EcoTech Marine Introduces the Radion XR30w LED Light

[Breakbeats2334]

Originally Posted by newyorksteelo

I believe Ecotech has no other choice but to upgrade their fixtures and do it quickly if they want to be in the lead and be the best. The competition is getting fierce out there and prices are dropping fast too (in example AI's). I also believe that if in the near future, Ecotech would bring down the price to $500 bucks a pop, they would rule the industry hands down no questions asked, and the added expense of the hanging kit and mounting options wont hurt as much. Just my opinion as a consumer

+1 with this statement i dont think its a total scam for a company to give you the option to upgrade and theres 0 punishment for doing so. All ecotech did was add another option for people with big tanks with alot of Height . Im looking to upgrade in the very near future and currently with radions id need to get alot more to = the light intensity and spread id want for a 30 inch tank in other words adding 1 more light... Id like to believe these clusters will = a cheaper cost for multiple radions vs buying another radion to compensate for light intensity.

[ScottB]

Yeah David. I'm gone too. C'ya.

[Sisterlimonpot]

Originally Posted by david00061

Its about time to unsubscribe from thread.

Originally Posted by ScottB

Yeah David. I'm gone too. C'ya.

what would you prefer to talk about? Radions? oh wait, I believe that's what they are talking about.

I agree, the ever evolving ideas manifest themselves in many different ways. the very fact that these are upgradeable makes for a great foundation.

[ScottB]

Originally Posted by Sisterlimonpot

what would you prefer to talk about? Radions? oh wait, I believe that's what they are talking about.

I agree, the ever evolving ideas manifest themselves in many different ways. the very fact that these are upgradeable makes for a great foundation.

Perhaps my motivations for leaving are different from David. This was an announcement thread, but the announcement has long passed. It has devolved, in my opinion to two topics: "how many" and "how great". I have just grown weary of sorting through the same old same old, without any real new information. If I were king, I would lock this thread, forcing a decomposition of topics to generate more specific input. Instead, this has just become inbox noise.

Nothing against anyone who has posted, or against anyone's opinion. It is just that the value of this thread to me has diminished.

Nothing personal. No slight intended.

[david00061]

A full page of people arguing about ecotech making their product better. Thread has went way off topic.

[Sisterlimonpot]

Scott,
good point. for me its great because I don't frequent the site as much anymore and I only check the threads I'm subscribed to. although this thread has evolved way off topic, if it wasn't for this thread I wouldn't know they came out with all these add ons.

[rcharliesam]

Regarding defending ecotech. It is not so much defending a company as it is being grateful that a $750 fixture is not being rendered obsolete by tech advancements.

[BigKahuna]

Originally Posted by david00061

All anyone wants to do is try and show how smart they are. Thread has went way off topic. Time to find something useful to do.

That's just silly, anyone with any real intelligence would never get involved in this money pit of a hobby to begin with.

That said the lights have been out for over half a year and while it's your and any other RC poster's right to discontinue keeping track of this thread we have the biggest updates since the launch with the new Lens and online management software to look forward to hearing firsthand accounts and reviews so it might be premature to discount the usefulness of this thread when we have new stuff coming out.

[ghostman]

I appreciate hearing differing viewpoints about the topic and think there is value in them being in this thread. It is very much a fanboy approach to "take their ball and go home" whenever negative comments are made about their favorite product. I see this in threads about Apple products on a daily basis. While I had a negative experience with my radions when I owned them, I do appreciate Ecotech making changes to improve the product and stay at the top of the LED market. Now if they could only fix that software...

I compare this upgrade to when the ES series came out for the MP40s. I didn't hear much complaining about upgrading driver boxes, only praise for the new modes that were available. I still own several Gen2 boxes, and am quite pleased with them.

[drparker]

Not a hater or a fan boy. But lets stop and look at the tech of how they really work before getting all upset about how we can and can't use them.

The vortech pumps have a controller and that controller has several preset profiles loaded into it that you can wirelessly tell them to run. IE: Reef Crest, Tidal Swell, etc.

The Radions only have two profiles, Natural and artificial, these are not preset but can be built and customized by an external computer and then loaded into them via USB.

To get full control to the Radions without a PC would require and external "Controller" that would have enough power to run the configuration routine and upload routine.

That "controller" might be in the works and I hope it is. Offering the ability to get pass through via the tethered PC is nice step, some may find find value other won't.

whether fan boy or hater it make sense to get your panties in a bunch over a "use case" that is not possible.

