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Warning on Chihiros A Series 2

gregl

Member
Joined
7 Jun 2017
Messages
49
Location
London
Bought a Chihiros A series 2 a few weeks back, foolishly didn't test it when it arrived. Testing it now and there is no way for the bluetooth app to connect (many others have had this problem accordiung to the play store). Since there is no manual control this light is essentially useless and a colossal waste of your cash.

Watch out all, very dissapointing from a company I've only heard good things about really
 
Bought a Chihiros A series 2 a few weeks back, foolishly didn't test it when it arrived. Testing it now and there is no way for the bluetooth app to connect (many others have had this problem accordiung to the play store). Since there is no manual control this light is essentially useless and a colossal waste of your cash.

Watch out all, very dissapointing from a company I've only heard good things about really

Before you toss it in the bin, have you tried to connect with a different model of phone just in case there's some weird model incompatibility?

When I started the app a few days ago, there was a mandatory software and "firmware" update, don't know if this has any bearing on your issues.
 
Okay so I jumped the gun a bit (I've been stuck home for 6 weeks, going a bit ladida) and have managed to get it working

Turns out you need to turn on your GPS as well as bluetooth, restart your phone a few times and keep fiddling with turning the light on and off

I can't think of a legitimate reason Chihiros would need your phone to use to GPS in order to connect to a bluetooth device though, feels a bit suspect all round, maybe that's the isolation 😂

I also got an system update as soon as the app installed thinking about it, didn't update though
 
Okay so I jumped the gun a bit (I've been stuck home for 6 weeks, going a bit ladida) and have managed to get it working

Turns out you need to turn on your GPS as well as bluetooth, restart your phone a few times and keep fiddling with turning the light on and off

I can't think of a legitimate reason Chihiros would need your phone to use to GPS in order to connect to a bluetooth device though, feels a bit suspect all round, maybe that's the isolation 😂

I also got an system update as soon as the app installed thinking about it, didn't update though

Sounds like more of an issue with your phone than the light?
 
Thanks for the mini heart attack, ordered one of these from Ali express the other day 😂
 
FWIW I have 2 chihiros lights and doctor mate all connected to the app. The doctor mate is useless, but the app connectivity works perfectly. 😅
 
Thanks for the mini heart attack, ordered one of these from Ali express the other day 😂
Haha sorry mate, hopefully my experiences help someone rather than panic them, it does seem an overly dramatic title now

I'd like to point out my flatmate had similar connectivity issues, it is the light rather than my phone, but I imagine it was due to GPS not being on when he tried

I was shocked by the lack of an off switch, obviously didn't do enough research

The response I got when I asked about why GPS was needed to connect via bluetooth was:

"You need to turn on the GPS to connect to the lights, because Bluetooth needs to access GPS information."

Make of that what you will, personally I wont be buying from them again.
 
Is there room for someone enterprising to offer a non-blue tooth control for all these lights for us ludites who like things that clunk and pop and have steam and levers and gears. In my mind a separate hard circuits dumb controller has to be more reliable if all it’s doing is ramping up and going on and off?
 
"You need to turn on the GPS to connect to the lights, because Bluetooth needs to access GPS information."
I call bull and invasion of privacy on that one... Bluetooth never need access to GPS... It's because their app specifically are requesting your GPS coordinates. I can't think of a single legitimate reason why the manufacturer of this aquarium light would need that information, and even if they have one, there should be a way to opt out of using/sharing it.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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