Radion Upgrade Problems, Beware Ecosmart live

ReefGoatfish

New member
So i spent 200 plus on T5 lighting so i could send in my Gen2 lights to be upgraded , all went well , very painless process, 600 dollars later they were back at my house, thats were the fun began, ecosmart live (i wish they stayed with the old one as i hate the cloud crap , because your subject to connection troubles and down servers) says the lights needed firmware update , that's odd since i just got them back from ecotech, ok , one updated the other would not, started a new aquarium setup but it would not finish because of the one light not able to upgrade, so since i'm on the west coast and my work hours are when ecotech is open i have to take off work to call, i get a very helpful girl who was reluctant to say with me til the end of the process as it was taking a while, but i said something will most likley go wrong as soon as you hang up, ( my ecosmart live history) she said ok and the one thing that was odd was she had me do a factory reset with the usb only, no 110 power to the light, so we did it all , it all seemed good, she said by it should all work fine , hung up and i realized that one thing needed to be done, the last light we reset was still usb only,no 110 power, so it was never on while we were finishing up, so i called back with 15 minutes left before they leave, waited on hold for 15 minutes and then a recording said they were closed, nice ! another day off work for me,groovy ! so what do i do , so i disconnected the usb and hooked up the 110 power , light doesn't work , red and green light flashing, see , say one the phone til the end , so i go into ecosmart live , under information of that light and it says it's powered by usb only, no it isn't , wake up the next day it's on, great but its not on the same schedule as the other light which is on the correct one, so opened ecosmart live again, it still reports the light as usb power only,no it still isn't, moved the schedule around a bit to maybe save the both lights as the same but it says offline mode , so i can't save any settings, cloud crap, Sweet! so i downloaded the ecosmart live manual , it's for the old version, it doesn't quite match this one, sorry guys, but it has never been a very intuitive program, even had an ecotech guy admit it a about a year ago on the phone, with 2000 dollars invested ( another grand on pumps) it would really be neato if it worked, any input from anyone would be Greatly appreciated , thanks for your time,,
 
Apex/WXM for me. I never liked ESL and ordered the WXM within a couple weeks of getting the lights.
 
Thanks for the time, not a bad idea Breadman, i have an Apex , which has been close to flawless for me but i'm not familiar with the WXM, will you be able to control the spectrum and the intensity with it ??
 
+1 on the Apex WXM
I've had my lights for almost 3 yrs now. I gave up on Eco Tech(Dead) Live about 6 months after I bought them. Even with their recommended computer & browser I could never get the damned site to work right consistently.
Been some time since I looked in this forum. I can see NOTHING has changed!!
 
I'm relatively new and I went all ecotech Vectra M1, vortech mp10's, and a gen 2 radion. I also use a reeflink via Ethernet and ESL on Mac and app. For the first 6 months I would have to unplug and reset the reeflink almost every time I wanted to use feed mode or change something. About a month ago the reeflink updated its firmware. Since then it's been flawless. I am concerned with your light issues as I want to upgrade to gen 3 pro pucks this summer. I might have to rethink that. Hope you get it worked out.


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Thanks for the time, not a bad idea Breadman, i have an Apex , which has been close to flawless for me but i'm not familiar with the WXM, will you be able to control the spectrum and the intensity with it ??

Yes. It is super easy via Fusion.
 
sounds good, i'm ordering it monday , is there anything special i need to do to the lights before i set them up to the wxm, like enable/disable light buttons , factory reset , latest firmware is in place i believe, currently, because of the ecosmart foul up, they are doing different things , so i would say the lights are internally programmed different, is that true ??? thanks
 
Haha I'll have to try it. I have had a wmx hooked up for prob 2 months and haven't moved anything off esl yet. Is it fairly easy to program? I was thinking of leaving lights on esl and put pumps on wmx
 
sounds good, i'm ordering it monday , is there anything special i need to do to the lights before i set them up to the wxm, like enable/disable light buttons , factory reset , latest firmware is in place i believe, currently, because of the ecosmart foul up, they are doing different things , so i would say the lights are internally programmed different, is that true ??? thanks

Ok It's been like 2yrs + since I set mine up. But as I recall This is what I did. Yes I did disable the buttons But I don't remember just exactly why. I did not do a factory reset. I have 4 lights 2-Gen 1/2-Gen 2 I'm running Rev 1.6.10 of the firmware and it works just fine.
I would suggest going to the Neptune forum and doing some reading before you do any firmware updates. Bc I do remember reading something there about a conflict with one Ver of it.
I believe that once you have your WXM up and running it will solve any difference in programming that exists atm.
Also the forum is an awesome source of info for anything to do with Neptune's Apex controller And feel free to PM me I'll help if I can
 
Haha I'll have to try it. I have had a wmx hooked up for prob 2 months and haven't moved anything off esl yet. Is it fairly easy to program? I was thinking of leaving lights on esl and put pumps on wmx

First I have to make one thing clear I AM NO FAN of ESL!! Yes The lights are pretty easy to program on Apex w/WXM
That being said. When ESL works It's a wonderful site and IMHO slightly better than WXM for the task.
Also I'm a big fan of "If it ain't broke Why try and fix it" ;) So if ESL is working for you Then Yes use it for your lights
 
I agree! It's nice for quick changes to lighting for photos or dimming while watching a movie :)
That being said every few weeks the app won't connect and I have the reboot the reef link... Good thing it only takes Me 30 seconds once a month... Otherwise it works great :)
 
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