Dear Grobo.. Sensor Data Please!

Grobo Support
#34

Thanks for the response @bjorn!
With the current model, users have indirect visibility into the Grobo sensor data only through contacting support. This results in users contacting support which translates to additional costs for the company. As the company continues to grow, so does it’s user-base, as well as the need for product support. By providing only a couple of options for support (AG and Phone Support) users will be left with no other option than to contact the company to obtain sensor and grow information. As of now, this is provided at no additional cost to the consumer.

Support then becomes a major cost center and hinders growth. There’s an opportunity here to monetize the sensor data AND decrease support costs. By providing the sensor data and other useful grow information you can enable the growers to be successful, while minimizing support contact and costs. With a premium monthly subscription you can transform support from a cost center to a monthly re-occurring revenue stream.

As I am a relatively newcomer to Grobo, I purchased 2 units in the early summer of 2020, the support is provided to me at no charge. Does this continue thru perpetuity for the life of the unit? I would be comfortable paying a monthly subscription fee of $5-10 for this.

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#35

Hi @miami5th,

Thanks for the feedback and great question. Yes, support will continue to be provided at no charge. We want you to have success with your grows and are here for you!

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#36

thanks @bjorn for the reply. its so cool to talk to ceo and developers directly via a forum, get fast replys and good discussions.
i agree exactly with what you said: “not the answer you was hoping for”.
as i am head of software development, engineer and gadget-nerd im normally used to be a mature user and customer and can handle things like small fixes or, if not, write meaningful support tickets to get faster help.
without that data i have to completely rely on your technology and your help to make a good grow - again, just not what i expected in purchasing a $2k3 growbox, but maybe my fault, i interpreted something in @Stephen’s promo-videos and the posts in this forum that was not correct.
so now its your turn to grow the biggest buds in austria, please make a good job! i am hands-off.

nevertheless, i make a pruchase decision for grobo after long research, and i won’t revise this decision. i am convinced the grobo is the best product in the market and a great wholistic concept with great support.

but as i know all softwaredevelopers on the world are on the same side i hope @bruno calls you everyday to rethink this decision and give him the chance to make a sensor-value-dashboard for us and maybe even a webservice that delivers all current sensor readings as json-string.
with that webservice developing a smart room control system that produce the perfect climatic conditions for the room my grobo is located would be a challenging project for long austrian winters.
(but for next winter, i will make my first three grows as it is and decide after that if my grobo needs a raspi-controlled perfectclimate-extensionbox)

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#37

Thank you Bjorn for your thoughtful responses,

I look forward to the coming updates very much!

Well that is why I bought one. I saw Stephen on video on cha-ching, sale!
But it’s not as easy as it looks. You can’t just drop your seed in the pod, close the door and follow notifications and Stephen’s video’s. The lists of all the extra things you need to get and need to learn seem unending.

Easy is the name of the game. Easy is the keyword. It’s the creamy center of the candy.

I think having the access to the basic data that we get from support would make it easier for us to troubleshoot things on our own. I love the updates you have planned as you explained them, but have you also considered any of the following?

  1. Making feedback available on demand in the app; yes ph is good, your blah blah blah is A-OK, etc., or

  2. Creating a troubleshooting section in the app for things that commonly go wrong, this seems really close to 1. but there are so many ways you can go with it.

I think you created an amazing product with amazing service and I thank you again for your very thoughtful responses- the service and support behind your product already shows how much you care about each and every one of us and all of our grows. We really all want the same thing. A fun and easy path to Oz. :rofl:

Thank you for always listening.
Angie

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#38

Plain and simple, I agree with all of the suggestions. Maybe make it like a choice when starting a grow novice has it the hidden way, moderate has a bit more access, and advanced, can pretty much run the show if needed.

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#39

I especially don’t like this part when it comes to extending the shift schedule for our plants. It should send notifications based on our shift schedule seamlessly. I find myself going back to look at the previous weekly notifications to make sure which “week” I was on base on the growth of the plant. That’s not a lot of work off of especially if you’re a beginner grower like myself.

As we all know, each of the strains we grow are different especially if we add LST, advanced training and the temperature of our environment. When I first saw the YouTube videos and what not, just like @Angiebaby I thought it was “set it and forget it” besides the water change but it’s quite more than that. Despite all that, it’s still a good machine even though I have to spend extra money (fans, hygrometer, etc) to better my grow which which I guess that’s a personal choice for bigger yields.

