More options for outlets

Ideas & Feature Requests
#1

Love my Niwa but wish a few more options would be available.

For example currently your only able to select one feature for each outlet and that’s it, your not able to select that feature for a second outlet. Say I have a large tent for clones so I only require lights and fans. Since its a large tent I would need to run 2 lights and 2 fans and be able to use all 4 outlets. The system only let’s you run 1 of each leaving me with 2 useless outlets. On top of that running 2 lights off just one outlet may overload the one outlet causing permanent failure to my lovely Niwa controller.

Moving on further down the grow having the option of running 2 fans on separate outlets would be great as well as adding an option/feature for an exhaust fan and an intake fan would be wonderful.

A big issue I’m having is I’m in a warm region so I run my system at night. My start time begins one day and I have to create another rule that goes from midnight and ends the following day. The issue I’m running into is my LED lights don’t like the power cut at 23:59 and being turned back on at 00:00. It creates anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour+ of no light right in the middle of my light cycle due to my lights not loving that 1 minute of no power. So adjusting that system to just have an on n off time without having to create 2 cycles would be best I think.

Other great features that I’m sure you’ve heard before would be longer and downloadable stats, being able to name your Niwa, CO2 addition, additional water cycles for us that love the flexibility soil gives us.

Keep up the great work guys.

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#2

Ohhh ohhh I haven’t seen this one yet but a soil sensor that could check the moisture in your soil would be amaze balls.

#3

Hey Marsss,

Thank you so much for your feedback, it’s super valuable for us as we are constantly updating the system as much as we can.

We are aware about the demand for using multiple outlets for the same kind of device need, we have been researching about it but for some technical reasons we don’t think we will be able to offer that in the near future. :confused:

Regarding to the fan control, in the next Firmware update your fan will be triggered either for high temperature or for high RH. Additionally you will be able to trigger your fan for X minutes per hour to circulate the air. But for now, we will have only one fan option. **We’d love to hear about how different fans would work for you guys, what kind of fans do you need, and more importantly, how should the different kinds of fans be controlled? **

Yes! The light going off at 23.59 issue will be solved in the next Firmware release.

We will keep all your suggestions into account!

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#4

:metal::metal::metal: on the light issue Javier.

As far as multiple fans, I like having a smaller one pointing at my plant’s to keep them dancing n deterring pest from trying to make lunch of them. I also like to keep one just below the light hanging level facing upwards towards it to reduce the lamp heat n circulate the more muggy air in the space above the light. I know this can be accomplished with just 1 but 2 seems to keep my temps down at a more consistent level. It can be controlled off the same settings the one fan option is now. I’m currently getting away with using a 3 outlet power strip off the one fan outlet on my Niwa as the 2 fan’s don’t draw a lot of amps. Even during the night cycle when it gets above my desired temp it doesn’t hurt to circulate the warmer air that sits higher then the lamp to reduce temps as hot air sits towards the top anyways.

I would really love to have an option for exhaust fan and intake fan added although I do get your point on how/what would trigger those options to go off besides just your temp set points :thinking:

I have thought about plugging my intake/exhaust to the pump option and setting it that way to push fresh air in at intervals but these are 6" or bigger variable speed inline fans that draw more amps then a conventional fan. Maybe a code that lets say if your temps are at a X% higher level for an X amount of time then your current temp max settings it would trigger them.

#5

Thanks for the feedback Marsss, we will take it into account. The proposed control is doable, the issue I can foresee is the added complexity from the User eXperience point of view, it can be a little complicated. I look forward to read more comments on this subject!

#6

Will this trigger for the fan based on RH be enabled permanently? I could see that being a problem if its a humid day outside of the grow space.

Also, this plays into the idea I posted earlier today about being able to change variables while a recipe is running, or choosing a stage before starting a recipe. If it’s a humid day and I want to turn off the fan-for-RH option, I’d have to restart my recipe and it’d blast light when it defaults back to stage 1.

#7

Thanks ibieiniid, yes, it would be based on RH, I understand your concern, but if still dry inside it should not trigger the fan. Sure, if it triggers the fan and is humid outside RH could rise, unless you have a dehumidifier, this would prevent the fan to kick on.

#8

I guess what I’m getting at is this: if your recipe is set at 40% RH, then the interior humidity rises to 45% and turns the fan on, but the exterior humidity is 60%, that fan is never going to turn off, air is going to constantly circulate through and your dehumidifier will never catch up. Air will be coming in at 60% RH, a tiny bit will be dehumidified and discharged at slightly below 60%, but the fan will constantly be pulling more 60% air in.

The only reason that same formula works with the cooling fan and temperature is because of the assumption that the interior temperature is always going to be higher than the external temperature. If thats not the case, the fan becomes counterproductive. Same with RH.

I think without an external RH sensor, it could be a bad feature for some. That’s why I’m asking if we’ll be able to disable fan-switching for RH-control purposes.

#9

Also, this is why I mentioned being able to edit the recipe while it’s running. If the fan ONLY turns on with the purpose of LOWERING RH, I’d like to turn the function off on days where turning the fan on would actually raise my RH instead.

This is getting deep into the weeds (pun intended) here, but since there’s no possibility for another external sensor to plug into the hub, it’d actually be really awesome if you just had an input in the app where you can manually tell the hub an estimated external RH at any given time, then the hub can turn on the fan to either raise OR lower the RH, based on external conditions.

If it seems like I’ve thought about this a lot, I have… for the Arduino version I’m building for myself. But I don’t plan on ever marketing it, so you guys can have all my ideas =)

#10

Thanks ibieiniid for sharing those ideas, they are so valuable for all the community and us.

And you are right, the assumption for temperature is that the inside temp is higher than the outside one, it will be the same with RH, and the scenario you described it’s counterproductive yes. The first solution would be setting one of the outlets as “dehumidifier” (you can do this on the go), this will prevent the fan to be kicked on, as the dehumidifier is priority the bad side is that if you don’t have a dehumidifier, you are wasting one of the 4 outlets.

#11

Would love an option for “always on” on the outlets to run circulating fans, etc.

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