My Seneye Review

gforce17 said:

In Derby at the moment visiting daughter who's just had twins, so probably not far away.

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Congratulations!

For what it's worth. I own a seneye home 3.5 month now.
In my experience the seneye takes a little getting used to.

- For one thing it takes the "connect" software quite some time to start processing readings. (This is the software that is locally on your PC and does the connection thingy between your seneye device and the server on the internet). I found that restarting the software didn't work as good as simply waiting for it to start working. This may even be 15 minutes or so easily enough to get yourself a cup of coffee. I did also find that one USB port of my laptop doesn't get it to work, while another does. I think this may be caused by usb standard of the different ports. In my experience: usb2 seems to work, usb3 which has more speed, and can supply higher current, doesn't! I didn't bring this up at seneye so maybe I'm wrong there.

- You may connect the reading device to a standard USB power supply. This way it's not necessary to keep your PC connected (and switched on!) all the time. The readings are then bufferd in the device and the next time you connect it to your PC and start seneye connect software, it starts uploading. It takes quite some time to start uploading (way more than I would thing reasonable, being a software developer myself) When it's uploading, there are no readings displayed in the connect software, I don't know if it does the reading anyway. Uploading is allways maximum of 95 readings, however long since you last connected the device to your PC. That may well be a maximum in buffer capacity. So once every two days you need to do the uploading thing. While connected to the usb power supply (i use a surplus mobile USB loader) you will still get red lights on the device if anything is wrong.

- The "connect" software is regularly updated. At the time of this writing the current version is 1.26. You can see your version in the upper right corner of the software window, just below the seneye logo. Each new version seems to work a little better than the previous. The first the helpdesk seems to reply in case of problems is: here's the link to the newest version and miraculasly that often does seem to do the trick. So, here's the link to the software download site which allways has the newest version. However it is a pity you have to install the software before you know what version is the current... In your me.seneye page, which contains your readings historicaly you will sometimes see a message telling you that a new version is available.

- As for the readings: In my case, after a week or so, the ammonia reading allways drops to 0.001. Only after changing my slide it starts reading something more credible, usualy between 0.005 and 0.008. Whe're in the very small numbers here, this would be a difficult reading to get right. I'm still hoping against better judgement, that this is a phase it's going through... Ph reading seems accurate, compared to the good old chemicals test. Temp reading saved me once allready, after cleaning my filter I forgot to plug the heating and sure enough I had an alert an hour later. (which I first blamed on a malfunction of seneye! Yep we're all sceptic about it!)

- Connecting the device through WIFI: I tried tree different WIFI/USB servers. All the same, they don't recognise the seneye device. Same goes for a non wireless USB (printer) server. The Belkin device in the seneye store seems to be out of production. I think by the way, it is very expensive for this purpose: the only thing you'll gain is not having to unplug from the usb power supply and connecting to your PC every two days. In the belkin setup you can access the device wireless from anywhere within the network. I'm hoping for the prommised 'better sollution' from seneye in the near future.

- the extra measurements (Nitrite, Nitrate, KH, general hardness and Chlorine as mentioned by KISSfn, this seems to be prommised repeatedly. Let's give seneye bennefit of the doubt and hope for updates in the near future.

I'm still happy I decided to buy it and try it. If nothing else it has tought me a lot about water properties. I had some problems but I'm it seems to work better if you get to know it and if you regularly upgrade your connect software. It does helpe me to keep my tank healthy.

Seneye is shooting for a December timeframe for the added parameter capabilities.

Thanks for all that. I think it's excellent!

cornclose said:

However, there's a chunk of data - 14 hours worth - missing from my account between the time it went offline (about 18:00 on 21st July) to about 08:30 on 22nd July.

The graphs have just drawn a straight line in between those two times. Not a huge issue as everything was stable - but slightly worrying if I might have had problems.

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Just thought I'd update this as I haven't been here for a bit - they reset something on my account and the missing data was recovered.

I'm still having issues with big pH jumps when a new slide is put in though, basically every new slide I've put in since my very first one has resulted in a jump like the one in this. Not only that, but it takes about half the slide's life before the seneye starts to read anything like what I get from other pH test kits. Something's definitely not right. It seems to have seneye support stumped though at the minute. I have about 12 days to go before my next slide goes in, so will keep seneye support updated and I'll be back to update you all with results of this one.

I soak my new slides in the aquarium for 2 days before changing. I get good results using this method.