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#40

As an engineer I understand the value of data, it helps you make informed decisions when it comes to your grow. I also understood the value for a company to protect this data (especially if automation is part of a business statement and the targetted users are beginner growers) so I decided to gather my own data instead.

My suggestion for growers who are really curious about their data, is to get a PH and EC monitor and you can gather the data yourself.

Also if the grobo probes are uncalibrated, it would be pointless to get that data from grobo support since the data is not accurate so I found it much easier to just gather my own data.

You can find plenty of aquarium branded ph and ec monitors out there for the fraction of hydroponic branded hardware, I got both my used ec and ph controllers / monitors for $100 and they work great. I do not see this as a big deal since many of us are already adding our own water chiller (this makes me think there is actually room and opportunities in the market for upgraded extreme baller grow boxes with a built in peltier cooler like how a gaming rig is built and adding a heat exchange with a fan would also lower environmental temps with not too much extra cost for parts at least)

I am sure there are other means to gathering data like a wire sniffer and network monitors and scrapping all of the outgoing data from your access point but that may require some hacking.

After using the grobo and analyzing its data on a daily basis. I found that as long as the PH and EC probes are properly calibrated and clean and the grobo is being used as intended, the technology can be trusted. I’ve watched the PH balancer bring my PH from 5.5 back to 5.9 after introducing enzymes for the first time. It won’t give you the best of the best quality buds but for first time home growers it would probably be the best they have tried.

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#41

thanks fot that post @Vicc, exactly what i will do now.
with a raspi and some sensors the whole dashboard and notifications should be done for about $200 and based on that setup environmental control of the surrounding room should also be possible for another $200.
its even the more powerful solution because its possible to compare the grobo-values from a wireshark output with the the second probes to check if something is going wrong on one of the two sides.

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#42

@Vicc I agree!! I got a blue lab Guardian snaked through the back. Got my ec and ph reading whenever I walk to the Grobo. Even if Grobo gave u data … there isn’t much u can do since they won’t allow u to dose your own nutrients. I honeslty can not see what data they would give besides ph, ec. I’m not even sure if they installed a temperature gauge for the top and the water Rez…I just finished my grow and the two things i use from the Grobo system is drain/fill and the fans installed LOL. The recipes I would recommend to everyone - use a generic. All specific recipes are either too short or too long and would need user input either way. Grobo data worthless … gotta gather your own at this point if u really want to control the Grobo.

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#43

I put my nutrients in my fill bucket

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#44

I dose my own nutes (as well) regularly on top of grobo auto dosing, which makes data much more important and the sole reason why I got my own probes. I can add my own vitamin supplements, pk, microbes, co2, additional light without too much risk of red-lining her. Also getting my probes and analyzing my data lead me to trust the grobo’s technology.

But with this data, I can see beginner growers destroying their grow if they do not know what they are doing and just blindly following a feed chart they found online so data exposure can be risky depending who the audience is.

Growing takes a lot of practice, patience, experience and being attentive to your plants behavior, the automation the grobo offer does make it much easier for your average person to get stated with growing, like myself. I feel that many of us start feeling confident with growing inside the grobo due to its simplicity that we tend to want more in order to take our grow to the next level (or correct any deficiencies they are experiencing which can be observed visually by looking at your plant), I do not think the grobo was intended to scale based on the user’s skill or desire. Its like a catch 22.

What many users (not just grobo users but take Tesla users for example, their automation stages are categories A1-A5, A1 is considered entry level automation and A5 is fully automated. I believe they are currently at the A2 stage) misunderstand about the grobo and the word “automation” is that there are many different levels to automation. I know because I am an software QA Automation Engineer, I write automated bots to test software and video games for work. The word automation does not mean the unit is fully automated, it means that certain functions of the unit has automated features such as dosing, grow schedule based on recipe, lighting (spectrum wave lengths, intensity and schedule), ph balancing, and considering its a DWC, feeding is also considered automated.

This does not mean the entire grobo grow experience is automated, there are many factors to growing that still requires human intervention (even with automated commercial grow operations, they require human interventions on a daily basis and have to operate 365 days a year), like keeping the environment temps, RH (can be automated with home thermostat), reservoir solution temps (can be automated with additional water chiller), microbe health, training, and plant clean up duties, coco pod moisture monitoring, co2 monitoring to ensure co2 ppm are consistently 400ppm and above.

I do feel that the grobo team did appropriately label their product since it was not indicated that this is a fully automated grow box.

