Brought a bottle of AquaChek test strips and downloaded the App hoping to save time over using drop chemical testing (knowing test strip are just a very broad “guess-a-mate”). What a waste of money and time. The App never read a single strip (11 attempts). Every attempt gave the results that the test strip could not be read and I needed to align the first test pad and black square properly. Not rocket science and the alignment was correct. Next, used 4 strips to test water and compared to color chart. I had just completed a detailed testing of the same chemicals with an industry leading liquid drop testing kit (Taylor K-2006). Some of the AquaChek test strip chemicals (pH, Total Alkalinity) were within the acceptable range, while others (Chlorine, Hardness, CyA) were completely off compared to the liquid drop results. So, lesson learned is just take the time and use the liquid drop test so the pool looks and feels great year round.
This is a great idea, but the app just doesn’t have the image recognition algorithm dialed for it to be of any use. I monkeyed with the app for days and the readings for the same water taken minutes apart had the chemical concentrations jumping around all over the place, while with my eyes using the color chart it was obvious the readings were stable. The auto capture is also very poor: the camera on two separate iPhones had trouble focusing and capturing the strip images roughly 50% of the time. This app is a waste, deleting it from my iPhones…
I bought the test strips because of the app, but when I attempt to have the app scan the test strip, the image is so blurry closeup it doesn’t get a reading in the app, making it useless.
I’ve tested the iPhone camera, it can view/take pics of the test strip closeup (same distance) with a crystal clear image (not blurry). The AquaChek app image is focused from a few inches, but when you try to get the test strip image “in the box” closeup it gets too blurry to scan. It is not the iPhone camera, it can do this fine, it is the app. The app can focus as you move closer than goes blurry, ALMOST EVERY TIME. a waste
Why change the scanning of the test strip. Worked perfect before. Told me how much chemical to add etc. now I can’t get the app to let me take a pic of the test strip. Continually says can’t read. I liked the old version better. I’m at a loss now
I have been using this for a year and now they have change the automatic capture on your phone and it’s next to impossible to get it to line up. All you used to do was line up the bottom square and it would read it, easy. Now if you don’t have it perfectly in line with both the top square and the bottom square, level, in the perfect light, your arm out and standing on 1 foot during a full moon it will not read the test strip. Oh yeah, you have a timer now. Why did you have to change something that was working so well?
I didn't think it was possible, but you made the app even more finicky now with two squares to line up. Now it NEVER auto-senses the test strip, and any strip I take a picture of it can't read.
You shouldn't need to have a photo dark room with absolutely pristine lighting to use this app. Sometimes it's cloudy outside, but I got used to going back inside to test with the previous versions. Now it doesn't read in ANY light.
I’m not sure what they did with the latest update but the app is absolutely worthless now.
The auto scan feature was always relatively frustrating. It worked about 50% of the time. Not a huge deal but still annoying.
Now the manual entry option crashes the app. I am going back to just using the strips I had been using before and the card that comes with the bottle. The only reason to use this brand was the app, which could help with recommendations on how to balance. If the app doesn’t work, any strips will do.
This app use to work great, However since the recent software update it no longer works as designed. The software update requires you use a new test strip after 30 seconds. I have gone through 15 test strips all of which have failed. At this pace a person would have to purchase new test strips every couple days. That’s providing you can actually get one to work. Seems to me this is a way of driving sales of new test strips.
Save your money! There’s a lot better and more accurate ways to test your pool chemistry.
The app has been great but after its last update of 2.0.3. It stopped working entirely except to see past history. The auto capture tool no longer accepts the presented captures acceptable to evaluate. And clicking manual entry just causes the tool to crash. I hope it is fixed soon as iPhones do not allow for rolling back to a previous version. It is basically junk till you push a new update. This has been tested on multiple iPhone versions in the family and they all behave the same way.
Prior to the update, the app was spotty with the auto capture but I could get it to work after a few tries. Now it doesn’t work at all and I’m multiple strips and 30 minutes later finally throwing my hands up in frustration. Back to traditional testing for me.
Side note as a consumer and pool owner, I am diligent about checking the expiration date on my my test strips while keeping them in a dry, climate controlled atmosphere. I know it isn’t user error.
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