Not off to a great start

[BeanAnimal]

Well they removed my ability to post to the FB group...

I am limited to 1 post per day until sept 6th.

I guess their FB group users complained about the number of posts I made and the notifications. I got DMs from others who are in the same boat. I guess this is typical of vendors FB groups these days and maybe why I avoid them in the first place!

I dunno.. talking to them now. The situation is frustrating, but alas... I still have hope... time will tell.

 

[areefer01]

Well they removed my ability to post to the FB group...

I am limited to 1 post per day until sept 6th.

I guess their FB group users complained about the number of posts I made and the notifications.

I dunno.. talking to them now. The situation is frustrating, but alas... I still have hope... time will tell.

Isn't the intent of the group to talk about it or to get help from fellow hobbyist? Wow. Then again I do not use FB so maybe ignorant on how it is intended to be used.

Doesn't look like they reply to their forum either or at least this thread. Interesting.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Isn't the intent of the group to talk about it or to get help from fellow hobbyist? Wow. Then again I do not use FB so maybe ignorant on how it is intended to be used.

Doesn't look like they reply to their forum either or at least this thread. Interesting.

Facebook - like Reddit has its own culture. Pretty easy to get pounced on or not fit into the group dynamic, especially when that group contains loyal customers. When a company makes this their online "presence" for communication, things get weird.

I am not angry or surprised, and honestly should have foreseen the outcome and just avoided it and opted for support tickets.

 

[areefer01]

Facebook - like Reddit has its own culture. Pretty easy to get pounced on or not fit into the group dynamic, especially when that group contains loyal customers. When a company makes this their online "presence" for communication, things get weird.

I am not angry or surprised, and honestly should have foreseen the outcome and just avoided it and opted for support tickets.

Got it, thanks for clarity. As noted pretty ignorant but the way you put it makes sense. I felt that way when I was trying to participate in a reefing channel on discord. It seemed like a clique was formed and newcomers are not welcomed. Reminded me of high school.

Well thank you for the information and updates. Very calm and professional which is nice to see.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Got it, thanks for clarity. As noted pretty ignorant but the way you put it makes sense. I felt that way when I was trying to participate in a reefing channel on discord. It seemed like a clique was formed and newcomers are not welcomed. Reminded me of high school.

Well thank you for the information and updates. Very calm and professional which is nice to see.

Yeah - not at all angry at anybody and try to see from both sides.

The reality is that most vendors would opt to (and do) sensor/remove posts that have negative impact on sales or perception.

I hope the device works out given the price. All signs point to a company that wants to improve the product and support their customers, but as with many vendors (GHL for example) prefers not to have dirty laundry in public. I wouldn't want it either for my company...

 

[Inamo]

Well, there is definitely more visibility here than on their product than the FB group. So I would think it would behoove them to follow up more here. Also, I would rather see everything discussed open to everyone to read and find later. Support Tickets are nice for company tracking and other metrics, but they can do that on their side too. I see it as a better public perception to seeing how active the company is to helping their customers, while also creating an online resource for customers in the future that have similar issues.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Well, there is definitely more visibility here than on their product than the FB group. So I would think it would behoove them to follow up more here. Also, I would rather see everything discussed open to everyone to read and find later. Support Tickets are nice for company tracking and other metrics, but they can do that on their side too. I see it as a better public perception to seeing how active the company is to helping their customers, while also creating an online resource for customers in the future that have similar issues.

They told me that they don't delete posts, but several users have DMd me saying that their posts are deleted and they are limited to one post per day. Scrolling back through history, there are numerous blocks of comments that are no longer visible. So who knows...

I assume that they don't post here because they can't control the conversation like they can on facebook.

I can't get a feel for how many people are having problems and how many are happy. They show Sanjay as having one, I am going to hit him up when I get a chance. I have not talked to him in ages anyway

All of that said, they are working to help me in private - so we will see how that goes.

On side not and to be fair GHL works very hard to move conversations about any kinds of problems form here to their ticket system, they too do not want dirty laundry hanging about. There are numerous other vendors here that outright ignore any issues posted in their forums and only reply when they can put a positive spin on it. I would say that is the norm, even if we don't like it.

So I am going to stay the course for now and see if I can get this thing to provide stable and accurate results. So far that has been somewhat elusive.