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#45

I am also confused why this late in the development cycle of the Grobo software and hardware, that we still cannot get access to our data. It may be confusing for new growers, but @bjorn there has been a steady request from users such as myself for access to the data.

I understand protecting your proprietary systems, it is after all one of the reasons why your company is the last one standing. Seedo - bankrupt, Cloudponics - Development stopped to focus on other projects, just to name a few.

I don’t see a reason why the API for our specific data cannot be added to the app.

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#46

How about if you have grown 3 plants from start to finish you have the options of :unlock: the info?

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#47

@jamestournas,

…

  • (Yes They Can, But We [CanNot]): (NoDataForUsGroboers): :no_entry:

…

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#48

So no data coming right? Anyone want to buy a grobo???

#49

So if we have a possible issue on the weekend, and don’t have access to a pH or EC meter we have to wait until Monday to have someone from Grobo look into the sensor data? Sorry @bjorn but that is the exact stance that #1 kills plants, #2 causes customers to seek alternative ways to grow. I know that we all are starting to sound like broken records, but having access to this data is crucial for a successful grow, and as I stated earlier having no one to review tickets on the weekends just makes this argument invalid.

Someone mentioned that one of the reasons was because the API was proprietary. I can see why you would want to protect that, but you use Blue Labs sensors, and that is not proprietary. If I was motivated enough to dig through the root I would work on a way to bypass the API and possibly set up a Raspberry Pi to have access.

I really think it is absurd that this data still isn’t available. If your help desk was staffed 24/7 then maybe I could see the justification for this. I would think that there would be an automated alert system in place to alert your staff when a customers Grobo pumps an entire bottle of pH up or down so they can alert the customer that they may need to run a health check on their pH probe.

Currently the system does not make growing easy.

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#50

I’m on the other side of the fence!
Without both views represented there is no conversation, so dont shoot the messenger!
Hope its not a problem with those who need data to grow in a grobo!
Ive been growing in the grobo since 2019 with no data!
I have also been helping other growers as a Champion for a year!
I have never needed data to grow successfully!
I keep hearing people say that’s the only way to grow in the grobo successfully! And some have went as far as saying All or Everybody in full caps!
I see more people over do, miss diagnose, stress out, & kill their own grows by not being honest!

This is not a debate just my account of experience!

I could only imagine what would happen to grows with more data, as I see this very thing happen when allgrowers get a new bunch of people who start reading everybodies comments about how to grow and what to use, people won’t even grow one time without adding several things from everyone’s post, trying to have the best grow before even understanding how to grow or use the grobo!

I think its perfectly ok with a company who wants to keep there codes to themselves, because it doesn’t stop the grobo from working and they haven’t abandoned anyone!

To be honest I dont want to have to worry about all that stuff which is why I stopped using my hygrometer, ph pen,etc… a long time ago, it wasn’t until I tried my hand at tent growing that I appreciated the simplicity of the grobo!

I also look forward to the updates that @bjorn mentioned & all the hard work @Stephen puts in with his videos but I’m still for simplicity even though I’m sure all the techs are gritting their teeth at me! Lol!

I like what @Vicc said: because I too agree that patience, practice, & experience can grow anything!

(Vicc)
"But with this data, I can see beginner growers destroying their grow if they do not know what they are doing and just blindly following a feed chart they found online so data exposure can be risky depending who the audience is.

Growing takes a lot of practice, patience, experience and being attentive to your plants behavior, the automation the grobo offer does make it much easier for your average person to get stated with growing, like myself. I feel that many of us start feeling confident with growing inside the grobo due to its simplicity that we tend to want more in order to take our grow to the next level (or correct any deficiencies they are experiencing which can be observed visually by looking at your plant), I do not think the grobo was intended to scale based on the user’s skill or desire. Its like a catch 22.

This does not mean the entire grobo grow experience is automated, there are many factors to growing that still requires human intervention (even with automated commercial grow operations, they require human interventions on a daily basis and have to operate 365 days a year), like keeping the environment temps, RH (can be automated with home thermostat), reservoir solution temps (can be automated with additional water chiller), microbe health, training, and plant clean up duties, coco pod moisture monitoring, co2 monitoring to ensure co2 ppm are consistently 400ppm and above."

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#51

Im with barbara on her points.
My only add is
I would like to know what data points are being collected and why.
Whether i see them or not they should be disclosed

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#52

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#53

This is one of the reasons I am half tempted to dig through the OS and see exactly what data is collected. Wonder if they have made this info available for the folks in the EU.

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