I hadn't been on Hearth for a while - summer, you know, but I got an email ad from Scheels, pumping a sale with the Fireboard. I thought this BBQ item might be really great for monitoring my furnace/DHW setup, so I thought I'd check Hearth to see if anybody else had the same idea. Sure enough! So I ordered one.
It's Friday night, and I have time. I unpack it and try to use it. I checked the system requirements on their website before I ordered it. They list an I Phone 4 something or newer, running IOS 8 or better as the minimum. I try to download the app in the Apple store, and it won't install. It says it requires IOS 11. My older phone, that actually fits on my belt and does way more than I need a phone to do, doesn't support IOS 11 even though it's a 5 version running IOS 10x.
They don't seem to have a website hosted option, that would work with just about anything - it looks like it's app only.
Searching the Fireboard site yields nothing useful, and the support is mostly a knowledge base without useful knowledge. No interactive support is offered. I found a phone number, but of course by now it's after hours on a Friday in Kansas, so leave a message.
This might be a good product, and there might be an app hidden somewhere that will work, but I suspect that it's another case of the geeks making super cool stuff, and they're so busy doing that they can't possibly be bothered to update the documentation to match, so us non-geeks can buy the appropriate thing and actually use it. How many times have I finally gotten a geek to talk to me and it's all about how great this thing they've made does all these great things I have no need for, and if I only upgrade everything I own, back to about or including the electric meter, I can actually use it to do the basic thing I needed done, it said it would do, and I bought it for??
I'm not actually a total Luddite. I have a computer controlled Kuuma downstairs keeping my butt from freezing, But, I am really tired of the tech march that outruns the instructions, if there even are instructions (Apple)!
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Ok - tech frustration rant off! This might be a good thing, but if you're not totally up to date, and prefer running perfectly good devices to waiting on a cold sidewalk overnight to have the next great thing before everybody else, you might have a problem with it.
I'm looking forward to being wrong, and being mostly satisfied with this thing next week, if I can get hold of someone. It would sure be nice if there was a way to get it to work as it was represented, when I need it to, and without tech support phone tag. I'll post and edit as appropriate. Just wanted y'all to know, and to get some frustration off my chest.