros Maven is Delayed

[JeepinReefer21]

Should be out soon.....I just bought a KH Carer :face-with-tears-of-joy::face-with-tears-of-joy::face-with-tears-of-joy:

 

[static416]

I don't think you will hear any more until they are ready to ship out to the dealers. There are settings for the Maven in the app already. I doubt those would be there if they don't intend on releasing the unit.

Yeah I'd be surprised if it disappeared entirely. But they also chose to announce it 8 months ahead of their planned launch. Miss their launch. Then just go silent. Bit confusing for their customers.

But I imagine they might be nervous about announcing another date and then missing that, especially if they have persistent issues with the test units they are having trouble resolving.

Or maybe someone in their company keeps saying "just 4 more weeks!" and then missing it. I've been on those projects before.

All that said, some kind of "we're still working on it, stand-by" communication would be nice though. Instead of just a feeling of potential vaporware.

 

[static416]

If you don 't have any automated testing now and your display is fine why bother? Patience is key in this hobby.

For me, I like to automate as much as possible. Part of it is convience and and consistency. And part of it is just because I enjoy that part of the hobby.

I have lots more tech than most. And I find it fun and interesting.

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In terms of testing specifically, I used to test Alk + Nitrate + Phos + Salinity manually twice a day, every day. This was mostly at the beginning of tank setup to dial things in. But I've started to slack off too much, and the numbers have been swinging more wildly.

Also my job has gotten intense, and it slips my mind.

I suspect a couple SPS frags have died as a result of swings in Alk and Nitrate, just due to inconsistent monitoring+supplementation on my part.

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I'm going back to daily testing (only takes about 15 minutes) just until I get things stabilized. Then back to once every week or two. But I'm still worried that a failure, or line-clog, or something else will cause another fluctuation it may take me longer than I'd like to notice.

Automated testing once a day just means that things won't get as far out of target before I notice and fix them. That's worth the $1500 CDN to me.

 

[ShaunMc]

Should be out soon.....I just bought a KH Carer :face-with-tears-of-joy::face-with-tears-of-joy::face-with-tears-of-joy:

Same. $300 hard to beat

 

[tsharpe291]

Same. $300 hard to beat

+1 on the carer, ive been running it for a few months and seems pretty stable to.

 

[JeepinReefer21]

Same. $300 hard to beat

That was the same reason for me. They would have dominated the market if they started it at this price!

 

[n2585722]

That was the same reason for me. They would have dominated the market if they started it at this price!

You do realize that is closeout pricing. It sounds like they will not be selling them once they are all sold.

 

[redseaenroute]

My guess, based purely on my experience with Aerospace development programs...

Coralvue took the risk of announcing before critical development milestones had passed (test and qualification readiness reviews). They did this because Neptune was releasing the NP. So they wanted to keep any new prospective customers away from getting invested into apex so that they had higher potential sales when the Maven hit market.

Unfortunately, what happens in many cases when we see this tactic, is the company will then get into those critical path events TRR & Formal Quality, and realize they need some form of redesign to fix an unforseen issue.

Now you breached dev schedule and delayed final release. I get both sides of the argument for what they likely did. But it's a pretty hard rule in my industry that you dont EVER announce release dates until you have a successful TRR and pre-qualification event under your belt. You can announce a new product coming...just no dates until you are 99% certain on qual

Coralvue gambled from a business development standpoint and now they are in reaction mode trying to clean up snags and defects to get a fully qualified product to market. And fighting from behind schedule on top of it

One other area could be in their DTUPC burn down. Design to Unit Production Cost. You have a window of opportunity during development to drive cost out of your product. But it really needs to be done in development or risk recalls and unhappy customers later. Or you release with a much higher price point than intended (all bad). They may be behind schedule on that burn down and don't want to release with sticker shock.

Just my 2 cents

 

[JeepinReefer21]

You do realize that is closeout pricing. It sounds like they will not be selling them once they are all sold.

Yea, what's your point? I'm ok with a close out when the device uses easily changeable pumps, off the shelf probes and readily accesable reagents.

 

[static416]

Coralvue took the risk of announcing before critical development milestones had passed (test and qualification readiness reviews)

Haha. I used to work in aerospace too, recognize the language.

Unfortunately, what happens in many cases when we see this tactic, is the company will then get into those critical path events TRR & Formal Quality, and realize they need some form of redesign to fix an unforseen issue.

I now work in big tech companies, and despite having a ton of money (more than aerospace in some ways) there is usually nothing like the planning and project risk-mitigation I saw in aerospace. It's way more ad-hoc and mostly just a small number of people doing whatever they think is best, in the shortest time possible.

Definitely seems like Coralvue bit off more than they expected with this project. But I would not be surprised to learn that there are like 3-6 people max on building this, and they just under-estimated how much testing and revision would be required. Probably little to no formal planning like the SDR, PDR, CDR, SAR, etc process I saw in aerospace.

