Hydros Maven is Delayed

[areefer01]

Mandatory check in meaning the bar codes?

Yes. Register the barcode for the reagent installation step and a possible check by the hardware to verify prior to test execution.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Mandatory check in meaning the bar codes?

No…

The controllers are heavily cloud-dependent. While they can run in “local mode” for a while, that’s really just emergency fallback and it’s limited, clunky, and not intended for daily use. Nearly all meaningful control, programming, and integration requires constant cloud access.


Each device is tied to a cloud account, and CV has full control over that linkage. In theory, they could refuse ownership transfers, charge transfer fees, or even lock features—especially as they’re already exploring DRM-style consumables. It’s not far-fetched given their architecture and actions.


The other issue is long-term viability. Cloud infrastructure is insanely sly expensive to maintain and scale. The longer you own the device, the more of your original purchase price gets chewed up by hosting costs. That is, they lose money year on year unless you keep buying, but even then each devices means more resource usage. That’s not sustainable. At some point, they’ll need to start charging recurring fees, or features will get cut.

It’s a self-consuming pyramid of their own making — and in a niche market like this, it’s laughable. Eventually, the cloud services will cost them more than the controller sales made them.

 

[mmorrison55]

They’ve lost me with the locked in to their reagent bs. Just sell your product at a price that makes you money and is fair to the consumer and you wouldn’t have to lock anyone in.

Im sure this was because of ABC Reagents eating into the Neptune reagent market. But If they can sell the reagents for 1/2 of what Neptune is asking for theirs, then that tells me Neptune is charging more than they have to.

I would not be surprised if the next gen trident has a similar thing to the Maven. That is unless it backfires on hydros big time. Which it’s starting to seem like it could based on how many here are saying it’s a deal breaker.

 

[EliMelly]

No…

The controllers are heavily cloud-dependent. While they can run in “local mode” for a while, that’s really just emergency fallback and it’s limited, clunky, and not intended for daily use. Nearly all meaningful control, programming, and integration requires constant cloud access.


Each device is tied to a cloud account, and CV has full control over that linkage. In theory, they could refuse ownership transfers, charge transfer fees, or even lock features—especially as they’re already exploring DRM-style consumables. It’s not far-fetched given their architecture and actions.


The other issue is long-term viability. Cloud infrastructure is insanely sly expensive to maintain and scale. The longer you own the device, the more of your original purchase price gets chewed up by hosting costs. That is, they lose money year on year unless you keep buying, but even then each devices means more resource usage. That’s not sustainable. At some point, they’ll need to start charging recurring fees, or features will get cut.

It’s a self-consuming pyramid of their own making — and in a niche market like this, it’s laughable. Eventually, the cloud services will cost them more than the controller sales made them.

Got it that sounds like a mess.

 

[josh57]

Yup. I hate being locked down from companies starting to force you vs you having a choice on things. Ironic since they distribute alternative options for some testers.

Was already strongly considering swapping to GHL eventually after a support issue with CoralVue. This helped me decide that it will be the right call to swap.

 

[areefer01]

They’ve lost me with the locked in to their reagent bs. Just sell your product at a price that makes you money and is fair to the consumer and you wouldn’t have to lock anyone in.

Im sure this was because of ABC Reagents eating into the Neptune reagent market. But If they can sell the reagents for 1/2 of what Neptune is asking for theirs, then that tells me Neptune is charging more than they have to.

I would not be surprised if the next gen trident has a similar thing to the Maven. That is unless it backfires on hydros big time. Which it’s starting to seem like it could based on how many here are saying it’s a deal breaker.

CV sells ABC on their portal. So they are skimming off of Neptune as is. Thus the hypocrisy comment by a few earlier on. Neptune could have implemented a solution to block ABC but choose not to for their reason(s).

 

[SpokaneSteve]

If the cloud infrastructure costs CV money it's perfectly reasonable for them to pass that charge along to the consumer. I would have no problem paying to maintain or even improve the infrastructure. They could also have different tiers of membership offering more or less cloud functionality. Cheers. Steve.