I am told that it being above the tank may be a problem. I don't agree (peristaltic pumps are positive displacement, so once calibrated should maintain the calibrated flow). But I will do as they ask for the sake of trying to solve my issues.

 

[Inamo]

I downloaded the SD card image going to look at it and see if there are ways to add a second location for the data, but then would come the issue of interpreting for results. Not a coder, but will look at it.

 

[Inamo]

Wish RK was a little more vocal here. All these post and no comments despite them logging in.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Phosphate tests are all over the map... but even weirder, notice the "endpoint" colors for the multiple .02 readings.... they are not even the same, nor do they appear on the color chart.

Do any of you have stable results that you can post?

 

[Inamo]

Wonder if your color sensor could be bad as the 1,2 and 4 test colors don't even match the chart. If the machine is actually completing the test in the exact same manner, even if it was out of calibration and adding to few or to many drops it should at least be consistent.

 

[BeanAnimal]

That is what I would think as well - off should still be off by the same margin.

I purchased $500 worth of different kits and reagents today - going to get to the bottom of this one way or the other as time permits

 

[Inamo]

That is what I would think as well - off should still be off by the same margin.

I purchased $500 worth of different kits and reagents today - going to get to the bottom of this one way or the other as time permits

How has the testing with all the reagents gone so far? Hoping it is getting better.

Hoping to hear that you just have a bad sensor and RK will send you a new one and get it up and working. Although, it seems like multiple people have this issue. While I'm sure Hady and RK are engaged with anyone having issues and is trying to get it fixed, their openness and lack of comments in here or FB, sadly are deafening. Doesn't paint a good picture for those of us on the fence about buying one.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I will update when I get a chance. busy weekend and not much tank time.

 

[Mattiejay6]

Wish RK was a little more vocal here. All these post and no comments despite them logging in.

This is exactly why I will not buy from them. When V1 became a dud, they disappeared. The only posts they make on here is to boost their sales. Given the info from their support group they run on Facebook now too... this company wont get a dime from me.. truly a shame

 

[Inamo]

This is exactly why I will not buy from them. When V1 became a dud, they disappeared. The only posts they make on here is to boost their sales. Given the info from their support group they run on Facebook now too... this company wont get a dime from me.. truly a shame

Yeah, I was sooooooo close to pulling the trigger and getting one. Then I saw BeanAnimal's post here and even on their FB page. Then to see he is moderated to limit his post that ask for help and collaborating with other owners. I lost my warm and fuzzy feeling. I'm still hopeful, but with it being cloud dependent which prevents the user from troubleshooting all but the physical issues I'm just not comfortable. GHL, with their own set of issues sounds like it works "offline", but with them using a proprietary ion probe, that prevents me from going that direction right now.

Additionally, this makes it look bad for people coming in to research the company. Full of reported issues, with no apparent company interaction. I'm sure Hady is helping via DMs, but just seems like it would be helpful, two-fold, for appearance and for people with the same issue in the future.

 

[BeanAnimal]

So here is my update. Please not I am not trying to be hypercritical. I am simply relaying my thoughts based on price, expectations and experience. I want to love this thing, but am not there yet.

I am getting somewhat stable (but kind of questionable) results for several of the tests. Buckle in this will be long, some of it repeated.

Alk
RedSea Pro - (2 kits) could not get valid results. I don't know if this is kits or bot problems with the RedSeas program.

API - results appear valid - but being only 1dkH in resolution it is hard to tell if this is just lucky or accurate. I am going to test NSW and see what happens when I have a few mins.

Calcium
Using API - results are within 10-15 of the manual API test so not bad and may be stable, but not enough tests yet to determine. A few more days. The bigger issue is that the API test is 40-60 less than Salifert, Hanna and RedSea.

Nitrate and Phosphate
I can't get either to give meaningful results using API or RedSea tests. I don't think there is ANY WAY that I am at 0 phosphate and 0 nitrate, but that is what the bot reads (or close, .02 phosphate). Hanna gives me .12ppm - new RedSea reagents but not had a chance to use them yet to verify.

I can maybe swallow the 0 ppm nitrate - but need one more test kit to accept that. Maybe tomorrow?

