Mindstream

[MnFish1]

Is there ANYONE out there who has had one for two or three months and had it work consistently? It seems entirely possible to me that they never really got it working in other than perhaps ideal conditions in the lab.

The fact that it seemed to work at all (when a disk was first installed) is actually quite impressive from a purely technological point-of-view. But having an underlying technology is a long way from creating a market-ready product. For me, the biggest red flag was that they didn't have a beta-testing program and a set of users who could confirm that the product worked as advertised in real reef-tanks.

@Daniel@R2R

 

[Silver14SS]

They say they had Beta Testers why didn't these problems come up then? SAI has been nothing but lies from the very beginning

Seems like either the testing didn't take place, it was poorly executed in an environment not representative of actual tanks, or the testing results indicated issues and they decided to move forward anyways. None of the scenarios give me the warm and fuzzies

 

[Darrell Brady]

Hopefully you have documentation of that - or you're opening yourself up to a lawsuit - but maybe you're like that or are prepared

Maybe it should be the other way around an we should be filling a lawsuit against them.

 

[Darrell Brady]

In the mean time. no one has answered - which monitor thats reliable - out there - now (except apex) which I think is neither - is a recommendation

Expeta should be coming out pretty soon have you checked them out.

 

[MnFish1]

Is it the Trident itself that you don't think is reliable or is it the Apex system as a whole?

I dont care for my apex.. Not anything to do with the trident.

 

[tdlawdo]

My Alex and my trident have been reliable. So far?

 

[MnFish1]

Maybe it should be the other way around an we should be filling a lawsuit against them.

Did you order one? if not you have no damages - so you have no recourse to filing a lawsuit. Are you Kidding - come on. Who are 'we'. loolololl

 

[MnFish1]

Seems like either the testing didn't take place, it was poorly executed in an environment not representative of actual tanks, or the testing results indicated issues and they decided to move forward anyways. None of the scenarios give me the warm and fuzzies

Seems like you are guessing - as is everyone. But - it seems so academic - that it makes you looks so very serious. You have no clue what is going on. And - from what I've read of your posts - nothing gives you the warm and fuzzies lol

 

[robbyg]

They say they had Beta Testers why didn't these problems come up then? SAI has been nothing but lies from the very beginning

Alex had told me at the start that they had 30 beta testers that had been using it for a long time. The unit itself was never an issue once they changed the plastic housing and seal.

The issues that came about after release involved the disks. As I said before, I was more than willing to work with the product as they perfected the disks. My personal expectation was that the disks would evolve over time as we also knew that they planned to add an eleventh and maybe twelfth test measurement parameter.

If I got two weeks out of a disk at the start it would not have mattered to me so long as they sent me two disk every month until they nailed down the problem. The story I was told was that it was only a small percentage of people that still had disk issues after they fixed the brush problem.

 

[Darrell Brady]

Did you order one? if not you have no damages - so you have no recourse to filing a lawsuit. Are you Kidding - come on. Who are 'we'. loolololl

Yes I did order one but I finally smelled the roses that this thing was never going to ship an ask for a refund lucky that I did get a refund but this was before the bottem fell out.

 

[Joe Rice]

Alex had told me at the start that they had 30 beta testers that had been using it for a long time.

If they had 30 testers who had been using it successfully over a long time period, why do there seem to be so few successful users today? Were the beta testers using a production version or were they using a prototype? If the latter, I'm not sure I'd really call that beta testing.

 

[MnFish1]

Yes I did order one but I finally smelled the roses that this thing was never going to ship an ask for a refund lucky that I did get a refund but this was before the bottem fell out.

Describe for everyone 'when the 'bottom fell out''. Please

 

[robbyg]

Describe for everyone 'when the 'bottom fell out''. Please

The last time anyone could contact them on the phone for a refund was about three weeks ago. So this should be an interesting answer

 

[Darrell Brady]

Describe for everyone 'when the 'bottom fell out''. Please

I believe most people no when the bottem fell out.

 

[roberthu526]

I decided a few days ago it was best I kept my mouth shut about Mindstream. It seems like the more I say is the more some people like to twist it into ammunition to go after them. I have had several conversations with one of the employees before and after the silence started two plus weeks ago.

Most of it was confidential so I am not going discuss any of that with anybody. The only reason he talked to me was that he could see I was also from the industry and was not judgmental because I understood the problems a startup goes through. There are other people on this forum who know more than I do, but they have been silent which is probably what I should have done at the start. Instead I felt that offering some communication of the bits I could talk about would ease peoples anxiety.

I can tell you that what one person on here said about water testing companies going after them is absolutely true. I had heard that from the same employee before the long silence. He said they had been under constant attack by certain companies who saw the MS as a major long term threat to their business. I can also say that all the Blame people are heaping on the CEO and Employees of Mindstream is completely misplaced. All of the people who work for the company have been trying their hardest to fulfill the promises made. The main problem I am told was that when you have something that was viewed skeptically for years and thought to be a loss by nervous investors and is then launched and on the day of the launch it brings in a couple of thousand orders, suddenly people start to see dollar signs and chaos soon develops amongst the Titans.

The last communication I got was that something wonderful was probably going to be announce last week Tuesday. They stated that it was not a done deal and it could fall apart and if so it would need to be started again.

