New SunBrite Users Don't Despair!
New SunBrite Users Don't Despair!
Hi all - I've been lurking around reefcentral.com long enough that I thought it was time to register and contribute.
I just bought my first SW setup (used) and it came with a 48" long SunBrite F-series V1. I brought everything home and excitedly installed the Android app on my phone. I downloaded it from their (now defunct) company website. The app didn't work at all, and after reading the company's wonderful :hmm5: manuals I started cursing. Then I found this thread and cursed even louder when I found out the company went out of business :facepalm:.
So why wasn't the Android app working? For some reason, it couldn't 'find' the SunBrite Fxxxx network. When I bought the entire setup, the previous owner used his iPhone app to show me that the lights were working fine. So, off I went to find an old iPhone, iPod, etc... that I could try. My friend lent me her old iPhone to try. Good news - the iPhone could 'see' the SunBrite wifi connection!
So next step was to get the Apple version of the SunBrite app and install it. Easy, right? Nope! It is no longer available on the Apple Store. So after searching around the internet for a long time I came across a posting that directed users to a link to the app (
http://www.reefsupplies.ca/sb/). Click on the "app.ipa" file, and save to computer - this is the Apple app for the SunBrite lights.
Now came the 'fun' part - try and install it on your iPhone! [It quickly became apparent why I never bought into the whole Apple thing and have always gone Android!] You need to 'jailbreak' your phone in order to install apps (.ipa files) that are not approved/supported by Apple. So I try to jailbreak the phone, but can't because my friend had updated her iOS to version 8 over-the-air (OTA). I could have downgraded the iOS, but that was a PITA.
So I borrowed an even older iPhone from my friend (which I was allowed to keep). I successfully 'jailbroke' the phone, and figured out how to transfer the file (app.ipa) from my computer to the iPhone, and actually install it (another entire PITA)! Whew hew! The fancy SunBrite light is no longer a really expensive paper-weight! I followed the instructions in the SunBrite manual and changed the connection settings to use a Static IP (see SunBrite manual for Apple connection settings).
Anyways, that was my experience. Android - don't bother. Apple - will work with some perseverance. All of this 'jailbreaking' stuff is quite common, and very easy to do with instructions all over the internet.
Technology - isn't it supposed to make life easier? A pretty ridiculous amount of work just to get a 'remote control' for my SunBrite lights
