Mindstream Aquarium Monitoring System

It looks like you try out a number of new products, are you going to give there product a try or pass it by i would love to get your opinion of it. Im subscribed to your thread and love your tank system and having your say with experiencing this product first hand would mean alot to me and other reefers.

I'll be passing. I don't need a subscription-based product to tell me how my tank & my parameters are doing. Just something to make people chase numbers. Perhaps down the line if it integrates with the apex & in the subscription fees next to nothing. But at this point I have no use for it. It is a neat idea though.
 
Just got the notification email that the mindstream pledge project has failed to reach its funding goal by the deadline. Too bad.
 
Just got the notification email that the mindstream pledge project has failed to reach its funding goal by the deadline. Too bad.
They weren't supposed to need this kickstarter funding to go live. Now we'll see if that was true.
 
Have to agree that I was horribly unimpressed with their station at macna. In talking to then they came across as smart and knowledgeable in what they do but perhaps not the best business minded people. They would probably do well to being someone on to manage that side of the house and present a better front to the public
 
Nothing new. As of yesterday they were about half way to the their pledge goal. They say if they make their goal, they could be shipping by end of year. If I had to guess, this is much further off than people would hope for.



I've been doing very high profile trade shows since the late 80's and wasn't impressed. Their booth, display and message was less than impressive IMO. If you didn't know who they were, you would have no idea what they were all about and would have walked right by them. I saw nothing that looked to be working as far as a good demo. Not a knock of them but I don't think they presented themselves very well. Especially for the investment that they are seeking and at a show like MACNA, I think they should have done a better job marketing themselves and more importanly, their booth should have spoken volumes about what they were all about but that is just my opinion.


You are not the only one who was underwhelmed at MACNA! I had a couple other friends mention the same thing and one noted that there was no one even seeming interested at the show. They really missed the boat on this.
 
I'll admit, I'm bummed that they seem to have done such a poor job of marketing this project, especially at MACNA. There was more movement on the Kickstarter campaign in the first two hours it was open than over the whole MACNA weekend! They definitely missed the boat.

It will interesting to see what happens next.
 
So where did you hear about it? Honestly, it sounds either too good to be true or too expensive to afford!
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What is with all these spammer accounts? They join post in 3 threads then post the exact same thing every time...
 
I'll continue to stick with my long-held view that this is a 'believe it when I see it' piece of kit.
 
The number of steps you have to go through to run an electronic Hanna alk test is (no kidding) twice the number of steps you have to go through to do it with Salifert and involves an added chemical, which says building an electronic one-shot test for alk is not easy to do.
 
The number of steps you have to go through to run an electronic Hanna alk test is (no kidding) twice the number of steps you have to go through to do it with Salifert and involves an added chemical, which says building an electronic one-shot test for alk is not easy to do.

I haven't used a salifert test in a while but if what you are saying is true it must be only 1 step because the hanna is only 2 steps unless you actually count pushing the button as a step. Add 10ml of tank water then add 1 ml of reagent. Done.


Hanna
1. Turn on unit
2. Fill cuvet with 10ml of tank water
3. Press button, wait for C2 to flash
4. Add 1ml of reagent
5. Press button and wait for reading
 
Maybe with all the hype around the Mindstream, companies like Neptune will look harder at a solution using their existing controllers.

Hype but that is where it kind of ended. With as much money as many of us will spend the lackluster response from many of us into this product probably did not help push the effort of the other guys to invest in it.

Had this taken off and there was money to be had I bet we would have seen some more action from the other guys...
 
Hype but that is where it kind of ended. With as much money as many of us will spend the lackluster response from many of us into this product probably did not help push the effort of the other guys to invest in it.

Had this taken off and there was money to be had I bet we would have seen some more action from the other guys...

If Mindstream's technology is worth the weight in gold or is far enough along in development and actually works, a company like Neptune or even Hanna could conceivably buy Mindstream for the intellectual property or license the technology but based on what I saw at MACNA, I don't think the product isn't ready for prime time yet. I suspect there are still some major developmental hurtles to address.