 

[BeanAnimal]

If the cloud infrastructure costs CV money it's perfectly reasonable for them to pass that charge along to the consumer. I would have no problem paying to maintain or even improve the infrastructure. They could also have different tiers of membership offering more or less cloud functionality. Cheers. Steve.

If it costs money? Steve, it costs a lot of money — every month.

The issue becomes the net cost of ownership vs the features. Some people may be comfortable with it, others not.

Are you virtue signaling or are really willing to just pay more? Honest question.

Would you feel the same if I told you that your car’s AC or power windows would only work with a monthly subscription — maybe even headlights for the ability to drive at night, keyless entry, power seats?

What about your oven, maybe $10 per month to use it past 250F and another $10 a month to unlock broil or convection bake?

I’d you know when you buy, you can make the choice, but what happens when you buy and then the vendor realizes they are underwater and decide to paywall once free features?

Nothing is cut and dry.

 

[n2585722]

If it costs money? Steve, it costs a lot of money — every month.

The issue becomes the net cost of ownership vs the features. Some people may be comfortable with it, others not.

Are you virtue signaling or are really willing to just pay more? Honest question.

Would you feel the same if I told you that your car’s AC or power windows would only work with a monthly subscription — maybe even headlights for the ability to drive at night, keyless entry, power seats?

What about your oven, maybe $10 per month to use it past 250F and another $10 a month to unlock broil or convection bake?

I’d you know when you buy, you can make the choice, but what happens when you buy and then the vendor realizes they are underwater and decide to paywall once free features?

Nothing is cut and dry.

New cars already have several things that are by subscription. After all they do have a cellphone built into them for communications between the car and the manufacturer. Even the updates are downloaded that way unless you set them up to your wifi if they are close enough where you park to do it that way. On mine if I wanted it Blue Cruise is $50 a month but I would rarely use it anyway. The premium connectivity is $10 a month. I think there is another one also. I may do both of those since premium connectivity you can use the car as a wifi hot spot and the other one you need for navigation. So for autos that is already happening.

 

[SpokaneSteve]

If it costs money? Steve, it costs a lot of money — every month.

The issue becomes the net cost of ownership vs the features. Some people may be comfortable with it, others not.

Are you virtue signaling or are really willing to just pay more? Honest question.

Would you feel the same if I told you that your car’s AC or power windows would only work with a monthly subscription — maybe even headlights for the ability to drive at night, keyless entry, power seats?

What about your oven, maybe $10 per month to use it past 250F and another $10 a month to unlock broil or convection bake?

I’d you know when you buy, you can make the choice, but what happens when you buy and then the vendor realizes they are underwater and decide to paywall once free features?

Nothing is cut and dry.

I guess I don't get the premise of the question. I'm not a freeloader if that's what you are implying? - of course I am willing to pay for features. Everyone does. I don't know anyone that doesn't pay regular upkeep costs for all kinds of stuff, online services, media, software, oil changes, electricity......the list goes on...

You pose this as an honest question but I just don't get the premise??? I like free stuff as much as the next guy - but as they always say "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch....".

Maintaining a large saltwater aquarium is expensive. This is an expensive hobby. One of the things I really enjoy is that we have many many excellent vendors and manufacturers supplying the goods and services we need.

Anyway, I'm not even sure we disagree but hopefully I answered your question. Cheers, Steve

 

[BeanAnimal]

. So for autos that is already happening.

Correct, and it’s only going to get worse. The point was knowing beforehand and making an informed choice vs getting blind sided due to a vendors poor business model.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I guess I don't get the premise of the question. I'm not a freeloader if that's what you are implying?

Huh? Not sure where that came from, but no. :)

This is an expensive hobby.

Anyway, I'm not even sure we disagree but hopefully I answered your question. Cheers, Steve

Yes is an expensive hobby for some.

You may have missed my point, but that is okay. No argument, just putting things in perspective in context to CVs business model, the DRMish reagents and their ecosystem and what I see as an eventuality with their model, as well as many others who have tied IoT devices to cloud services.

 

[rtparty]

But If they can sell the reagents for 1/2 of what Neptune is asking for theirs, then that tells me Neptune is charging more than they have to.