I too see some jumps in my PH measurements:

This is last week in which I changed the slide, which was 6 days overdue (first part of the graph) and refreshed water and filter twice. There were some problems in the filter so I'm not sure if this is a problem. I used ph-min (at the very end of the graph) and saw the result quickly.
I'll keep a close eye and will try to lead jumps in the graph directly back to things happening in the tank.

cornclose said:

Thanks Seneye, John, Matt, or whoever... I know you're probably reading these posts on various forums etc as you've just fixed the issues I was having and a few more niggles too.

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Very pleased they've sorted it all out for you. My PH levels had been a little bit higher than other tests when I first changed the slide so soak now for 48 hours and found it better. The new machine/gadget sounds interesting. Fascinated to know how it's going to operate?? I think you might upload a nodding head now you're all sorted?? (JOKE)

gforce17 said:

Very pleased they've sorted it all out for you. My PH levels had been a little bit higher than other tests when I first changed the slide so soak now for 48 hours and found it better. The new machine/gadget sounds interesting. Fascinated to know how it's going to operate?? I think you might upload a nodding head now you're all sorted?? (JOKE)

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But it's not all sorted yet - the above was a small issue I had at some point. This is still the main issue;

cornclose said:

I'm still having issues with big pH jumps when a new slide is put in though, basically every new slide I've put in since my very first one has resulted in a jump like the one in this. Not only that, but it takes about half the slide's life before the seneye starts to read anything like what I get from other pH test kits. Something's definitely not right. It seems to have seneye support stumped though at the minute. I have about 12 days to go before my next slide goes in, so will keep seneye support updated and I'll be back to update you all with results of this one.

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I soaked my current slide for 48 hours rather than 24 to see if it made a difference, but I still got a pH reading that was 0.7 higher than my previous slide when the new one first went in, and as stated, it takes almost two weeks for the new slide to read the same as what the old slide was reading before it was taken out. So something's amiss somewhere, and it isn't my pH.

OK RIGHT - ring them up/email and ask them to refund your money on the Seneye - I'm sure they will. You will be much happier reading your chemical test results than carrying on with the 'S' which is obviously giving you loads of stress! Cut your losses. Well it's not for me to tell you what to do, but that's what I would do. Best regards, Grahame.

No, it's not giving me any stress, it just isn't working as expected giving results which at times are completely off (wrong). I've actually been very patient with the device and seneye themselves, who have been very helpful, but they also themselves seem to be stumped at this problem - one which it would appear I'm not necessarily alone with.

So rather than just dismiss it and get a refund like many have already done (according to the Internet...) I wish to assist them to find a solution. After all, as I've continued to buy slides and in addition separate test kits to make independant tests with, it's not as if it hasn't/isn't costing me money which the seneye was in part meant to prevent

Out of interest, who's prepared to post up their graphs of what happens when they do a slide change ? Don't think I've seen any here or anywhere else of this event other than my own ? Or do many users subscribe to the 'it must be right' philosophy forsaking all other test ?

cornclose said:

No, it's not giving me any stress, it just isn't working as expected giving results which at times are completely off (wrong). I've actually been very patient with the device and seneye themselves, who have been very helpful, but they also themselves seem to be stumped at this problem - one which it would appear I'm not necessarily alone with.

So rather than just dismiss it and get a refund like many have already done (according to the Internet...) I wish to assist them to find a solution. After all, as I've continued to buy slides and in addition separate test kits to make independant tests with, it's not as if it hasn't/isn't costing me money which the seneye was in part meant to prevent

Out of interest, who's prepared to post up their graphs of what happens when they do a slide change ? Don't think I've seen any here or anywhere else of this event other than my own ? Or do many users subscribe to the 'it must be right' philosophy forsaking all other test ?

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I totally respect your views and look forward to hearing about how it progresses!! I find my PH moves up and down within acceptable parameters all the time - I have CO2 injection and I think that affects it slightly, but it hasn't ever gone into a very dangerous situation so I'm not too concerned. Perhaps I should be.

I will post up my slide graph details later. Mine does a similar jump and then readjusts like yours. It is only my second slide but the first one did the same. Next time I will try and soak for 48 hours I think. I'm dealing with a few problems in the tank at the moment so a few changes happening anyway.

Here's a month of my pH data. Changed slide on the 19th. The lowest data point was on the 16th and was brief enough to not generate a time stamp. All in all pretty stable.

You certainly don't have the massive jump I see when I change a slide. If it isn't the slides that's the problem (bad batch or something perhaps ?) then I would next suspect that there may be something wrong with my seneye device. I'll see what happens when my next slide goes in in about 10 days time (after a 48 hour soak) and go from there. I'll be back.