Smart Reef presented itself at the PetsFestival Exhibition in Piacenza, Italy, in 2013 after having a media hype of several months with targeted advertising about the presentation during the exhibition. And judging from what we saw and heard, Smart Reef has done very well.
We talked about this product back in May with a brief preview. But finally today it was officially presented and, before we start, we can only say that we liked it so much. As you know I am a fan of all control products for aquariums, I have had and tested many, Aquatronica, Limulus, Biotopus, Evision, Seneye Reef and many others I would try. I like electronics and am a strong advocate of the integration of both worlds.

So during PetsFestival I spoke with the Smart Reef project designers, asking them to explain the peculiarities of their system. Unfortunately we could only see the graphical interface of the system and we could only guess at its enormous potential, but that was enough for now. Besides, the system will officially start in the last days of November, and on the Smart Reef website it is possible to book one of the first ten systems, followed personally by the authors.

The system revolves around a spectacular GUI, hosted by a 9.7 inch tablet, with which you really can do it all and more.

Here we can see the main page of the interface that shows the measured values ​​with a mix of values ​​taken from the internet and where we have the entire system at a glance, with indicators for everything that’s going on in the aquarium: power, pumps, chiller, heating, chemical values​​, etc. Obviously everything is functional and running if their interfaces have been purchased and installed.

Above we see a screen on the Calcium Reactor which contains all the parameters that can be set and monitored directly by Smart Reef.
The system can include a power unit with 8 sockets, which definitely fits to most of the systems. The synergy of such a system is shown if all the power cords of our aquarium equipment are connected to the one system, so I think that 8 outlets are quite sufficient, but sixteen would be better.

The Smart Reef then interacts with us with the incredible bonus of a huge screen, which allows us to have an eye on everything in a very clear manner, without having to deal with the abbreviations of the many small screens, and we don’t need to change so many pages to look for the one that interests us. The only problem may be to integrate a screen so “important” in a modern aquarium… where we could put it? But this is a minor problem, because we keep it on our table and interact with the aquarium without having to get off of our beloved couch. In the end, better to have more options and you can choose from.

One feature that struck me is the management of the movement pumps, Smart Reef told us that the system is able to handle both the vortech that the Tunze in native mode for their controllers. We do not know how this could happen, but it’s definitely interesting.

Over here we see the setting menu of the movement pumps, with the choice of different types of pumps, Vortech, Tunze, Koralia, or the choice of simple ON / OFF setting for uncontrolled pumps that will then operate as if Smart Reef was a simple timer.

We still see the setting of the Zeolite reactor. Complete, because it integrates in a simple interface not only the electrical and chemical data detected by the system , but because it allows you to enter a range of useful information, so we can consider Smart Reef as a complete diary of our system. Really spectacular.
Finally, a note on the price. Smart Reef has assured us that it will be, at least in the early days of marketing , a bit less expensive than their direct competitors. To begin on their site they ask 599 Euros for the system, which includes SmartTouch, BlueBox, SmartLab with 5 probes: 4 of temperature, to monitor the temperature in different areas of the aquarium, and a humidity/temperature probe. A great price to begin.

The SmartTouch is in fact the tablet, including Wi-Fi module and GSM, BlueBox is the control unit which is the heart of the system and the SmartLab is the form that physically connect the probes, up to 6 probes for each SmartLab. The power unit with 8 Shucko is available for an additional 180 Euros .
We can not wait to get our hands on this system because we like it and it seems very interesting. So we wish a big good luck to Smart Reef!