I have had former colleagues of mine who left secure jobs at our company and went to work for startup companies. Many of them ended up in this same kind of position and I know one of the root causes is that there is a sickness among a small group of people on social media who all seem to rooting for failure and feel personal satisfaction in seeing something other people built get burned to the ground just so they can say they were right!

I am not into that kind of thinking as I have known people who worked for these startups I know how devastated they get when people like us make our little jokes and they in turn loose their jobs and have an uncertain futures going forward. Like so many of you on this forum I have just stayed on point and tried to be only critical of their lack of communication and tried to give them time to work this out.

I am only making this post because I have seen how these kinds of caustic threads will typically kill everything in there path. My feeling is that any deal or ideas that have come up to solve the problems are most likely going to be gutted due to the damage done to the products reputation. Even though I would personally stick it out if something positive was announced, I have become doubtful it will.

I am not saying that MS is blameless in all of this. I am saying that the people who actually did the work and ran the company can only do what they are allowed to do by those people holding the strings. So given all of this I thought that the Ethical thing to do is come out and say to you guys that I am personally getting out of this one on Monday. It will truly suck if something changes and I have to join the back of the line but my gut feeling based on my last conversation is that things did not go as planned.

I am truly saddened by this. Not only for all the staff at SAI who put seven years of their lives into this but I am also sad to see one of the most innovative and useful products that I have seen released in my 35 years of reef keeping probably get boxed away for years before someone is able to get the patents and then resurrect it again. Yes we will have reagent and probe systems with pumps and calibration fluids etc. but the concept of just clicking in one disk every month and your done, was IMO the perfect solution.

Unlike some other buyers I had no illusions that the first, second or even third version of the disks would be perfect. I did know that if they just got a proper start and had some reasonable success they would have nailed the problem in a matter of months. I can tell you that they did have a few tanks that behaved like @OLDREEFER44 and they identified the problem and had a solution that was being tested with very promising results just before things started to go to hell.

I can agree with everything you say and by the way thank you for the long post. But I don’t think it solves the issue for customers like me who already paid thousands of dollars without any update even though the promised delivery dates were long past due. You can explain all kinds of causes and reasons (excuses) but the sellers themselves aren’t even open enough to come out and make a statement themselves. At the end of the day it’s money vs. integrity in my opinion. If they are willing to face the bash honestly, they will probably lose money or even go bankrupt but that would be the right thing to do. Holding other people’s money and not deliver promises is just dead wrong if you ask me. In this case I think it’s pretty clear they have chosen the money.

 

[robbyg]

If they had 30 testers who had been using it successfully over a long time period, why do there seem to be so few successful users today? Were the beta testers using a production version or were they using a prototype? If the latter, I'm not sure I'd really call that beta testing.

The whole point of Beta testing is to get the Beta testers the latest version. If not what is the point!
Do you honestly expect a company to give the public the latest firmware update before the Beta testers?

As for your assumption of a few successful users, what do you base that on? The two or three people on the forum who had problems? I have no idea why reefers assume that the bulk of hobbyist are on a forum! Almost all the guys that I personally know and respect as experts at keeping thriving tanks want to have nothing to do with any forum. You wanna guess why

 

[robbyg]

I believe most people no when the bottem fell out.

I don't, can you please tell me when?

 

[lexinverts]

Maybe @lexinverts?

Yes, I have quite a bit of experience with this device, but I am a bit depressed about this right now, so I have been staying away from these threads. I was telling someone the other day, that I really am going to miss this thing if the service goes away.

Here's my dashboard from a few minutes ago.

Basically, when this device is running a good disk, it has been the best thing I have owned for my tank. The insights that I have gained over the last three months are unmatched by anything else that I have used. When it has a bad disk, it is less useful, because it may be a little off for a parameter or two. About 1/2 of the time that I have been running my device it has been spot on, while the other half of the time, there has been a parameter issue of some kind.

Here's my speculation regarding what is going on.
Yes, they did have a beta program that was successful. It was easier for them to produce disks on a smaller scale and put them through an extensive QC process. The issue they ran into was when they scaled up production of the disks, and they started dealing with QC issues. They were pushed to launch earlier than they wanted to, but they had a scaled up production process that they had tested and thought was working well enough when they launched. Their new production process ended up producing lots of bad disks. Enough people got bad disks that they had to stop everything and try to fix, and then change their disk production process. I heard rumors of the development of an automated system with a robot, but it seems that didn't get finished. I expect them to make an announcement soon regarding the way forward---whether there is one or not.

 

[Darrell Brady]

The last time anyone could contact them on the phone for a refund was about three weeks ago. So this should be an interesting answer

actually it was 10/11 when asked for refund an no they wouldn't return calls I had to leave email they finally responded about week later. an may I ask why you cancelled your order since you think there so up an up.

 

[robbyg]

actually it was 10/11 when asked for refund an no they wouldn't return calls I had to leave email they finally responded about week later. an may I ask why you cancelled your order since you think there so up an up.

That was about a week before the CEO made the announcement that they would stop taking orders.
At that point in time I don't remember calling them to be a major issue, hard to remeber because from day one it was not like I could get through on the first call, but from what I can see it was in early November that the major communication problems started. Why would anybody have thought the ship was sinking on Oct 11th? The order page was still open, people did receive new disks and I remember one or two guys popping in and saying they had received their units.

As for me I am evidently a lot more optimistic than you are. I stayed for three weeks without any official announcement and then I decided that enough time had passed. If I had know that I could do a hold on payment like @MnFish1 has done I would still be in the queue.