Magnesium
RedSea loaded - it is reading 100 to 120 low compared to Hanna, and Salifert. Manual RedSea is also low, but not as low as bot. Eyes vs bot and endpoint? I dunno but hanna appears to agree with my eyes on the Salifert comparison. Bot is also wandering a bit but hanna results and salifert don't. So there is that too.

So bot related - I don't have a handle on the results accuracy or repeatability yet but am in better shape than I was on day 1 and 2. I can't tell you what has changed though and that is a concern too. We will go over that shortly... but let's switch gears for a moment (see updates).

That brings to ReefKinetics, the FB forum and my general impression thus far of many things.

The FB group has plenty of typical arrogant FB personalities mixed in with "happy" customers (fans if you will) that are all too happy to "white knight" and frustrated new owners looking for support (mostly because there is no real documentation).

Very similar to their forum here. ReefKinetics pretty much refrains from responding unless they can put a positive spin on the response, but unlike here, most negative responses and conversations are scrubbed from public view. Judge this as you see fit. I personally think it does for more damage than good, but it is their prerogative.

So in a nutshell community "support" is more akin to "we don't have problems you must be a hater or an idiot". Don't waste your time in the FB group unless you are there to sing happy song with other like minded happy people.

The only benefit of the FB group (my opinion) is being able to DM "Hady" directly. He (I think) earnestly does try to provide support. I have not used the ticketing system, but that may be an even better bet than bother with FB at all.

Anecdote: A certain "Patrick" there who is also an admin (I am told) at the Focustronic (not affiliate but private) support group was rather arrogant toward a new member and I responded that it was not helpful...he sent me a rather nasty 2 word DM and then insta-blocked me ... reminding me that maturity (this guys profile shows he is maybe 50) abounds on FB and reinforcing the fact that I would be far better served removing myself from the group.

So ignoring the actual results - here is my updated impression of the robot and software not in any particular order.

-60ml vials DO NOT FIT - They are useable. but do NOT FIT

-Vial must be 55% full to run a test. This is 100% lazy coding. Needle length and vial dimensions are know, it would be trivial to know when (with a safety margin for both needle depth and vial volume) that the syringe would draw air and that is far below 55%. For many tests this is just 11 tests before you get a reagent too low error. That is insane, if I full the vial the day I leave and test once a day, I can only be gone 10 days, yet 55% of the reagent is still left but disabled? Lazy coding and logic.

-Schedule management table is lacking info on time and actual test (it shows what you name it) the rest of the data is shown when you drill down into the test line item. Poor UI design.

-Test scheduling is not well managed. Test run times are not taken into consideration in the scheduler so you can easily overlap test start times with a running test. We are told that overlapping tests will be run in sequence one after the next. The problem is that long tests (this with 3 reagents) can timeout waiting... apparently the timeout is counted from when the test is scheduled to start, not when it actually starts. This is something that MUST be fixed and is again (IMHO) just bad logic and coding but worse, the bot is "new" but the software is mature, being the interface for the two prior robots?

-The above issue brings up two more. Firstly the error reporting is bare bones (it absolutely sucks). You can't drill down into errors. On screen errors are temp ambiguous popups that are not logged, etc. This is a major oversight and what feels like more rough edges that could be easily fixed.

-Two, this appears to expose a real-time dependency between the robot and the hosted services. Meaning that if at any time during a test the bot loses comms with the AWS server or there are other conflicts (the schedule run times out because another test is running) the test will fail. This IMHO (if true) is terrible application design. The robot has a powerful single board computer in it. It absolutely should be autonomous, keeping schedules and run everything locally and cache results. The server should send updates and receive results. If the server is needed for actual processing then fine! Cache the data from the test until the server is available to process it. I don't see this to be the case. Again - if this is not they way that this all works, nobody has stepped up to refute it or tell me how it does.

-That brings me to my next point. Why does the robot stop trying to get an IP address if the network fails and comes back? DHCP does not need to time out, but alas it does and if I am out of town and the network reboots, somebody must manually reboot the robot. I can fix this by putting it on a GHL switched receptacle. but still. Rough around the edges for a mature product.

-Mentioned elsewhere, the UI has some graphics bugs on wide screen monitors and some functions are broken in the web browser that work in the ios app. I can't speak to android.

