Mindstream Monitor Thoughts?

Nonuser

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Brantford
Watching Macna 2017 videos and there's a company releasing a monitoring system pretty interesting stuff. It will monitor all your parameters wifi no manual testing is online alerts....

https://www.mindstreamh2o.com/

 
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TORX

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Please note what 'all' parameters they check. As a refer in the hobby now for a while, you should know that many people do not check ph, salinity, etc cosistantly and on a regular basis let alone at a cost of $35USD per month. Imho, the only good test that this does is alkalinity. But even at that, all it does is test and there is a monthly fee. You can get a alkalinity unit that tests and doses alk automatically for less. If it did mag as well, then I would be impressed. Or even p04 or n04, but no. This was all hyped up while being designed as it was supposed to do the big 5, then it was reduced to the big 3, now only alk and cal, I think they failed to come through.

Heck, if you have an Apex, you could do the Tritan and BRS dosers for less then the price of this. Then if something was testing low you could dose automatically or remotely for mag, cal, and alk.

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TORX

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Cost: Under $900USD + $35USD/month cost

Measures: carbonate alkalinity, calcium, pH, salinity, temperature, ammonia, oxygen, and potassium, plus carbon dioxide

Automated ongoing monitoring

No calibration required

Wireless data networking to the cloud

Aggregated and historical results, plus action alerts to aquarists' computers and devices

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lots of good things, but it falls short missing the mag test.

If you watch that video, the next is a nice kh monitor and 7 channel doser that will retail for, iirc, $600usd. It will automatically yes and dose for alk plus have 3 left over channels to dose mag, calcium and 1 channel left over.

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TORX

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So I got this email

"Dear MindStream website subscriber,

We are very excited to announce that our new web store is now open for business and that we are taking orders for the MindStream Monitor – www.MindStreamH2O.com! Thank you for subscribing to our website updates and for your patience as we have overcome numerous technical challenges to bring this highly sophisticated monitoring device to you.
The MindStream Monitor automatically measures 10 water parameters (including Carbonate Alkalinity, Calcium, and Magnesium) every 15 minutes and reports the results to you via our web app that works seamlessly with all web-enabled devices. Simply place the monitor in your tank or sump and receive near-continuous updates on the health of your tank – all for the price of less than 1/8 cent per measurement.
The MindStream Monitor is priced at $995 and requires a subscription plan starting at approximately $35/month. The subscription plan covers real-time access to monitor data, helpful graphs and tools, proactive alerts when parameter values are out of range, and a small monthly replacement sensor disc conveniently shipped to you. After 15 months of beta testing and 6 months of final customer pilot testing, we have been ramping up manufacturing and have units in final testing and calibration now. Initial quantities will be very limited as we scale up operations and we unfortunately need to limit sales to US customers only for now.
Prepare to know what’s in your water so you can relax and enjoy your beautiful tank!"

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TORX

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After 15 months of beta testing? I have photos from 2013 of them beta testing.

It came in at $100 more then the original cost and tests only 10 parameters, none of which other then kh really even matter. It also has no automated control.

Also to note that they had about $6million in angel investors, how long is it going to take to pay them back? Yikes. Especially as a large part of the initial supply went to all the free ones they gave away and a 30% discount for all the original kickstarter customers whose orders were all cancelled and refunded.

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Sue

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Jul 26, 2018
Location
King City, ON
This will be a big failure, they stand no chance !
GHL director, Reefbot and Neptune Trident are way better, cheaper and tested.

Too bad for them, but they are done before they even start !
 

Josh

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Jan 1, 2017
Location
London
Im very happy with my reefbot so far, only downsides are its a bit pricey and you are locked to the accuracy of a test kit, basically if the test kit sucks so will the reefbots tests. There seems to be 1 "good" test for pretty much every major parameter with more being added.
 
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TORX

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Dear Mark,

Thank you for your interest in the MindStream Monitor and for being a part of our community. Your early support for our mission has meant the world to us, and I’m reaching out directly to sincerely apologize for not delivering on the product we promised and to also update you personally on the status of our company. As you may have heard, Step Ahead Innovations recently had to cease operations and lay off our incredible staff due to financial constraints. We are extremely disappointed about letting our customers down and not being able to deliver on our vision for the MindStream Monitor and its ambitious technology. We are sorry for creating frustration and uncertainty, and we hope to provide some transparency around what led to this point and what will happen next.

After seven years of development, including two years of beta testing, and $10 million in investments into our technology, the Monitor, and the industry itself, we launched a revolutionary new approach to water monitoring that we were, and continue to be, incredibly proud of. We were elated by a strong early response and consistent positive feedback, and the orders came flying in. While we had tried to anticipate demand and were ultimately able to ship about a quarter of our initial orders, we were unable to scale our manufacturing processes and systems quickly enough to keep up with the pace of new orders, and we began to fall behind. We had a strong desire to meet our promises, so we proactively provided customer discounts for orders that were behind schedule and we quickly processed order cancellations when requested.

But we became concerned with lead times as the backlog grew, and after hearing similar concerns from our customers, we decided to close the web store to focus all our time and resources into catching up. Once we realized just how long it would take to deliver the product to customers in our existing backlog, we felt it was the right thing to do to stop taking additional customer money and ensure we took care of those who had already paid us. At that point, we fully intended to re-open the store as soon as we could catch up. Unfortunately, stopping orders led to a cash crunch that meant we couldn’t cover our operating expenses, and despite extensive efforts to secure additional capital from our investors to bridge the gap, we were unable to close the funding round. After exploring every available option to keep things moving forward, we had to make the extremely difficult decision to close our doors at Step Ahead Innovations. While it became unavoidable, we do understand how frustrating it is that our customers were left with a product they can’t use, or no product at all, and no one to contact in customer support for an explanation. For that, we apologize wholeheartedly.

We are all incredibly disappointed in this outcome and are now working hard to see that our groundbreaking technology reaches the market by other means. The science is sound, our approach is proven, we heard incredible feedback from many real customers, and the capabilities of the technology are limitless. Currently, we are actively seeking buyers for the product, technology, and considerable assets, including an extensive patent portfolio that includes 11 US patents, 8 foreign patents, and wide-ranging trade secrets and knowledge associated with real-time water quality monitoring, science, and technology.

Our ultimate desire is to bring this paradigm-shifting capability to reef keepers worldwide. While we had hoped to do it as Step Ahead Innovations, we are now diligently working to enable a new firm to realize the potential for this innovative technology to revolutionize water quality analytics in a wide variety of industries (including beyond saltwater aquariums), so that we can make things right financially with our customers, satisfy our obligations to our creditors and investors, and ultimately give the science behind the MindStream Monitor another chance to truly change how aquarists understand and manage reef chemistry.

There is no question that we were severely challenged by our ambitious goals, but at our core we are passionate scientists, aquarists, and lovers of this hobby, and I want to assure you that we tried at every turn to act in good faith with our customers and the reef keeping industry at large. We hope that in the coming months there will be good news to share for those who still believe in the power of the MindStream approach, but in the meantime, I want to thank you again for your support and understanding.

Sincerely,
Brian Degen
CEO, Step Ahead Innovations, Inc.
Copyright 2019 Step Ahead Innovations, All rights reserved.
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TORX

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The email from Mindstream and paper released by ReefBuilders are both full of false information in an attempt to paint the company as the victim.

For starters, they had working units and beta testing back in 2013.

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