Dear Grobo,
I’ve been reading that in the past years many users on this forum, your paying customers who stand by and support your product, have asked for sensor data to be available.
I stumbled across this post below which I hadn’t read until tonight:
If the biggest concern with keeping this data hidden is that it’s confusing to new users and growers, wouldn’t it be feasible to simply add it as an Advanced option with a message that lets the grower know something like “Grobo has your back, sensor data is not necessary for a beginner”,? Obviously that’s pretty simplified but I trust you guys would be able to find something more suitable.
I have had my Grobo for two months now, and I am now on my second grow. I needed my pH probe calibrated twice within the past two months; the forums saved me the first time @VermontGrobo (Thank you) but I would have never known. My plant could have died; which means also wasted time, energy, nutrients, and money! My EC meter was also dirty and reading at a high level towards the end of my first grow, but all of this could be easily avoided if I had access to data.
Opening a ticket to support is still a great way to receive help, but I think that once sensor data became available there would be a lot more experience and knowledge to be gained and in turn shared on these forums… Over time, there would be more anecdotal experiences related to the sensor data to sharpen and educate the users on the forum. We might be able to help save someone’s plant faster in some occasions than Grobo support can. It would be possible to help them faster if we have a shared eye into what their sensor data has been reading at. If someone has a problem on a Friday night right after support is done for the week, they will have to wait 2-3 days until they can hear back a response… that time can be crucial to a plant! Obviously we can only do so much, but not every user of the Grobo buys all the extra gadgets ahead of time and it leaves us on the forum pretty much scratching our head and going through a list of possible causes of their plant’s ailment. If they could tell us the pH level, EC reading, humidity graph, temp graph etc from the past few days or a week, we would easily be able to pinpoint a problem area much sooner than you are capable of in some circumstances… This could mean enough time for them to run to the pet store for some pH supplies, or head to Wal-Mart for a dehumidifier, etc.
Obviously, that is just one example of a possible benefit of having the data…Grobo support does a great job of helping to solve problems with sick plants through the ticket system, however,**The main thing is that we all just want to see the data!
I know I sound like a broken record, but I don’t really care about the redundancy at this point, especially when I read that the sensor data is already there, we just can’t see it. I wasn’t aware that it used to be in the app and it was removed… despite the requests from people for over two years now to be able to see it. I imagined it as some back-breaking coding nightmare that you felt wasn’t necessary or important enough to undertake… The coding is there… it’s always been there!
Honestly I wish people would post about this more!
If you agree with me, let them know below…