Nice review of the color difference in Ecotech Gen 5 Radion Pro & Blue

[HolySmoke]

Same, tried to provide a CC no luck. Hats of to MD for responding appropriately

As far as the unit I do have. Not sure if it’s a firmware issue but man this fan is LOUD. 8-10 decibel louder than Gen4... Thought it was meant to be quieter.

I agree. Fan is so much louder than I thought it would be. I feel like one of mine is a lot louder then the other. Probably because of their terrible packaging job.

I wasnt going to write this on the forums just yet but another issue I am having with my lights is loud popping constantly from lens expanding and contracting against the housing. They tried to make the light more water proof but in doing so they have two plastic pieces tight up against eachother. They need some sort of rubber membrane/gasket between these parts.

I recorded a 20 second video and sent it to them yesterday wr will see what they say. In that 20 seconds my lights popped 3x.

 

[AJsReef]

I agree. Fan is so much louder than I thought it would be. I feel like one of mine is a lot louder then the other. Probably because of their terrible packaging job.

I wasnt going to write this on the forums just yet but another issue I am having with my lights is loud popping constantly from lens expanding and contracting against the housing. They tried to make the light more water proof but in doing so they have two plastic pieces tight up against eachother. They need some sort of rubber membrane/gasket between these parts.

I recorded a 20 second video and sent it to them yesterday wr will see what they say. In that 20 seconds my lights popped 3x.

Early adopter blues I guess, really didn’t expect as many issues. Got a Gen3 on release no issues at all. Hopefully they work out the quirks. My house is 75 degrees max so hopefully there can be a setting that lowers fan speed but runs fans longer

 

[ca1ore]

I think the 'best' answer is to show some patience …. let everyone else navigate the early adopter challenges and the inevitable 'it's the best thing ever' period and then decide if it's a worthwhile upgrade over what you have. Blue does look nice though …...

 

[Swell]

I agree. Fan is so much louder than I thought it would be. I feel like one of mine is a lot louder then the other. Probably because of their terrible packaging job.

I wasnt going to write this on the forums just yet but another issue I am having with my lights is loud popping constantly from lens expanding and contracting against the housing. They tried to make the light more water proof but in doing so they have two plastic pieces tight up against eachother. They need some sort of rubber membrane/gasket between these parts.

I recorded a 20 second video and sent it to them yesterday wr will see what they say. In that 20 seconds my lights popped 3x.

Didn't BRS specifically say in their video that they made their own fan to make it quieter?

Also, why did they kill ecosmartlive with this gen? It was a great platform (IMO). What is the advantage to Mobius over this? Cool that you don't need the reeflink for the lights, but what about the rest of their devices?

100% the pro version. Flexibility and it can essentially get the same color as the "Blue" model, granted with less output.

 

[HolySmoke]

I think the 'best' answer is to show some patience …. let everyone else navigate the early adopter challenges and the inevitable 'it's the best thing ever' period and then decide if it's a worthwhile upgrade over what you have. Blue does look nice though …...

I totally agree with you @ca1ore . Being in early adopter to anything tech related is a massive risk. Factor in the cost of reef equipment, and the importance of reliability for our precious animals, and the risk is exponentially worse.

I learned this lesson when I was one of the first purchasers of the KH guardian. It still stings that they lowered the price from 1200 to 600 6 months after my purchase. No mounting accessories ever released, and dealing with coralvue was a nightmare. That being said it is one of my favorite pieces of equipment I own.

I knew there were risk involved when I purchased these lights but one would assume ecotech would make things right if anything serious presented itself. Yes the fan is a little loud but not a dealbreaker for me. It could be breaking in still and could quiet down.

I didnt upgrade because I had to have the latest and greatest like a junk measuring contest. Simply because my lights were getting older and I got a really good deal on most of them and the upgrade was small in the grand scheme of things.

I knew the risks involved but with only 10 small sticks in my tank it seemed like a good time to make the switch. I will gladly be a gineapig for you all, and it's why I decided to post about the fan and popping from the lens/housing.

I feel like everyone of my posts in this thread is an essay.

 

[CaptainOver]

When I click the moon the moon lights arent included in the slider bars. All the other diodes are there but moonlights. I had it fixed for like 10min a couple days ago until I shortened my photo period and jacked it all up again.

I agree the UX is pretty bed. I miss EcosmartLive already.
Any luck on finding the moonlight sliders? I have a couple points that have moonlights preset, but I can't adjust them other than the point intensity. And I can't add any moonlight to new points.
And the fans are much noisier...They almost whistle. And they kick on over 50%, so I hope I can stay below that.