Had they done a better job at MACNA, they would have stood a much better chance at securing the investment funds they needed to move things along quicker as that was the venue that they really needed to make a big splash at. Instead they kind of blew a big opportunity IMO and created some doubts not only among their Kickstarter investors but also among potential investors and perspective users. Time will tell but if I were a betting man, I'd bet this product is much further from production than expected or at least the complete set of tests that they are touting. Don't get me wrong, the concept is great and while I wouldn't be chomping at the bit for something like this, obviously, there are many that would be and from a tech standpoint, it's a leap forward as far as testing goes.
 
It's just too expensive...

The parameters I need are pretty simple to test once a week.

Also not being able to do anything with the numbers (dose) is a big deal breaker.

If my Apex could say "Hey your ALK is low, I'm going to dose a bit more the next few days. Also your CA is a bit high, I'm going to cut back." that would be ideal!
 
I don't know that I want anything auto dosing. Who's going to take the blame when you spike your tank with alk or ca or etc. It would be nice to make adjustments but I wouldn't want the process automated.
 
I don't know that I want anything auto dosing. Who's going to take the blame when you spike your tank with alk or ca or etc. It would be nice to make adjustments but I wouldn't want the process automated.

Guess it depends on how well it's implemented / tested.
 
If Mindstream's technology is worth the weight in gold or is far enough along in development and actually works, a company like Neptune or even Hanna could conceivably buy Mindstream for the intellectual property or license the technology but based on what I saw at MACNA, I don't think the product isn't ready for prime time yet. I suspect there are still some major developmental hurtles to address.

Had they done a better job at MACNA, they would have stood a much better chance at securing the investment funds they needed to move things along quicker as that was the venue that they really needed to make a big splash at. Instead they kind of blew a big opportunity IMO and created some doubts not only among their Kickstarter investors but also among potential investors and perspective users. Time will tell but if I were a betting man, I'd bet this product is much further from production than expected or at least the complete set of tests that they are touting. Don't get me wrong, the concept is great and while I wouldn't be chomping at the bit for something like this, obviously, there are many that would be and from a tech standpoint, it's a leap forward as far as testing goes.

As one in Marketing and after having done multiple product/service releases I can say that they screwed the pooch at MACNA. I know they are most likely tight on money or have none but some booth presence goes a long way. Have a small 20 gal breeder going with the unit running and dose it with various items so people could see how it read the changes. Couple that with some other test kits people are used to for verification (names striped from bottles and such of course) and people would grow comfortable with it.

Making it interactive would have drawn people in and sparked conversation. As is the small table with a unit in half and such was unimpressive and a huge turn off for me. It shows the company as being quite a ways away from being taken seriously. Even if they do release this year I would be worrisome about the longevity of the firm and the availability of the disks and cloud space.
 
I don't know that I want anything auto dosing. Who's going to take the blame when you spike your tank with alk or ca or etc. It would be nice to make adjustments but I wouldn't want the process automated.

I am with you here in a way. I am ok with cutting things back automatically while also alerting me so I can manually check but I would be against ramping anything up without time for me to verify.
 
Good 9 min Video on the MindStream Aquarium Monitor @ Macna with one of the Owners I believe, Jim, and Meerwasser Live TV who are conducting the interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYKKhfpsZrw

Worth the watch if your interested.

I would really buy this product if it was accurate and released but I really have doubts about it. He mentions that the discs will be 35$ ea if you buy 3 which is reasonable, 35$ for 1 month of continual testing.

The parts that make me skeptical is that he mentions that if they fail to reach the kickstarter amount the product will be delayed by several months. He also mentions that they still need to do lots of testing to validate the accuracy of the product. I don't see how they would ever have been able to make the December release.

What I don't understand is why they did not bring a working unit, he says they have one working in their lab on a tank, why wouldn't you bring it to demonstrate, and set up a large TV monitor showing the updated levels and the unit in action.

I think this product is a lot farther away from launch then we all are hoping but I hope I am proven wrong.
 
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