No doubt the price is steep, but when you compare it to the Neptune Triton, you will be paying even more for the complete setup to have it auto dose as well. (Apex head unit, Triton, DOS).
On the auto dose topic, I don't know if I would ever let it auto dose for me. I've watched several technical videos about the Triton and doing this task "safely" appears to be very involved. For me, dose corrections are not something I need to do daily or weekly, so I'm fine with having it just monitor and alerting when things drift out of range. I might manually change my dosing schedule to flatten the swing between day and night, but I will see after I get some readings.
As others mentioned, it's not necessary to have a monitor like this, and I wouldn't look at adding one until you have the rest of your systems setup, but after you start to get an investment in time, corals, fish, etc. I think it provides an extra level of protection that could save you thousands of $$$ from a tank crash. Plus the insight to other parameters in your tank we don't normally measure or even could easily.
. I guess the so called "Holy Grail" would be an all inclusive set it and forget it monitoring and dosing solution. Right now, I just do Triton ICP testing and a 4channel doser. I can def see the benefit of nearly 24/7 monitoring though. Well...maybe I'll win one or somebody will buy me one LOL