-I don't see a way to choose push or email, I don't think you can turn off email notifications. Not the end of the world but again goes to roughness in an application that should be more refined after this long.

-With the above - units missing all over the place. Also not the end of the world, but just more lack of polish.

-Mentioned several times. Complete lack of documentation. Reef Kinetics, your FB group is not the right place for people to learn how to use the device that they spent $1500 on...

-Yes - this thing can uses a few dozen different test kits. I understand RK not wanting to pick favorites, but at the same time they know what works well and what doesn't. I think this would be important information for them to document clearly (Pros and cons of different kits for each parameter). They don't. I even created a thread in this forum for that purpose and tagged them but they have ignored it.

-choice of disposable insulin type syringe. The model they have chosen has a mushroom shaped plunger tip. This leaves a drop of fluid in the syringe neck... in this case RODI from the cleaning process. The same style of syringe can be purchased with an extended protrusion on the plunger that clears the syringe neck. This would be more appropriate to ensure that the reagent is not AT ALL mixed with a drop of residual RODI water from the cleaning process. This may or may not affect results, but is something that could.

-There does not appear to be a way to calibrate a returned results to a KNOW better value. Example my mag is returned consistently between 1120 and 1160 for this batch of reagent. I have 3 other kits telling me that it is 1220 to 1260. I absolutely should be able to "calibrate" that value to return the proper result. This is another (I feel) oversight.

-UPDATES UPDATES UPDATES - this is a tremendous sore spot for me, especially given the DIRECT dependence on "hosted" services. I asked some pointed questions and got vague answers about how software development, bug tracking and updates were handled. It was basically "we take care of it, don't worry". That is NOT what I wanted to hear. I get the impression that these folks (they did not deny it) tweak things regularly to resolve issues or tweak results, etc. This just CAN'T happen with a live piece of software. When stuff goes sideways on MY bot or YOUR bot and we thing it is reagent based, it could be developer introduced. Likewise (in my case) when the same reagents don't work for 2 days and then suddenly after complaining, thing look better with NO CHANGES on my side, then how do I know what was fixed or if anything was fixed. This (out of all of my issues) is one of the most concerning and could be the deal breaker. We could spend many paragraphs talking about this problem. There MUST be a notice of ANY backend software changes, as end users can't opt-in/out of being affected. There MUST be a complete and easily viewable change log. It would be in RK's best interest to institute a public bug tracker as well.

-Lastly I want to address what I feel may be a major limitation of this technology and reiterate the need for a way for end users to scale or calibrate the returned result.

1 - some brands of tests are know to read lower or higher on average. This is enough of an argument alone. but..

2 - These tests are designed to read by the human eye against an endpoint or color chart. Slight changes in chemistry from batch to batch have little (no) effect on what your eyes can discern, but may be VASTLY different in terms of a fixed colorimetric scale. Nothing is wrong with the test kit, it works for its intended purpose (your eyes) but is not tightly enough quality controlled for colorimeter accuracy. So again the user needs to be able to adjust (scale/calibrate) the returned result.

So - all in all, I still think that the Reefbot Lab has a lot of potential but there are some very rough aspects to it and a few potential deal breakers (the update scenario and extremely tight dependence on hosted servers) for me.

Phew... sorry that was so long.

 

[areefer01]

So here is my update. Please not I am not trying to be hypercritical. I am simply relaying my thoughts based on price, expectations and experience. I want to love this thing, but am not there yet.

I am getting somewhat stable (but kind of questionable) results for several of the tests. Buckle in this will be long, some of it repeated.

Alk
RedSea Pro - (2 kits) could not get valid results. I don't know if this is kits or bot problems with the RedSeas program.

API - results appear valid - but being only 1dkH in resolution it is hard to tell if this is just lucky or accurate. I am going to test NSW and see what happens when I have a few mins.

Calcium
Using API - results are within 10-15 of the manual API test so not bad and may be stable, but not enough tests yet to determine. A few more days. The bigger issue is that the API test is 40-60 less than Salifert, Hanna and RedSea.

Nitrate and Phosphate
I can't get either to give meaningful results using API or RedSea tests. I don't think there is ANY WAY that I am at 0 phosphate and 0 nitrate, but that is what the bot reads (or close, .02 phosphate). Hanna gives me .12ppm - new RedSea reagents but not had a chance to use them yet to verify.

