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Why no memory for lights?


Galabar
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Maybe Cory and other's who have designed lights can answer me this: why would an expensive light, like the Fluval Planted 3.0 not have memory when the power goes out?  Maybe adding a battery limits the lifetime of the light?  It seems like such a small addition and most (all?) lights don't seem to have it.

Note that I have the Fluval Planted 3.0 and it is a really nice light, but it is annoying to have to launch the app and sync the light whenever it loses power.

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In my (very limited) experience with product design, every single thing that can be eliminated from a bill of materials will be eliminated. It is usually purely cost-related. Nothing about having a small battery will cause the light to last less time, but it will cost more money to make the thing, make it bigger (to accommodate space on the circuit board). Also, once you add a battery you also probably want to make it replaceable, so the enclosure needs to be serviceable or else you will have upset customers after batteries start dying.

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On 5/16/2023 at 1:33 AM, Galabar said:

Maybe Cory and other's who have designed lights can answer me this: why would an expensive light, like the Fluval Planted 3.0 not have memory when the power goes out?  Maybe adding a battery limits the lifetime of the light?  It seems like such a small addition and most (all?) lights don't seem to have it.

A ton of timers are based on what is called a 555 timer.  It's a single chip that you can set to tick at certain rates.  If you want to install memory, you're talking multiple times in cost.  In reality, given today's cost in parts you're talking a very minimal cost compared to other things.  Having some sort of a UPS would solve the issue, would work for the vast majority of issues with lights in particular.  That being said, I entirely agree.  They should simply add a CMOS battery and then go ahead and add a method for the light to remember settings.  Either, by flashing it or by using a battery.  Flashing would introduce something like hard data points which the user can play with.  This is extremely common in something like graphics cards for computers and the data is stored on long term memory chips.  The light is powered off, goes to read that chip, off it goes with the modified settings.  But, you still have to set the time somehow....

That internal CMOS battery is known to cause issues with longevity with parts like motherboard, game cartridges, calculators, and other electronics.  It would have to be user replaceable.  (for instance, behind the remote compartment in the lighting cord).

It's very much possible, but it's also just about not really wanting to add that manufacturing cost above anything else.  Parts are cheap, it's the assembly, testing, reliability issues over time.  Battery could easily explode via humidity or other issues and ruin the light, etc.

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Another option would be a sync'ing the clock through a wifi connection (similar to what a Kasa outlet would do).  It eliminates the need for a battery, but adds the need for wifi connectivity (as well as a fair amount of complexity).  However, for something like the Plant 3.0, where there is already significant processing going on, maybe that's the next step...

 

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