Vertex cerebra

[ASpec]

I have never had a controller before so I am pumped about owning a Cerebra. From what I have heard from other people is that Profilux is way over priced with a huge markup.

(disclaimer: yes, I own a Profilux)

I don't want to get into a controller debate, but I can tell you the Profilux is not overpriced for what it is. Was it at one point overpriced, yes, but now I honestly believe it's priced right and the mark up is not as much as you would think.

Do I think the Cerebra will be great? Looks promising but only time will tell.

 

[Canadaguy]

(disclaimer: yes, I own a Profilux)

I don't want to get into a controller debate, but I can tell you the Profilux is not overpriced for what it is. Was it at one point overpriced, yes, but now I honestly believe it's priced right and the mark up is not as much as you would think.

Do I think the Cerebra will be great? Looks promising but only time will tell.

Myself I can't argue because I have never owned a controller let alone a Profilux. Being overpriced is what I have read and from talking to people. I agree time will tell on the Cerebra but it sounds klike an awesome unit!

 

[luisagos]

Myself I can't argue because I have never owned a controller let alone a Profilux. Being overpriced is what I have read and from talking to people. I agree time will tell on the Cerebra but it sounds klike an awesome unit!

Everything in life is overpriced when you cannot own one, fact of life.

One thing is also a fact, cheap is always cheap.

 

[Luxo]

I do have a profilux and can tell you that the cost of the components inside with a Fujitsu CPU that is from years ago will be about $70.( dependent on production run quantities)
I have had the unit for about 5 years a few hick ups but other than that ok! The cost of profilux should have been the programming which considering has been on the market for so many years it's all paid now! However I must say they develpoed everything from Scratch! so should have been time and effort when they did years back! with Cerebra is Android so they get the OS for free but there is also a lot of work to do all the interfaces....
And the whole USB protocols...
This is how the electronics industry work and this is the reason why they are always expensive at the begining and then the price drops, The early adoptors pay for the Development costs and once that is paid the prices are reduced by the mfg to grab the mass market share, but it really didn't much with profilux!
As for Cerebra, I be amazed if the end price be as noted here! I guess they are going for the long run with this, since I doubt any other aquarium company would want to invest in R&D to develop such board!
The initial press release last year said it's an 8 layer PCB and they cost a lot to design specially with the CPU used!
Just my 2 cents working for one of the largest home Electronics manufacturers in the world!
Cheers,
Dave

 

[Jeremy B.]

I have been privy to the financial development costs of the Cerebra, and it's really mind boggling considering it's in such a niche market.

 

[Allmost]

I have never had a controller before so I am pumped about owning a Cerebra. From what I have heard from other people is that Profilux is way over priced with a huge markup.

mmhhhmmm being an electrical engineer working in biomed field, designing same things for hospitals I can tell you that you are 100% correct

the corners cut in these design prior to this were amazingly funny from eng,. point of view. hope this changes the controllerémicroprocessor world in this hobby.

 

[unze]

I think the price of the controllers are ok,

The thing that really lacks with GHL is that they dont do much on the software and programming. too busy getting new products out than fixing up issues with the profilux.

Still after years they still have a outdated software and it takes forever to get firmware updates.

Hopefully the cerebra can do basic things like when you get a sms you will be able to tell what the alarm is, with teh GHL you don't have a clue at times.

 

[Luxo]

There are hardware limitations involved.
There is only as much you can do with the same CPU unless you chage the platform completely.
The P3 was a piggy-back PCB that extended the unit but with the CPU used in Profilux they are at the limit of the possibilities.
They used to have wireless module but I think they abandoned it long ago!
It never really worked for me was not stable and the whole unit was never userfriendly.
I had others in our local forum PM me all the time ask me how to do this when I was baffled myself!
Never the less I must say the support was not bad at the time, I have not had to contact them for anything else anymore a few bugs with the update but you can get info on that from RC!
With Cerebra I was told the upgrade will be automatically same as a PC! so lets see if they can deliver on all their promises!
Very interested to see what come out on this at Interzoo!
Cheers,
Dave

 

[Luxo]

mmhhhmmm being an electrical engineer working in biomed field, designing same things for hospitals I can tell you that you are 100% correct

the corners cut in these design prior to this were amazingly funny from eng,. point of view. hope this changes the controllerémicroprocessor world in this hobby.