I can maybe swallow the 0 ppm nitrate - but need one more test kit to accept that. Maybe tomorrow?

Magnesium
RedSea loaded - it is reading 100 to 120 low compared to Hanna, and Salifert. Manual RedSea is also low, but not as low as bot. Eyes vs bot and endpoint? I dunno but hanna appears to agree with my eyes on the Salifert comparison. Bot is also wandering a bit but hanna results and salifert don't. So there is that too.

So bot related - I don't have a handle on the results accuracy or repeatability yet but am in better shape than I was on day 1 and 2. I can't tell you what has changed though and that is a concern too. We will go over that shortly... but let's switch gears for a moment (see updates).

That brings to ReefKinetics, the FB forum and my general impression thus far of many things.

The FB group has plenty of typical arrogant FB personalities mixed in with "happy" customers (fans if you will) that are all too happy to "white knight" and frustrated new owners looking for support (mostly because there is no real documentation).

Very similar to their forum here. ReefKinetics pretty much refrains from responding unless they can put a positive spin on the response, but unlike here, most negative responses and conversations are scrubbed from public view. Judge this as you see fit. I personally think it does for more damage than good, but it is their prerogative.

So in a nutshell community "support" is more akin to "we don't have problems you must be a hater or an idiot". Don't waste your time in the FB group unless you are there to sing happy song with other like minded happy people.

The only benefit of the FB group (my opinion) is being able to DM "Hady" directly. He (I think) earnestly does try to provide support. I have not used the ticketing system, but that may be an even better bet than bother with FB at all.

Anecdote: A certain "Patrick" there who is also an admin (I am told) at the Focustronic (not affiliate but private) support group was rather arrogant toward a new member and I responded that it was not helpful...he sent me a rather nasty 2 word DM and then insta-blocked me ... reminding me that maturity (this guys profile shows he is maybe 50) abounds on FB and reinforcing the fact that I would be far better served removing myself from the group.

So ignoring the actual results - here is my updated impression of the robot and software not in any particular order.

-60ml vials DO NOT FIT - They are useable. but do NOT FIT

-Vial must be 55% full to run a test. This is 100% lazy coding. Needle length and vial dimensions are know, it would be trivial to know when (with a safety margin for both needle depth and vial volume) that the syringe would draw air and that is far below 55%. For many tests this is just 11 tests before you get a reagent too low error. That is insane, if I full the vial the day I leave and test once a day, I can only be gone 10 days, yet 55% of the reagent is still left but disabled? Lazy coding and logic.

-Schedule management table is lacking info on time and actual test (it shows what you name it) the rest of the data is shown when you drill down into the test line item. Poor UI design.

-Test scheduling is not well managed. Test run times are not taken into consideration in the scheduler so you can easily overlap test start times with a running test. We are told that overlapping tests will be run in sequence one after the next. The problem is that long tests (this with 3 reagents) can timeout waiting... apparently the timeout is counted from when the test is scheduled to start, not when it actually starts. This is something that MUST be fixed and is again (IMHO) just bad logic and coding but worse, the bot is "new" but the software is mature, being the interface for the two prior robots?

-The above issue brings up two more. Firstly the error reporting is bare bones (it absolutely sucks). You can't drill down into errors. On screen errors are temp ambiguous popups that are not logged, etc. This is a major oversight and what feels like more rough edges that could be easily fixed.

-Two, this appears to expose a real-time dependency between the robot and the hosted services. Meaning that if at any time during a test the bot loses comms with the AWS server or there are other conflicts (the schedule run times out because another test is running) the test will fail. This IMHO (if true) is terrible application design. The robot has a powerful single board computer in it. It absolutely should be autonomous, keeping schedules and run everything locally and cache results. The server should send updates and receive results. If the server is needed for actual processing then fine! Cache the data from the test until the server is available to process it. I don't see this to be the case. Again - if this is not they way that this all works, nobody has stepped up to refute it or tell me how it does.

-That brings me to my next point. Why does the robot stop trying to get an IP address if the network fails and comes back? DHCP does not need to time out, but alas it does and if I am out of town and the network reboots, somebody must manually reboot the robot. I can fix this by putting it on a GHL switched receptacle. but still. Rough around the edges for a mature product.

