Austinswill
Premium Member
I bought one of these for my tank. It can do quite a bit but what I wanted it for was to be notified in the case of a power outage or temps getting out of whack.The iSocket works with a SIM card and has its own battery. This is pretty unique in that with other devices if your home loses power, your internet will go down and thus you will not get notified.I was looking at an Apex system but it does not have this capability... It could be done, however you would need backup power supplies for the APEX and your router. that gets expensive!Anyhow, the iSocket 3g is controlled completely through text. You have to get a sim card for it... I used a pre paid card.I did run into some trouble. They state that it will work no matter what provider you send it text from, however this is not the case. It has to be SMS... I have a Samsung galaxy 8+ and T-mobile. I found out that T-mobile adds information to text and some other such electron magic that makes the device not respond to commands. Lucky for me I also have a Galaxy Watch and was able to set the device up on the watch through SMS. IT will be a bit tedious to make changes, but I will get all the alerts I want to get and can ping the device for temp if I need t
ther than the issue with MMS on T-mobile, it seems to be working. If I unplug it I get a Text message telling me power has been lost. It will also Text me if the temps get out of the window I have set.I did not actually plug my tank into it. Since it has the capability to turn off power to whatever is plugged into it remotely, I didnt want any possibility of a malfunction. So what I did was plug it into the same outlet as my tank, but the tank is plugged into the socket directly and not through the I socket. I am however considering plugging my skimmer into it. this will let me turn the skimmer off without having to pull a plug... I also might decide to set the skimmer up on a schedule with the device, for now I am running 24/7 Anyhow, for 250 shipped with a temp probe, it is cheap insurance for knowing if your power goes out. Which BTW is how I cam to own this tank... Previous owner ( a friend) had power go out while he was away, tank sat a week with no power. This device would have saved his reef.
ther than the issue with MMS on T-mobile, it seems to be working. If I unplug it I get a Text message telling me power has been lost. It will also Text me if the temps get out of the window I have set.I did not actually plug my tank into it. Since it has the capability to turn off power to whatever is plugged into it remotely, I didnt want any possibility of a malfunction. So what I did was plug it into the same outlet as my tank, but the tank is plugged into the socket directly and not through the I socket. I am however considering plugging my skimmer into it. this will let me turn the skimmer off without having to pull a plug... I also might decide to set the skimmer up on a schedule with the device, for now I am running 24/7 Anyhow, for 250 shipped with a temp probe, it is cheap insurance for knowing if your power goes out. Which BTW is how I cam to own this tank... Previous owner ( a friend) had power go out while he was away, tank sat a week with no power. This device would have saved his reef.