02-12-2020, 04:34 PM
I think the biggest gap between something like APEX and Reef-pi is the actual hardware. That's something that you have experience and expertise with. 95% of people just want to take a box and plug their existing equipment and start configuring and concentrate on the reef aspect. I think you can do very well filling that gap between the software and just plugging in the hardware.
I would suggest looking at making cable dongles for the most common reef equipment, even if the dongles themselves are not that profitable. Something that for instance you can plug your store bought equipment into, and then plug directly into the robo-fi. The broader market isn't comfortable identifying positive and negative, voltages etc, but everyone is comfortable plugging one type of cable into it's female counterpart and connecting things together. This can help you sell the boards themselves.
The open source community is very supportive and are also into preventing one point of failure. Even if Leviathan makes boards, in terms the of the open source community, we always want another option, ALWAYS. Redundancy is key. Your value add to the community will come from making it easy for non hardware geeks to be able to plug in what they need and to get back to their hobby. Most reefers and aquarists have enough to do with their tank without learning a completely new hobby like Pi, breadboards and the like.
I would suggest looking at making cable dongles for the most common reef equipment, even if the dongles themselves are not that profitable. Something that for instance you can plug your store bought equipment into, and then plug directly into the robo-fi. The broader market isn't comfortable identifying positive and negative, voltages etc, but everyone is comfortable plugging one type of cable into it's female counterpart and connecting things together. This can help you sell the boards themselves.
The open source community is very supportive and are also into preventing one point of failure. Even if Leviathan makes boards, in terms the of the open source community, we always want another option, ALWAYS. Redundancy is key. Your value add to the community will come from making it easy for non hardware geeks to be able to plug in what they need and to get back to their hobby. Most reefers and aquarists have enough to do with their tank without learning a completely new hobby like Pi, breadboards and the like.
