09-04-2021, 11:40 PM
(08-30-2021, 11:58 PM)Rob F Wrote: I hope you got my private message, I know you mentioned you were only buying the controller because software would be open source, check it out and we can figure something out, I'm sorry to mislead you.Hi Rob, catching up on the thread…while I don’t understand all of it, you got to do what’s right for you.
It does appear a lot of reefers have plenty of money, it's not a cheap hobby however that's not everyone. The reason people choose me / reef-pi is mainly due to being affordable, I hear this all the time. Most people I cater too don't care to get into the code, they want reliable, easy to use and ideally it can do everything. The controller and reef-pi pretty much covers that. I feel reef-pi is quite proven and reliable otherwise I wouldn't push it, I think Ranjib has done a great job. Another reason out of many I'm making the app is I can't rely on reef-pi, if Ranjib stops good chance the project is over. Then a few Pi OS updates and it doesn't work and nobody can fix it. Reef-pi is growing though so this gets less likely as time goes by.
My original controller didn't work because price was $429 basically the same as the Apex and basically had no web access. Now it's under $250 to get semi equivalent with a lot more ports, my numbers are day and night different due to just that fact. If I could get some extra hardware I would like I can really increase the price to value ratio. There is definitely a good size market for me.
When I got my first aquarium I wanted a controller but Apex was out of my range, that's what got me into this. It was only going to be for me but people were liking it so I decided to sell them. My goal has and always will be to keep the prices as low as I can because I know there's many like myself. Even though reefing is very expensive it doesn't have to be. It also attracts a lot of freshwater folks.
I am one of those reefers getting restarted and don’t have a lot of ready cash for getting everything at once. I just spent the last year catching up on the hobby and now it looks like it could be that long again before I get it all bought and put together. I am not into buying something just because of the name on the box, especially when I see threads on R2R where folks are having problems with it.
Still following along with your progress. Time will tell if I actually jump in and get started.