 

[User1]

Doesn’t matter where majority shareholder headquarters are located. Cree, Philips, and just about any other high end boutique diode company actually manufactures them in China, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The engineering is done by their chief engineers and design staff, the manufacturing is outsourced, the packaging, assembly, and distribution is usually done in the country where they are designed. It’s not a bad thing. Do any of you all think your iPhones or smart tv’s are made in the USA (from an internal component sense)? (They’re not)

Most everyone knows they are made elsewhere and Apple heavily invested in China. I mean not to state the obvious but what choice do you have? Cost of labor and environmental regulations kills it right at the start.

With regards to the label it says designed and assembled. Everyone is going to read this differently but to me it pretty much means design team or HQ or engineers are in Penn and parts are made outside US. Shipped back and final assembly is again back in Penn.

To those having shipping issues and/or broken units. I thought I read another thread on this forum with similar issues. Seems to be related to the power supply not being secure and lose during shipping. Should be a no brainer to fix to prevent others while also replacing units damaged unless they are low on stock.

I do not own them nor will but if I was in those shoes I'd probably say yeah, well thank you but so long. In my opinion it should be a direct replacement free of any shipping charges. Honestly based on what I've heard from others regarding ecotechs support it seems pretty good / solid but again never experienced so just second hand.

Best of luck. I'm sure they will make it right!

 

[monti mike]

They should of went with a less confusing name than pro. Maybe like tropic and blue or something that helps you visualize a more white spectrum, pro means more features and superior performance to me.

100% agree with you! I thought the Pro was an upgraded version until I watched the BRS video on them. Can’t go wrong with either. Flip a coin if you can’t choose, right?

 

[HolySmoke]

I agree the UX is pretty bed. I miss EcosmartLive already.
Any luck on finding the moonlight sliders? I have a couple points that have moonlights preset, but I can't adjust them other than the point intensity. And I can't add any moonlight to new points.
And the fans are much noisier...They almost whistle. And they kick on over 50%, so I hope I can stay below that.

I figured it out but yea the UI needs some work. I could of swore I saw the moonlights in the sliders previously but it might only have been when creating a "scene".

In order to fix the moonlights you need to click the black spots on the bar under graph 3 hours after sunset. When you click the black spots the colors channels will all be 0% but the intensity will be 100%. All you have to do is simply drop it down to 0%. I believe there were three spots I had to click to completely remove the moonlights.

 

[dadnjesse]

I figured it out but yea the UI needs some work. I could of swore I saw the moonlights in the sliders previously but it might only have been when creating a "scene".

In order to fix the moonlights you need to click the black spots on the bar under graph 3 hours after sunset. When you click the black spots the colors channels will all be 0% but the intensity will be 100%. All you have to do is simply drop it down to 0%. I believe there were three spots I had to click to completely remove the moonlights.

The problem I am having when I try that only one of my three light take the change, they are not communicating with each other.

 

[maharsreef]

I have four Blue radions over A 72" inch by 30" tank and love, love them. Software is wonky, but ok once you figure it out. Huge improvement over Gen 4. Huge improvement on coral color.

 

[monti mike]

I agree. Fan is so much louder than I thought it would be. I feel like one of mine is a lot louder then the other. Probably because of their terrible packaging job.

I wasnt going to write this on the forums just yet but another issue I am having with my lights is loud popping constantly from lens expanding and contracting against the housing. They tried to make the light more water proof but in doing so they have two plastic pieces tight up against eachother. They need some sort of rubber membrane/gasket between these parts.

I recorded a 20 second video and sent it to them yesterday wr will see what they say. In that 20 seconds my lights popped 3x.

Will you let us know what ecotech customer service says about the creaking/popping? My light does this too every once in a while. Thanks!!

 

[Aardvark1134]

Think the super blue lights are terrible looking in every brand and would never set my tank to that

 

[CaptainOver]

Overall I'm torn on the lights. The spread seems pretty good, but the fan noise and the poor Mobius UX is a bit disappointing.
I had 3 Gen 3 XR-15's and 2 of them were flickering and having trouble turning on - which means the power supply was failing again (I've replaced multiple power supplies) - so I was ready for an upgrade, and I was sick of the fan noise of the old XR-15's.
I was amazed how loud the new fans were when they turned on at 50%-60% brightness - especially since they were custom built for the lights. It doesn't seem like there was a ramp up in speed on the fans, they were just immediately loud, so hopefully they can update the firmware to spin a bit more slowly at lower temps.
As for the Mobius app, I'm hoping I won't need to touch it once I get my lights setup how I want, but it is definitely a challenge getting there. First off is how difficult it is to work on a phone form-factor. I was used to a "roomy" web-browser with Ecosmart live - so squeezing everything onto a phone screen makes things feel cramped and hard to adjust precisely. They've tried to work around that limitation with ways to enter the data manually, but it feels forced. I also still can't figure out how to adjust the 2 moon-lights for a point other than the main intensity slider. I only see the daytime LED's - which are all 0, but I'd like to adjust the blue/white moonlight LED's separately to get the light how I want - which is possible in the demo mode, but not the schedule point UI.
After 4 years with the gen 3's I was hoping to be blown away by the new lights, so while I know I needed to upgrade, I'm still feeling a bit "meh" about them.

