Mastertronic Essential - New tester coming soon?

CasperOe

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So, Reefers!

This one could be interesting! Might this be a competitor to the Reef Factory Smart Tester doing only one parameter? Only time will tell..

772FA1AB-7FE2-4A00-9775-212DD2000E57.jpeg
 

parclife

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But how much time… I’m toying up between the Mastertronic or the new reefbot lab… then saw this and now wondering if I should hold off till more info comes out on this.
 

CBonito

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Auto-testing and Management is still in its infancy and after seeing what I've seen I personally wouldnt invest in it until it matures a bit. I really want one myself, but it seems kind of iffy at this point with equipment that either doesnt work as advertised, or that doesnt work at all with bad support. It'll get better though and when it does, I'll make a move.
 

BeanAnimal

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I highly doubt they want me to be a reviewer, as unlike the vast majority of the "influencers" shills looking for freebies and views, I would be thorough, unbiased and dead honest, both good and bad or ugly. I don't want freebies, i just want stuff that works.
 

CBonito

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I highly doubt they want me to be a reviewer, as unlike the vast majority of the "influencers" shills looking for freebies and views, I would be thorough, unbiased and dead honest, both good and bad or ugly. I don't want freebies, i just want stuff that works.
Same here. It's a lot of money to spend on something only to end up throwing it out the window if it's junk.
I need something I can rely on.
 

Sisterlimonpot

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I highly doubt they want me to be a reviewer, as unlike the vast majority of the "influencers" shills looking for freebies and views, I would be thorough, unbiased and dead honest, both good and bad or ugly. I don't want freebies, i just want stuff that works.
And that's why I would trust your word over any talking head, or computer generated spokesperson... haha
 

Court_Appointed_Hypeman

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I feel like the safer bet would be the new hydros dosing pump with isolated testing unit.

They kind of gave themselves a lot of room to exoand without requiring an entirely new system. Given that the pumps can be easily swapped and nearly being modular. All they would have to do is come out with something like the vial magazine/selector, and something to add onto the IV that would allow the system to read the results from the different tests.

By safer I mean future proofing, and replaceability instead of requiring a replacing of the entire unit.

I think there is a strong partnership between thr 2 companies though so I am not sure they'd ever make the new product competition.
 

BeanAnimal

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The issue with any of these products is going to be balancing accuracy with cost and RMR - 3 somewhat mutually exclusive parameters.

1 - low cost means low accuracy
2 - high accuracy means high cost
3 - high margin and RMR means high cost of consumables and/or hardware in favor of reduced quality.

The target audience is TINY - in the hundreds and maybe thousands, but this is an already competitive market. So high upfront margin has to be built in. Likewise due to low volume, RMR for consumables MUST be backed in. Both of these push toward quality cost cutting.

It is possible that they subsidize a high quality device (low margin) with proprietary consumables, but I don't think that is going to sell units.

Ignoring quality for a moment.

GHL ION-D is proprietary. Not overly expensive but you are locked into ~$5 or more dollars per day for reasonable test volume.

ReefBot Lab is not proprietary but cost is not high. They are hosting the data and application yet there is no RMR model whatsoever for them. The company (IMHO) is doomed with the current business mode because you can only sell so many units, then have to support them forever as well as pay for the hosting for them. Nice idea, crap business model.

So there is room for competition, but how does one offer a quality product in this space, to a limited number of people, and make money over the long term?

Why creepy AI chick? Because paying somebody a few grand to produce an a video ad is not in the budget.
 
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NaH20nerd

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I currently own a Mastertronic…not sure I see the benefit to the Essentials machine as it tests the same parameters. Although the method does seem to be way different. Perhaps it will be more precise? Are they discontinuing the Mastertronic?
 

Court_Appointed_Hypeman

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I currently own a Mastertronic…not sure I see the benefit to the Essentials machine as it tests the same parameters. Although the method does seem to be way different. Perhaps it will be more precise? Are they discontinuing the Mastertronic?
I had no idea a mastertronic did the big 5

I guess they just revised the design.
 

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