[drparker]

I meant it makes NO sense

[BigKahuna]

Originally Posted by drparker

To get full control to the Radions without a PC would require and external "Controller" that would have enough power to run the configuration routine and upload routine.

That "controller" might be in the works and I hope it is. Offering the ability to get pass through via the tethered PC is nice step, some may find find value other won't.

whether fan boy or hater it make sense to get your panties in a bunch over a "use case" that is not possible.

Fair enough but the problem isn't only the need to have a controller or some other CPU equipped device to build and upload the program, the prorietary wireless they are using on all their devices don't look to be able to interface with other standards based wireless like wifi for BT so it looks like we are stuck using USB unless they come with the "controller" as you say. The thing that's a little irritating is I have an Apex with a WXM module which contains Ecotech's proprietary RF chip which Neptune apparently gets directly from them which in theory has all the hardware necessary to do what is needed to do the whole wireless control dance.

Don't get me wrong l love the lights and pumps Ecotech makes, even the software is nice and full of features, but for me leaving a USB cable plugged in all the time to control the lights, which have wireless communication built in, is an annoyance when I don't have a computer near the tank and have to whip out a 25ft extension cable. It may seem like a minor quibble but wireless control is obviously something people want and Ecotech is aware of just from the fact that they demoed their new web based software on iPads etc. Hopefully you are right and some kind of standalone controller is in the works but that's obviously gonna be more money added onto an already expensive fixture.

[Crit21]

For EcoTech Marine:

This is by no means a criticism of your new Radion. I've done a lot of reading of published, peer-reviewed papers and articles online by multiple researchers/authors, and I'm wondering why, other than aesthetics, you decided to add the green and red LEDs to the Radion. The green spectrum contributes very little to photosynthesis. Red light supplementation, even in modest amounts, has been shown to have a negatve effect on coral growth due to its contribution to photoinhibition. I'm not saying it'll kill the corals, but it's reportedly not a great thing either.

Have you done a side-by-side comparison of the Radion with and without the red LEDs? If so, can you share the results?

Thanks

[ikrali]

Hllow ,
who can tell for sure from his experience, that radion xr30w is growing good corals ?
and if he can show it with pic' ....
thanx,

[david00061]

Why does everyone think the need a live controller for these lights. All you do is set them up and the lights follow your settings. Your not going to change your settings daily or weekly.

[david00061]

Originally Posted by ikrali

Hllow ,
who can tell for sure from his experience, that radion xr30w is growing good corals ?
and if he can show it with pic' ....
thanx,

I have posted a few pics in this thread wit my growth/color progress in this thread. Also posted it in my build.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2062544

[Canadaguy]

Originally Posted by david00061

Why does everyone think the need a live controller for these lights. All you do is set them up and the lights follow your settings. Your not going to change your settings daily or weekly.

I agree 100%. I have plugged my laptop into them only a couple times in 6 months due to the updates.

[Stolireef]

Originally Posted by canadaguy

i agree 100%. I have plugged my laptop into them only a couple times in 6 months due to the updates.

+1

[BigKahuna]

Originally Posted by Canadaguy

I agree 100%. I have plugged my laptop into them only a couple times in 6 months due to the updates.

Maybe you've only plugged them in a couple times because you had to plug them in Also why is Ecotech pushing the whole internet access thing if they don't see a customer desire for just such a thing? For me I was boosting my lights a small percentage every week to acclimate the livestock but that became a PITA and was constantly worried I'd drop the rubber stoppers into the tank so I just stopped doing it weekly. As to reasons why you'd like that kind of control... maybe I want to walk by the tank at night and only put on the reds to give a peek or need to do some work on the tank and want the lights on brighter so I can see what I'm doing w/o fiddling with the touch controls wondering wether or not I've changed the settings etc. Maybe I walk by the tank and see a particular coral looks particularly nice and just want to know what the light settings are at that time. Maybe I'm adding a new fish or two and want to dim the lights. None of these things are essential mind you but neither is this hobby.

I agree for the most part it isn't crucial to have wireless real time control but when everything else on my tank is controllable wirelessly and I can also get the status of the equipment, including the running profiles of my Vortech pumps ironically enough, it's a bit irksome one of the more expensive and advanced pieces of equipment isn't even capable of simply giving me feedback about what it's doing. When I had other lights, sets of Reefbrites, running on my Apex I could turn them individually on and off from my phone. I can't even do something as rudimentary as that now remotely without a separate computer connected via USB cable.

