I thought I would give an update on things and give my personal review of the product so far. Please note that I chose to be an early adopter to help make the product better so everything below should be taken constructively. I actively provide support feedback on bugs and such to improve the product.
I worked with Maya the Analytical Chemist @ Reef Kinetics to get my bot remotely calibrated. It took some doing but we eventually got it. Following are my personal suggestions on what test kits to use for each parameter based on testing experience with the bot.
Alkalinity - Salifert (for Accuracy) or Red Sea (to utilize one less reagent). Red Sea is not as accurate but still OK. I prefer Salifert since I prefer accuracy.
Magnesium - Red Sea
Calcium - API. I would prefer Red Sea (Beta) as it's a little more accurate but currently once the mixture is prepared it only has a one week shelf life.
Nitrate - API (Need to shake the vials real good before the test though). Second would be Tropic Marin however I get inconsistent results.
Nitrite - Tropic Marin
Phosphate - Red Sea. API would be next choice. Giesemann not really accurate at all.
General Comment
1. Tropic Marin / Fauna Marin Nitrate/Nitrite test kits appear to be identical in terms of contents, directions, etc. The directions are literally exactly the same and supplied with pretty much the same exact things for the tests. Seems to me that the same exact company is making this for each of them, they are the same company or one stole from the other. This is just a personal observation.
Pros about the product
1. Fantastic support!!
2. Phenomenal ingenuity. Really amazing what you have come up with.
3. Excellent shipping times, very responsive.
4. Love that you can use existing reagents test kits.
5. Does indeed appear to be accurate enough to let run and alert you when something is off.
Cons about the product
1. It would seem that every bot may need to be "tweaked" remotely in order to get it exactly the way you want. Took way longer than I ever expected to get it up and running properly.
2. It would be nice to have the option of smaller vials (I know this is something that is being worked on) so we don't have to purchase so many test kits for some tests.
3. Even though this is an internet connected device, there should be an option for the owner to "approve" accessing it remotely or at a minimum a log we can view to see what was done. For example, there is absolutely nothing preventing someone from ReefKinetics to make calibration adjustments remotely without me even knowing about it. Someone could even accidentally make a change to my bot thinking they were working on a different bot. A log would be nice.
4. I've had to change my pumps/valves already because of an issue. I was able to do this successfully but then realized that we will need to do this every six months or so. The issue? We'll I did per the instructions and cut the wire, put the new stuff in, soldered it together, taped it, etc. But the wires on the new pumps barely fit. Just enough length so they are very taught. So next time I need to do this it likely won't fit. I highly recommend that anyone that needs to do this get spade clips. Put a spade clip on the existing wire and then solder a spade clip on the new one you are putting in so you can simply clip them right together. That way you won't have to worry about your wire potentially getting a little shorter every time you do this and you having two solder points on each wire.
5. Only eight slots for vials. Would be nice to be able to have more vials at once in the bot so you could do all your tests without changing the vials around.
6. The app will tell you that the waste container is full way before it is full. A little annoying but with some experimentation you can adjust the size so it's closer. On the other hand when you are doing calibrations, the app doesn't count any waste for these so you could be in a overflow situation if you do many calibrations followed by many tests without checking your container.