-Mentioned elsewhere, the UI has some graphics bugs on wide screen monitors and some functions are broken in the web browser that work in the ios app. I can't speak to android.

-I don't see a way to choose push or email, I don't think you can turn off email notifications. Not the end of the world but again goes to roughness in an application that should be more refined after this long.

-With the above - units missing all over the place. Also not the end of the world, but just more lack of polish.

-Mentioned several times. Complete lack of documentation. Reef Kinetics, your FB group is not the right place for people to learn how to use the device that they spent $1500 on...

-Yes - this thing can uses a few dozen different test kits. I understand RK not wanting to pick favorites, but at the same time they know what works well and what doesn't. I think this would be important information for them to document clearly (Pros and cons of different kits for each parameter). They don't. I even created a thread in this forum for that purpose and tagged them but they have ignored it.

-choice of disposable insulin type syringe. The model they have chosen has a mushroom shaped plunger tip. This leaves a drop of fluid in the syringe neck... in this case RODI from the cleaning process. The same style of syringe can be purchased with an extended protrusion on the plunger that clears the syringe neck. This would be more appropriate to ensure that the reagent is not AT ALL mixed with a drop of residual RODI water from the cleaning process. This may or may not affect results, but is something that could.

-There does not appear to be a way to calibrate a returned results to a KNOW better value. Example my mag is returned consistently between 1120 and 1160 for this batch of reagent. I have 3 other kits telling me that it is 1220 to 1260. I absolutely should be able to "calibrate" that value to return the proper result. This is another (I feel) oversight.

-UPDATES UPDATES UPDATES - this is a tremendous sore spot for me, especially given the DIRECT dependence on "hosted" services. I asked some pointed questions and got vague answers about how software development, bug tracking and updates were handled. It was basically "we take care of it, don't worry". That is NOT what I wanted to hear. I get the impression that these folks (they did not deny it) tweak things regularly to resolve issues or tweak results, etc. This just CAN'T happen with a live piece of software. When stuff goes sideways on MY bot or YOUR bot and we thing it is reagent based, it could be developer introduced. Likewise (in my case) when the same reagents don't work for 2 days and then suddenly after complaining, thing look better with NO CHANGES on my side, then how do I know what was fixed or if anything was fixed. This (out of all of my issues) is one of the most concerning and could be the deal breaker. We could spend many paragraphs talking about this problem. There MUST be a notice of ANY backend software changes, as end users can't opt-in/out of being affected. There MUST be a complete and easily viewable change log. It would be in RK's best interest to institute a public bug tracker as well.

-Lastly I want to address what I feel may be a major limitation of this technology and reiterate the need for a way for end users to scale or calibrate the returned result.

1 - some brands of tests are know to read lower or higher on average. This is enough of an argument alone. but..

2 - These tests are designed to read by the human eye against an endpoint or color chart. Slight changes in chemistry from batch to batch have little (no) effect on what your eyes can discern, but may be VASTLY different in terms of a fixed colorimetric scale. Nothing is wrong with the test kit, it works for its intended purpose (your eyes) but is not tightly enough quality controlled for colorimeter accuracy. So again the user needs to be able to adjust (scale/calibrate) the returned result.

So - all in all, I still think that the Reefbot Lab has a lot of potential but there are some very rough aspects to it and a few potential deal breakers (the update scenario and extremely tight dependence on hosted servers) for me.

Phew... sorry that was so long.

Thank you for taking the time, and energy, to write this.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Thank you for taking the time, and energy, to write this.

The experience is improving a bit and hopefully they are paying attention and, even if quietly, use my feedback to improve the product.

 

[BeanAnimal]

So good news already ---

I surmised that the 60ml vials fitment was a design vs manufacture issue of some type. While RK has not confirmed that to be the case, It is my understanding that they are aware and will resolve the issue soon.

Also - I am told that they are well aware of the variations in reagent batches from different manufacturers and work to stay on top of it. My only response was that this is a good reason to keep end-users informed of the updates and also to allow a mechanism for adjusting returned results.

If it were not for the DM communication with Hady - I would have returned this day 1. So we are getting somewhere at least.