The API Aquaspin is an exciting new device designed to automatically test aquarium water. Details about the Aquaspin are extremely scant, no website, no social media posts and even the video is unlisted, but we can glean enough about it to get excited.
The first striking point about the API Aquaspin is that it isn’t geared towards the consumer or average hobbyist but is really targeted at aquarium stores who test water for their customers. If you’ve ever worked a retail store – we did our time – you know how tedious it can be to manually test water parameters one at a time for not just one customer, but a steady stream of perhaps dozens on any given weekend.
In this regard the API Aquaspin kind of reminds us of the failed Thrive Waterlab machine with it’s business facing strategy, including the online logging for customers and suggestion for products to correct deviating values. The complicated Waterlab was almost doomed to fail with its countless moving parts but the Aquaspin looks like a much more simple basic photometer, which we presume will work with the ubiquitous test kits by API.
If it’s actually the case that the API Aquaspin still uses the stadard API test kit then you’ll still have to load up the test vials with reagents and the Aquaspin will do the work of reading the result with the built-in photometer. Again the video is more of a sales pitch to business users than an actual product video so we don’t know which tests and parameters with which it will be compatible.
One glaring omission from the marketing video is the ostensibly blank screen so we have no idea how far along this product is. For all we know the API Aquaspin could be nothing more than a complete concept for now but it’s still a tantalizing glimpse at the possible future of in-store water testing.
