Automated Testing

[littlebuddy12]

well i can honestly say i like my color q pro better the my taylor test kit..... The tech is coming......

 

[Orion7319]

well i can honestly say i like my color q pro better the my taylor test kit..... The tech is coming......

My color q pro only seems to get PH right with any consistency. When I run all the other tests back to back I get different results each time. The CYA test is the worst as it’s always way way off.

 

[tim5055]

well i can honestly say i like my color q pro better the my taylor test kit..... The tech is coming......

Please do not confuse the specificity of the results the ColorQ gives with accuracy. We have had members attempt to use the ColorQ to follow our methods and almost all have abandoned its use due to inaccuracies and inconsistencies. We even had one member test the same sample of water three times in a row and ended up with three different sets of results.

You already admitted in another post you have a lot to learn about chemicals and the folks here will teach you. Tech won't work with pools until stable affordable sensors are available.

Here is an example of a ColorQ post: ColorQ vs TF100

 

[Jimrahbe]

I have the ColorQ, and use is all the time. That said you have to understand what it is..

I find it very repeatable. If I test a sample multiple times, it will show the same results every time. That does not make the results accurate, just repeatable.

I find that the FC measures about 1 ppm low.. not really a big deal.

I find the pH is much more accurate than my eye balls.

I find that TA is in the ball park.

The CH reading is not Calcium Hardness at all, it is Total Hardness. Depending on where you live, this means the reading can be close or way off just depending on your local water.

The CYA test varies a huge amount from one batch of pills to the next batch of pills.

So, you might ask why I use it at all? I just use it to tell me the difference between my current test and my last test. Just to check if things are stable or changing.

As an analogy.. I use my ColorQ as I would a standard wrench. I'm not looking for a specific torque, I'm just looking to tighten the bolt. I use my TF-Pro like I would a torque wrench... When I need to make sure the results are accurate.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[littlebuddy12]

yeah like i said the tech is coming, and im excited for it, i cant wait till they make a robot that will come out of the pool by itself and go to its charging station..

 

[Katodude]

yeah like i said the tech is coming, and im excited for it, i cant wait till they make a robot that will come out of the pool by itself and go to its charging station..

Dont hold your breathe. This is pool technology, thing about it in terms of dog years. It takes 7 times longer for innovation to happen. Its a niche market with a small amount of players. There is very little incentive to innovate.

Think about it, what major innovation have you seen in pool technology in the last 10 year? Robots are pretty much the same, testing technology has not changed much. Automation is moving at a snails pace.

 

[AUSpool]

Looking back, it’s a no for me. In terms of testing I haven’t seen anything new for almost three decades, they just keep rebranding old tech with new advertising and false promises. Simple, reliable and repeatable is the best we have in drop testing. Cheap photo meters have their use but are no match for the expensive lab versions used by trained professionals and offer false hope with overdoing the readout decimal places. Cheap probe based meters can be useful but the user really needs to know and understand how to use and care for them.

 

[crackers8199]

i'll throw in my $0.02, since this has devolved into an anti-automated testing post and not really just about sutro (and i've seen people mention earlier in the thread that people have had issues with their waterguru sense).

i've had a sense for almost a year now...and while it's not perfect, it has been good enough that i've kept it so far. i'm on my third unit right now - the first one was absolutely perfect with both measurements, nearly every time. it died, somehow, we don't know how. they sent me a second unit, which is where the issues started

second and third one have had issues that i'm still working with them on (more on that later). my main problem right now is that the pH measurement is often off by quite a bit...but it's also always in the same direction (high) and high enough that i know when i need to go out and use the drops to test manually. i can watch the pH track up daily and once the sense starts reporting it at 8.0, i start testing every day or every other day with the drops. if the sense is telling me it's in the 7s, i know i'm in the 7s since the sense always measures a bit high. their support team has been very responsive to me (which seems the opposite of what others here have experienced) and have been working with me constantly to figure out why the device always measures my pH higher than what the drops say.

i have had the exact opposite experience of most other people with regards to the FC measurement on the sense...mine is almost always spot on or within 0.5. my issue has been with the pH reading. but again, it's saving me from having to test manually every single day...so that's 5-10 minutes every day i can spend doing something else. my time is worth enough for me to consider that to be worth it. even more so if we ever figure out what's going on with their pH measurements. i still do my full slate of water tests once a week, and as i've said test the pH manually once the sense tells me it's high...but i trust the FC measurement enough at this point that i only really check it every saturday when i do my full run of tests.

given that my first unit was spot on, every time, i'm hopeful that their tech is close to being ready for primetime (although clearly they still have some work to do based on my second and third devices)...but as long as their support team keeps being as responsive as they are, i'm happy to keep trying to help them get there.

following up on this, since i got a notification that someone liked it: i stopped using the sense shortly after this post. their support (which i raved about here) went downhill fast, i guess as they sold more devices and decided they didn't really need me to report bugs any longer. it never did work well enough for me to use it on a regular basis, it's too easy to just use the dropper test for pH and chlorine when needed vs spending hundreds of dollars on this device plus a new cartridge every month.