ABC was creating reagents out of the house and not having to pay employees a fair salary and all the associated costs. Of course they can sell it cheaper. They jumped on someone else’s work and profited off of it while having none of the overhead or R&D

Yup. I hate being locked down from companies starting to force you vs you having a choice on things. Ironic since they distribute alternative options for some testers.

Was already strongly considering swapping to GHL eventually after a support issue with CoralVue. This helped me decide that it will be the right call to swap.

Until you deal with GHL service

 

[areefer01]

If it costs money? Steve, it costs a lot of money — every month.

The issue becomes the net cost of ownership vs the features. Some people may be comfortable with it, others not.

Are you virtue signaling or are really willing to just pay more? Honest question.

Would you feel the same if I told you that your car’s AC or power windows would only work with a monthly subscription — maybe even headlights for the ability to drive at night, keyless entry, power seats?

What about your oven, maybe $10 per month to use it past 250F and another $10 a month to unlock broil or convection bake?

I’d you know when you buy, you can make the choice, but what happens when you buy and then the vendor realizes they are underwater and decide to paywall once free features?

Nothing is cut and dry.

Off prem compute is expensive. Discount or not. Look at Amazon's AWS revenue... Nothing you don't already know though.

 

[MyFirstCar]

I chose hydros over Neptune because Neptune was doing this stuff, but looks like they're both being kinda scummy.

Luckily I couldn't wait for the maven and got myself a reefbot lab, still has it's problems, but at least it's 100% reagent agnostic.

Bean is right about cloud being expensive and gives a lot of control to coralvue, but I personally travel a lot and the cloud part is nice for that

 

[John Neuzil]

Get rid of the mandatory barcode scanning bs on the reagents and let the people chose. As far as I am concerned you announced a product instead of a prototype to thwart competition and then give us this propaganda video with no release date. I am just now getting ready to buy a controller but I see the game. All the excuses, lies and barcode bs is turning me off.

Well that's just ridiculous

 

[ReefSakes]

Ahh man. I was waiting to get the Maven but if they are going the apple route I'm out. I hate having to conform to just using their products.

 

[rtparty]

Well that's just ridiculous

Hardly

 

[areefer01]

I chose hydros over Neptune because Neptune was doing this stuff, but looks like they're both being kinda scummy.

Neptune does not require reagent registration. They do not support non OEM reagents. There is a brand that reversed engineered, scalped previous social media content, and created a set of reagents that CV oddly enough resells. Sniping a bit of money away from Neptune. So if one wants "non" Neptune reagents they are there. Good luck.

How the hobbyist feels about non OEM reagent support is up to them. I can see both sides but to me personally anyone buying into an automated test should know reagent cost up front. It isn't hidden. Make a choice and carry on.

If you are in the CV space you probably won't care about registering the reagents. You know it up front. This whole upset, loosing sleep, bailing on the platform over a delay is somewhat funny to me.

The world has much bigger problems to be upset over than this. In my opinion.

Hope everyone is having a good day.

 

[JeffB418]

Peeling back a layer, I don't want anything to do with a product that must "check in" or "be registered" with a cloud service to work anyway.

GHL has pushed the envelope with their dashboard, but the devices are still useable with no network connection at all. I don't think you an run Hydros fully off-grid one way or the other. Deal breaker. Add mandatory "check in" at some interval and that is a non-starter. The reagent "DRM" isn't even a consideration given the other two prior issues. I was looking forward to the Maven, but honestly, have moved on no matter how well it works. They very honestly could not give me a device to use for free at this point -- silly or not, I am trying to get away from cloud tied DRM in every way that I can.

Yeah, overall there is a big issue with cloud connected devices across all industries, not just the reefing industry. It's rare to have fully independent hardware that's completely non-reliant on some cloud backend server or phone app. Which ties a lifeline to that server existing or the latest version of the app still working (since un-updated apps will fall off the edge at some point as IOs/android versions update and push support of said app off a cliff). In terms of reefing, the vast majority of gear has his hidden evil. ANY mobius connected device requires the server (lights, dosers, etc), all reef factory products, all reefbot products, all focustronic devices, and more. Neptune does have the local dashboard but I haven't used it recently to see if any of the new features are tied into Fusion only. I think you could still access most functionality.