I just want to say I love te actual lights themselves but I just find some of the ancillary decisions about their functionality and control a bit odd and limiting. Like I said above I can look at my phone an see my Vortech pump is running in ReefCrest mode and even invoke a feed cycle but I have no such info from my Lights or ability to change anything w/o the computer via USB. Once you get spoiled with a controller and remote monitoring/control it's very difficult to go back.

The above is my opinion but others may feel different or exactly opposite so don't take this as an attack on Ecotech or the lights, I like them both quite a bit, I just want to see them get te mst out of them. That said other light companies already have iPhone apps coming out that have complete status and control and this could have been an area Ecotech led.

[Canadaguy]

When acclimating I remember I did plug laptop in once and also moved them lower using the hanging hit. As seen in my avatar pic they were hung higher than they are right now presently.

[Canadaguy]

Originally Posted by BigKahuna

Maybe you've only plugged them in a couple times because you had to plug them in Also why is Ecotech pushing the whole internet access thing if they don't see a customer desire for just such a thing? For me I was boosting my lights a small percentage every week to acclimate the livestock but that became a PITA and was constantly worried I'd drop the rubber stoppers into the tank so I just stopped doing it weekly. As to reasons why you'd like that kind of control... maybe I want to walk by the tank at night and only put on the reds to give a peek or need to do some work on the tank and want the lights on brighter so I can see what I'm doing w/o fiddling with the touch controls wondering wether or not I've changed the settings etc. Maybe I walk by the tank and see a particular coral looks particularly nice and just want to know what the light settings are at that time. Maybe I'm adding a new fish or two and want to dim the lights. None of these things are essential mind you but neither is this hobby.

I agree for the most part it isn't crucial to have wireless real time control but when everything else on my tank is controllable wirelessly and I can also get the status of the equipment, including the running profiles of my Vortech pumps ironically enough, it's a bit irksome one of the more expensive and advanced pieces of equipment isn't even capable of simply giving me feedback about what it's doing. When I had other lights, sets of Reefbrites, running on my Apex I could turn them individually on and off from my phone. I can't even do something as rudimentary as that now remotely without a separate computer connected via USB cable.

I just want to say I love te actual lights themselves but I just find some of the ancillary decisions about their functionality and control a bit odd and limiting. Like I said above I can look at my phone an see my Vortech pump is running in ReefCrest mode and even invoke a feed cycle but I have no such info from my Lights or ability to change anything w/o the computer via USB. Once you get spoiled with a controller and remote monitoring/control it's very difficult to go back.

The above is my opinion but others may feel different or exactly opposite so don't take this as an attack on Ecotech or the lights, I like them both quite a bit, I just want to see them get te mst out of them. That said other light companies already have iPhone apps coming out that have complete status and control and this could have been an area Ecotech led.

The phone feature would be nice to have even if a person doesn't use it that much and I do also agree with you on the lack of functionality and control features but still an awesome light!

[Crit21]

EcoTech, do you have coral growth comparisons for your XR30w with and without the red and green LEDs turned on?

[AcroporAddict]

Below is a progress report on that Metal Halide vs LED experiment Vivid Aquariums is doing in their huge display reef. Half the 800 gallon tank is lit by Radium Halides, and the other half is lit by Radion LEDs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=IpJM-EIrPI0

[BigKahuna]

Originally Posted by Canadaguy

The phone feature would be nice to have even if a person doesn't use it that much and I do also agree with you on the lack of functionality and control features but still an awesome light!

Yeah I'm not saying anything bad about the lights just that its a shame they have all the pieces there to make a complete package but with a few issues holding them back. A RF equipped multichannel LED fixture programmable from the desktop, soon to be the web, seems a bit odd to be limited to A) wired USB and B) host PC connection to said cable. If as mentioned previously the PC is needed to do the heavy lifting WRT the compiling of the programing into a usable form for the fixture then that could be done server-side using the web interface necessitating only a small box containing the ecotech RF chip to relay it to the lights wirelessly, essentially a headless Radion - no lights or driver needed. I know I'm on the geeky end of the spectrum when it comes to reefing but I can't be the only one on here that wants my cake and eat it too

[Hysa]

In this video he is using a Belkin Home Base wireless USB device, to acces vía wifi those Radions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oogoR539aAE