While I agree with you with the unit being overpriced but you have to keep in mind they designed it in 2004 or 2005 at the time this was a good CPU an must say stable product. It is just outdated now!
Would it do the job? yes
Is 2006 calling back for this? yes
I must say I have been happy with my Profilux but as you stated there can be much better options out there.
You are in an exciting field, unfortunately I calculate BOM all day to pass to the guys above to accept or reject a project! I guess we all gotta pay the mortgage:headwally:

 

[jtrasap]

I've had a Profilux, an Apex, and now a Reef Angel, so far the Reef Angel is my favorite. Android is somewhat finicky and can be very unstable at times so hopefully they can make this thing work. I'd be interested in giving it a try but not so sure I'd trust anything running on Android to take care of my tank while I'm out of town. Hopefully what's taking so long is them working all the little Android bugs out so it doesn't spit and sputter every time it needs to complete a simple task. Maybe they'll just cram it full of enough memory and processing power to negate these problems.

 

[Luxo]

Jason,
I've used Android devices for some times Samsung P-1000, Samsung P-7500, and neither had any issues I think the main problem is people using apps that are causing the issues for the specefic task they are intended for!
Arm Cortex 8 is the same as what is used in P-1000.
I think that is more than plenty for any task! but again the question that remains is that, how user friendly the interface is designed to be?
I think as far as hardware they have gone the right path! but let's see what they are doing for Interface.
I sure hope it's not another German Iterface design such as Profilux!
Cheers,
Dave

 

[ASpec]

I've had a Profilux, an Apex, and now a Reef Angel, so far the Reef Angel is my favorite. Android is somewhat finicky and can be very unstable at times so hopefully they can make this thing work. I'd be interested in giving it a try but not so sure I'd trust anything running on Android to take care of my tank while I'm out of town.

I am confused by your statement - you say Reef Angel is your favorite but it runs on Android which is unstable at times and you don't trust it to take care of your tank while away/out of town... what am I missing? Why is the world would someone want a controller that is often unstable and not trustworthy? What's the point in having a controller?

We can argue Profilux is overpriced and old all day long, but the 1 fact you can't argue is that it's ROCK SOLID. It was designed from the ground up to be a aquarium controller - GHL did not take an open source OS to build on, they built there own... again, yes it shows it's age on the interface and hardware but it also shows it age regarding dependability -- truly time tested and dependable.

 

[jtrasap]

I am confused by your statement - you say Reef Angel is your favorite but it runs on Android which is unstable at times and you don't trust it to take care of your tank while away/out of town... what am I missing? Why is the world would someone want a controller that is often unstable and not trustworthy? What's the point in having a controller?

The Reef Angel does not run on Android...:thumbsup:

 

[ASpec]

<-- crawls under a rock

Sorry -- for some reason I thought it did. Thanks for the heads-up

Rest of my statement stands true. :thumbsup:

 

[jtrasap]

<-- crawls under a rock

Sorry -- for some reason I thought it did. Thanks for the heads-up

Rest of my statement stands true. :thumbsup:

I agree on pretty much every standpoint of yours on the profilux. I really loved it, you can look at my 90g build thread and see that...BUT...and I know you mentioned the whole price argument thing, unfortunately I had made a fairly substantial investment in a Profilux, extra powerbars, ex upgrade, network card, LED light bars, PH and ORP expansion, I had everything running on GFI's and surge protectors only to have it taken out by a surge through my network cable which took out the main board in the Profilux($200), the network card($195), EX card($275), and a 6 way powerbar($299)! That adds up to almost $1000!! to fix the Profilux, talk about a bad taste in my mouth. I ended up selling the semi-functional Profilux head unit for $40, a 4 socket powerbar for next to nothing, one of the light bars lasted about a year and is sitting hear non-functional, the probes were used so they all hit the trash exept for the temp probe which is still sitting here somewhere, and the 6 socket powerbar got some Tannerite taped to it and is now a hunk of scrap somewhere in my back 40...:uzi:

I had both the Profilux and Apex running side by side for a while and the Profilux was definitely the better built, easier to program, and just overall more solid performer of the two so I sold the Apex and kept the Profilux.