 

[this is me]

I'm not sure if software tweaking to make the fan more quiet is the right thing to do. If the fan is loud, it's a hardware issue. Replace the fan. Making the fan spins slower to reduce the noise that can result in insufficient cooling will shorten the life of the LEDs. I have 5 G5s on order and I'm not looking to replace them in less than 5 years.

 

[CaptainOver]

I'm not sure if software tweaking to make the fan more quiet is the right thing to do. If the fan is loud, it's a hardware issue. Replace the fan. Making the fan spins slower to reduce the noise that can result in insufficient cooling will shorten the life of the LEDs. I have 5 G5s on order and I'm not looking to replace them in less than 5 years.

And just like that, my XR30's fan just turned on...And it is more annoying than the old Gen 3's...And this is only running at 45% intensity. Uggh.
And it seems to turn on and off periodically, so it is on some temperature threshold that is triggering it...I'd rather have the fan spin slowly more of the time than this new louder fan sound that is more intrusive than the old.

 

[User1]

I agree. Fan is so much louder than I thought it would be. I feel like one of mine is a lot louder then the other. Probably because of their terrible packaging job.

I wasnt going to write this on the forums just yet but another issue I am having with my lights is loud popping constantly from lens expanding and contracting against the housing. They tried to make the light more water proof but in doing so they have two plastic pieces tight up against eachother. They need some sort of rubber membrane/gasket between these parts.

I recorded a 20 second video and sent it to them yesterday wr will see what they say. In that 20 seconds my lights popped 3x.

Interesting on the fan noise. I was watching a video last night, I forget who, sorry, but the ecotech guy was saying they developed a new fan to reduce noise and cool better. So I'm a bit surprised it is loud based on what he spoke about and showed during the interview.

Best of luck!

 

[CaptainOver]

Interesting on the fan noise. I was watching a video last night, I forget who, sorry, but the ecotech guy was saying they developed a new fan to reduce noise and cool better. So I'm a bit surprised it is loud based on what he spoke about and showed during the interview.

Best of luck!

Yep. That was Reefbuilders, I believe. That's one of the reasons I bought the Gen 5's...I really wanted to cut down on the noise in my office. And I went a bit bigger than I needed, so I could get more coverage and run them at lower intensity. It would be helpful if BRS and other would include fan decibels in their reviews, as that's a major consideration for many people.

 

[User1]

Yep. That was Reefbuilders, I believe. That's one of the reasons I bought the Gen 5's...I really wanted to cut down on the noise in my office. And I went a bit bigger than I needed, so I could get more coverage and run them at lower intensity. It would be helpful if BRS and other would include fan decibels in their reviews, as that's a major consideration for many people.

Thank you for clarifying who it was . I didn't remember darn it all. I thought it was a pretty decent video discussing it. Also if you haven't done so make that suggestion to BRS. I think that is a great suggestion honestly and believe it will help people out.

I was watching the Kessil a360x reviews they did back when it came out and found it interesting what they had to say about it. They noted how quite it was and said it had some of the, if not best, spread of any light on the market. Of course things change but going back to the noise I remember them talking about it in that clip.

I hope since they seem to be testing more and more lights these days that they have a cheat sheet or procedure document that says how to test. This way we get consistency today moving forward. And as you pointed out noise can be important to some.

Thank you again!

 

[HolySmoke]

Will you let us know what ecotech customer service says about the creaking/popping? My light does this too every once in a while. Thanks!!

Okay recieved the final update from ecotech about this and they asked for proof of purchase for exchange.

I purchased one xr15 blue from MD to see if the problem was going to happen again. The xr15 was packaged way better then the xr30s and it does not have the popping issue my 30s do. I believe the poor packaging was the cause of the popping. I'm assuming the lens got smacked up in transit but it could totally be just the torqued bolts.

I also want to note that the xr15 fan is much quieter and turns on less. With the three lights over my tank I was able to turn the intensity down substantially and the fans almost never kick on.