Literarlly just a few people build a thing, try it, revise, repeat. And ship it at some point. Would be my guess.

 

[static416]

After a lot of thinking about different options, I just went for the X10 + IV Pro combination.

Really, 90% of what I care about is alkalinity.

For a variety of reasons, my alk has been swinging between 8.5 and 12.5. Not super-fast. But for example, it just dropped from 11 to 8.5dkh over 10 days because I didn't realize my calcium reactor doser was off (after cleaning).

My Nitrate and Phos is higher than I'd like, and swinging a bit, but that's slower and easier to track, and less critical.

Ideally, I can use the X10 + IV to monitor alk multiple times a day and control my calcium reactor. Easier than dialing it in manually and then hoping nothing changes.

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I might still get a Maven eventually, just for periodic spot-checks.

 

[n2585722]

After a lot of thinking about different options, I just went for the X10 + IV Pro combination.

Really, 90% of what I care about is alkalinity.

For a variety of reasons, my alk has been swinging between 8.5 and 12.5. Not super-fast. But for example, it just dropped from 11 to 8.5dkh over 10 days because I didn't realize my calcium reactor doser was off (after cleaning).

My Nitrate and Phos is higher than I'd like, and swinging a bit, but that's slower and easier to track, and less critical.

Ideally, I can use the X10 + IV to monitor alk multiple times a day and control my calcium reactor. Easier than dialing it in manually and then hoping nothing changes.

---

I might still get a Maven eventually, just for periodic spot-checks.

I have the iV with an X10 and I still check alkalinity once a week at least with my Hanna checker at about the same time as one of the iV test runs. The last two times is still on my Excel graph and they close.

 

[n2585722]

Yea, what's your point? I'm ok with a close out when the device uses easily changeable pumps, off the shelf probes and readily accesable reagents.

i was just saying that is the reason for such a low price now.

 

[static416]

I have the iV with an X10 and I still check alkalinity once a week at least with my Hanna checker at about the same time as one of the iV test runs. The last two times is still on my Excel graph and they close.

This is great.

I have a similar charting/tracking system. I'll have to document it at some point soon.

But yours is way more consistent than mine.

Here's my history of alk, nitrate, and phos, over the last year.

I used to run Nitrate below 10, and Phos below 0.01, but have let that come up to 20 and 0.1 for the last year. Not really liking the results, and may push it back down now.

Everything in this is manually recorded, so it's got gaps. But you can see the wide fluctuation in Alk, especially lately.

 

[JeepinReefer21]

i was just saying that is the reason for such a low price now.

Oh! Gotcha. I was grumpy last night, I apologize if I came off snarky there. I figured it was a closeout. It's wierd, it's still full price on other websites. I wonder if the ones discounting it are not going to carry any of the Kamoer older line up of testers or something.

 

[jmcdona6]

Think about how finicky pretty much every test but Alk is. How little it takes to get wildly varied results. How many steps each test is. How specific you have to be in your execution of those steps. Even if they were able to get it to work well out of the box, imagine developing a product that can do this consistently for 12+ months without serious maintenance.

People act like they are late to developing something that everyone else has already figured out and taking their time. Fact is, the Trident NP pretty much failed to deliver. Mastertronic has a huge footprint, is complex, and still has horrible reviews after the first few months of use.

Point being, its not released because it currently doesn't work well enough. And I imagine that could take a while considering no one has figured this out yet. It might not ever meet their or our expectations within the limitations of their existing engineering and price constraints.

Their sin is talking about it too early.

 

[rtparty]

If only there would have been some example of talking about an auto tester that wasn’t ready for release too early.

Like, it would be really embarrassing to find out another company had promised an auto tester way before it was ready for launch and you could have learned from that mistake.

 

[redseaenroute]

Their sin is talking about it too early.

Exactly this. They fell into the Trident NP release date trap.

Hopefully they get the technical stuff figured out PRIOR to release... Because based on the reviews I've seen for the NP, Neptune took the opposite approach (schedule adherence over quality verification).

 

[areefer01]

Because based on the reviews I've seen for the NP, Neptune took the opposite approach (schedule adherence over quality verification).

With regards to the NP there is a lot that isn't seen as hobbyist have different expectations and end user experience. Who posts vs who doesn't. It is also clear that they are listening to feedback and continue to work on it.

As far as the Maven goes or why it is delayed only Hydros knows (as they should). The rest is all speculation and noise. Those that want the Maven will wait patiently.

 

[redseaenroute]

With regards to the NP there is a lot that isn't seen as hobbyist have different expectations and end user experience. Who posts vs who doesn't. It is also clear that they are listening to feedback and continue to work on it.

As far as the Maven goes or why it is delayed only Hydros knows (as they should). The rest is all speculation and noise. Those that want the Maven will wait patiently.

Valid. And agree 100%

I'm just an outside observer that enjoys a good technology development discussion (speculation). For what it's worth.... I'm still using an Apex Classic with a hardwired Ethernet cable!