The Vitrea Orbital LED light is an aquarium fixture with a clear focus on aesthetic and design and as such, the new touchscreen controller Vitrea is releasing follows that motif quite well. While we were at InterZoo we could not find any specific information on Vitrea’s touchscreen controller for the Orbital LED light but we did watch it go through a demonstration light cycle and we also walked through the very pictorial user interface. Unlike many controllers that suffer from a text based navigation system which needs to be set to a specific language, we found the Vitrea touchscreen controller to be rather easy to navigate. The icon-centric navigation was a breeze to understand and the simple slider options made it easy to select specific programs for sunrise, sunset, custom color control and moonlight settings. The touchscreen controller has no specific name as far as we can tell and we also don’t know any details on pricing or whether the controller will be sold as an add-on for exisiting Orbital LED aquarium lights. Although we are not one to pay a premium for aquarium products that focus on design over performance, the application of simple design principles to the GUI of the Vitrea touchscreen controller for the Orbital light is different. Aquarium controller manufacturers could do well to pick up one of these Vitrea controllers if nothing else so they can see where the future of aquarium controllers is headed, towards all touchscreen graphical user interfaces like the Vertex Cerebra, whether they like it or not. More pictures of Vitrea’s controller from InterZoo after the break.