Now I have a Reef Angel... At $219 for the controller, an 8 socket powerbar, temp probe, PH probe, and two float switches, not to mention so far this thing runs rock solid and expansion is not at all going to break the bank, purchasing the Reef Angel over any other controller on the market was a slam dunk no brainer.

 

[jtrasap]

Jason,
I've used Android devices for some times Samsung P-1000, Samsung P-7500, and neither had any issues I think the main problem is people using apps that are causing the issues for the specefic task they are intended for!
Arm Cortex 8 is the same as what is used in P-1000.
I think that is more than plenty for any task! but again the question that remains is that, how user friendly the interface is designed to be?
I think as far as hardware they have gone the right path! but let's see what they are doing for Interface.
I sure hope it's not another German Iterface design such as Profilux!
Cheers,
Dave

I'm on my fifth Android phone, I started with the original G1 and have since had a G1 dev phone, an Atrix, a Captivate, and now a Galaxy S II, on top of that I have a Galaxy Tab and a Kindle Fire both of which also run Android. I'm somewhat of an Android fanboy so to speak but I also know that every single one of the Android devices that I have and have had need to be rebooted fairly regularly and all of them balk at certain tasks. Android is somewhat clunky but being open source and having the advertising power of google and the big phone networks has made it a huge hit. I love my phone and Kindle Fire, the Galaxy Tab is okay and gets fairly dusty as it spends a-lot of time sitting on the shelf.

Just in my experience with Android it's sometimes anoying, overall fairly clunky and not all that stable, that said most Android devices are really fun to play with but not something I would want to trust with my tank.

 

[Luxo]

I am confused by your statement - you say Reef Angel is your favorite but it runs on Android which is unstable at times and you don't trust it to take care of your tank while away/out of town... what am I missing? Why is the world would someone want a controller that is often unstable and not trustworthy? What's the point in having a controller?

We can argue Profilux is overpriced and old all day long, but the 1 fact you can't argue is that it's ROCK SOLID. It was designed from the ground up to be a aquarium controller - GHL did not take an open source OS to build on, they built there own... again, yes it shows it's age on the interface and hardware but it also shows it age regarding dependability -- truly time tested and dependable.

The same arguement can be made about not wanting to buy a new TV since the old tec is rock solid!
As far as which one is better I would not make a comment on that,until I see the Cerebra. However the hardware on Cerebra can do laps around profilux, That is a fact!
Would it be a better controller, That remains to be seen!
As for the interface I am 100% sure they be able to do much better than profilux with Android and the TFT used! That is also a fact!
Cheers,
Dave

 

[Luxo]

I'm on my fifth Android phone, I started with the original G1 and have since had a G1 dev phone, an Atrix, a Captivate, and now a Galaxy S II, on top of that I have a Galaxy Tab and a Kindle Fire both of which also run Android. I'm somewhat of an Android fanboy so to speak but I also know that every single one of the Android devices that I have and have had need to be rebooted fairly regularly and all of them balk at certain tasks. Android is somewhat clunky but being open source and having the advertising power of google and the big phone networks has made it a huge hit. I love my phone and Kindle Fire, the Galaxy Tab is okay and gets fairly dusty as it spends a-lot of time sitting on the shelf.

Just in my experience with Android it's sometimes anoying, overall fairly clunky and not all that stable, that said most Android devices are really fun to play with but not something I would want to trust with my tank.

Jason,
We are all Android users in my household! while my daughter has most issues with her phone for me I have had not much of a challenge with my phones or tab, You are right that the open source factor exposes users to aps that are causing the issues.
As for the OS itself it is a living thing with all the updates all the time.
With Honey comb when it was released it did work well for most handsets but had issues on tabs!
I think the most challenge here would be to optimize for the purpose the device is designed for and if they accomplish that then it should be no issue.
But I guess until released that is an "if":spin3:
As a hobbyist I have high hopes for this device but as a professional I do realize there will be challenges ahaed of them!
I hope they do overcome these challenges since if it is a stable device I would ditch the profilux rightaway! if not I guess I will try the Reef Angel!
How do you find the Reef Angel!?
Cheers,
Dave

 

[Canadaguy]

Any Cerebra updates?

 

[Jeremy B.]

Still the same, these are officially being released at Interzoo.