This morning, an update on one of the most anticipated products of 2020 was released. It had both good and the bad things to say. Bad news first. Ion Director, the product whose release many of us have been eagerly anticipating, was pushed back due to the ongoing issues with COVID-19. Gathering raw materials and shipping in general has been a big problem for many manufacturers around the globe. For those of you that don’t know about the Ion Director, here is a sneak peak video that we made for you guys last year during Reef A Palooza Chicago.

Now that we have re-familiarized ourselves with what this unit does and the fact that it got pushed back, what is the good news?

They have made many changes to the machine to make it function more effectively than before.  Here are some of the changes from their official statement:

What has become so much better now?

We are very proud to announce the following improvements:

• Only 3 instead of 4 dosing pumps are needed for the measurement – the existing fourth pump of the GHL Doser can be used for any other purpose!
• Halving the reference consumption and thereby reduction of the operating costs – instead of approx. 10 ml only approx. 5 ml are needed per measurement and reference!
• No more aquarium water is consumed – the complete water sample can be returned to the aquarium!
• The measurement is now super fast – currently less than 10 minutes are needed for the complete measurement process!

Fair enough – but when will it finally be delivered?

Since the aforementioned procurement problem already causes a delay anyway, we have decided to start right from the beginning with the latest and best design possible, even if this will delay the delivery even more.
In order to detect and eliminate all potential problems in advance – also with regard to the new design – extensive field tests are planned with our beta testers before delivery. In addition, a safety buffer for possible future procurement and logistics problems needs to be considered.
Therefore we are unfortunately forced to postpone the market launch until autumn 2020.

That’s a long time – what benefits can GHL offer the pre-orderers?

As a small thank you for your patience and support we will add 1L reference liquid A + B worth approx. $50 to all currently pre-ordered ION Director (sets) free of charge. This also applies to orders placed via retailers.”

This is very exciting news for hobbyists that are eagerly waiting for this machine. Improvements on any product is always welcome and for a company like GHL, who is known for their high standards, to even go beyond their standards and limitations should be music to the ears of people who are waiting for this unit. I for one am happy to see a company using this downtime to go back to the drawing board and rework their project from the ground up to improve and fine tune their flagship product, making it even more effective before its release. Definitely something that I really look forward to and you should be looking forward to as well.