Reef Factory

[reefedout1]

Hearing rumors they have let go of all staff and closing. Any validity to the rumors?

 

[subodhs]

I hope not. I was eyeing some of their stuff and saving up. Where did you hear this from?

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

It seems that before Christmas they made the decision to lay off most of their staff.

They're definitely hurting, and should give pause to anyone looking to purchase their products based solely on them utilizing cloud services to communicate with their products.

This means if they go under, cloud services will default and most (if not all) reef factory devices will become expensive desk art.

 

[reefedout1]

It seems that before Christmas they made the decision to lay off most of their staff.

They're definitely hurting, and should give pause to anyone looking to purchase their products based solely on them utilizing cloud services to communicate with their products.

This means if they go under, cloud services will default and most (if not all) reef factory devices will become expensive desk art.

Know for sure they did this or just forum rumors?

 

[SliceGolfer]

 

[backbayreef]

Such a bummer - I was looking for a reliable & accurate PO4 tester and this product looked very promising. Oh well — back to manual Hanna testing until something better comes along.

 

[shadyraro]

Apparently Reef Factory has filed for bankruptcy!

 

[Gribbles]

Ugh, that sucks. I've actually had great experience with their filter roller and dosing pumps.

Anyone know if their servers go down, the products would still operate but would no longer be able to be adjusted via their app (or anywhere else)?

 

[shadyraro]

Ugh, that sucks. I've actually had great experience with their filter roller and dosing pumps.

Anyone know if their servers go down, the products would still operate but would no longer be able to be adjusted via their app (or anywhere else)?

Not sure, but I’m pretty invested into RF and for the most part the equipment has been bulletproof for my system basically running my tank.
This was posted on the RF Facebook page

 

[Gribbles]

Here's an update

 

[vabben]

Unfortunately it’s not looking good if you own anything Reef Factory, and will need warranty support. They are unable to provide me with a new float sensor on a new unit that has failed.

 

[KStatefan]

This is not good for people that bought into that system. I know that the post above said that the distributors are paying the server cost but I would be concerned how long term that could be sustained.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Here's an update

This is wholly unsustainable... and I would venture to say part of the reason they they went belly up.


I would posit that a fraction of a fraction of you realize what "cloud services" cost. These are hosted servers and bandwidth. They must have security, they must be maintained. They must have backups and they must maintain updates. They cost per hour, 24/7 365. Very basic recurring costs can easily be $20K to $200K per month.

Something has to PAY for these services. The business is a self inflicted pyramid scheme for most vendors who are not charging subscription fees. FULL STOP.

1 - customer buys an IoT device. This is a "durable good". A "one time" profitable sale. Say 30% margin. So the $500 retail controller nets them $150 in profit.

2 - customer starts consuming "cloud services". Each customer adds bandwidth, processor and storage load to the "hosted services". For each day that the customer "subscribes" the $150 profit is eroded paying for their portion of the "cloud".

3 - because there are no "subscription" fees, the vendor must rely on sales of consumables or complimentary items to remain in black ink. But not all cloud devices use consumables and not all customers are willing to pay for them indefinately.

4 - if vendor has no reliable method to dynamically scale their cloud consumption, the issues are amplified, but such dynamic scaling is also costly and complicated.

We could go on... but you get the picture.....


If you buy a device that is "cloud" reliant for functionality, it is has a very high likelihood of becoming a paperweight long before it is obsolete. Why? Most companies building around this paradigm in niche markets like this have insanely poor business plans and insanely overestimate sales revenue while insanely underestimating the albatross of hosting costs for "cloud services" and everything that comes along with them.

My advice -- run from products like this... run as fast as you can.

 

[Gribbles]

This is wholly unsustainable... and I would venture to say part of the reason they they went belly up.


I would posit that a fraction of a fraction of you realize what "cloud services" cost. These are hosted servers and bandwidth. They must have security, they must be maintained. They must have backups and they must maintain updates. They cost per hour, 24/7 365. Very basic recurring costs can easily be $20K to $200K per month.

Something has to PAY for these services. The business is a self inflicted pyramid scheme for most vendors who are not charging subscription fees. FULL STOP.

1 - customer buys an IoT device. This is a "durable good". A "one time" profitable sale. Say 30% margin. So the $500 retail controller nets them $150 in profit.

2 - customer starts consuming "cloud services". Each customer adds bandwidth, processor and storage load to the "hosted services". For each day that the customer "subscribes" the $150 profit is eroded paying for their portion of the "cloud".

3 - because there are no "subscription" fees, the vendor must rely on sales of consumables or complimentary items to remain in black ink. But not all cloud devices use consumables and not all customers are willing to pay for them indefinately.

4 - if vendor has no reliable method to dynamically scale their cloud consumption, the issues are amplified, but such dynamic scaling is also costly and complicated.

We could go on... but you get the picture.....


If you buy a device that is "cloud" reliant for functionality, it is has a very high likelihood of becoming a paperweight long before it is obsolete. Why? Most companies building around this paradigm in niche markets like this have insanely poor business plans and insanely overestimate sales revenue while insanely underestimating the albatross of hosting costs for "cloud services" and everything that comes along with them.

My advice -- run from products like this... run as fast as you can.

Fyi to everyone who reads this in the future, these numbers are just made up and guesses

 

[BeanAnimal]

Fyi to everyone who reads this in the future, these numbers are just made up and guesses

Yes - the numbers are made up and guesses!

The point was broader with regard to the reality of having a device the can't be used without its cloud services.

It is very nice that distributors have decided to foot the bill. I don't see it as sustainable long term (for many reasons) but maybe they will prove me wrong.


That said, part of what I do for a living is size, spin up and manage "cloud" computing instances.
Application Servers,
Load Balancers,
Database Servers,
Storage,
Data Pipelines,
API gateways,
etc.

As I said, there is a lot more involved, long term, than just the hour compute and storage costs.

I wish all of the RF customers good luck and hope thins work out, as the situation is very unfortunate, but something I think we are going to see more of as we move forward in this hobby.

 

[Create New]

Not gonna lie I've always been a reef factory hater, all they do is put a lick of paint on a jebao products and sell it for 10x the price. same with a lot of the other products they have such as the smart power switch x4... just google it and you can get the exact same thing off amazon for $20 instead of $200 lol

 

[Billyreef-ita]

I wonder if there’s a company interested in buying them to keep operations ongoing. There are few companies active in the reefing automation and Reef Factory certainly has developed a certain expertise in the sector. This could be the only solution, I guess.
Any rumors on this?

 

[sd_tom]

Their app is a lot nicer than jebao though, that is the value add. And also the downfall cause it needs a cloud. I have two of the pro x1 dosing pumps and I have the smartroller medium still sitting in box for a new build.. the smartroller I picked for it being the best combination of features for my needs (footprint, etc).. vs the dosing pumps I just got for cost reasons and that they did dosing down to 0.1ml / nano tank.

The smart roller does seem reef factory specific / not just relabeled. If that's not true definitely interested in a link in case I need to substitute after all this

 

[bubbgee]

I dodged a bullet. I was almost pulled the trigger to buy the phosphate monitor from them. Sigh.

 

[shadyraro]

I wonder if there’s a company interested in buying them to keep operations ongoing. There are few companies active in the reefing automation and Reef Factory certainly has developed a certain expertise in the sector. This could be the only solution, I guess.
Any rumors on this?

The owner of my LFS said he’s heard Aquaforest is very keen on buying out reef factory.