The Future of pool care?? (www.phin.co)

[onaiR]

What do you guys think of this?
https://www.phin.co/

Would be pretty nice just to have the sensor to monitor our pool. And probably just use our own chemicals too balance water...

 

[mknauss]

Put phin in the search box, upper right of the webpage.

Does not have much chance of success. The integral part they use is an ORP sensor for chlorine. They are finicky, will not work with CYA above 30 or so, and fail often.

Take care.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

TFP generally looks down upon these types of items with a very skeptical eye because they are often marketed as "revolutions in pool care and ALL you'll ever need!" That's totally bogus - pool care requires attention and these units only serve to act as a barrier to people understanding their pools. A good, high quality test kit will get you accurate results every time. These units have sensors in them that will fail in non-obvious ways and they add a layer of abstraction between the pool owner and his pool. Sutro, pHin, Water Guru, whatever they call themselves are only as good as the sensors and testing equipment they use. Also, all of these units are designed under the sales philosophy of the shaving industry - give away the razor handle BUT charge an arm & leg for the razor blade! These units all come with magical promises of customer support and warranty BUT ONLY if you sign up for their chemical supply plan. Look at the fine details and you'll see that you can certainly buy these sensors as stand-alone units BUT they will all have a 1 year or less warranty and no support when they break. Is that ~$500 to you? I don't spend that much on my pool in two seasons and so I'd much rather keep my $500 and buy a robotic cleaner or all the test kit refills I'll ever need.

Bottom line - waste of money and just another toy to break....

 

[Donldson]

Has a thermometer, pH sensor, and ORP sensor. The ORP sensor is not reliable in the presence of CYA so you can essentially write that one off. So how are they expecting you to measure CYA, CH, TA, and CC? Test strips. Unreliable and vague test strips. Meanwhile you can get a Clorox kit for $20 that uses your phone camera to read test strips and offer chemical advice. It is still a terrible idea but the point is it does the same thing for a fraction of the price.

Unless the future of pool care is paying way more for much less reliable testing then I guess pHin is just another way to fleece money from those who don't know any better. Seems to be the game plan of most of this industry unfortunately.


And yes, it would be great. I would LOVE a device that reliably and accurately measured all or most of the variables we need to know. But neither pHin nor Sutro is reliable, accurate, or measures even half the variables needed to properly care for a pool.

 

[zea3]

Even if you just subscribe to their monitoring service, that $299 a year! That's a lot of money for something that may or may not be accurate to tell you you need to take care of your pool. You can buy a test kit that will last 2 years and a season's worth of bleach for that kind of money!