I decided not to purchase. It turns out to record gravity and temperature trends you need to place and leave a Bluetooth enabled device (smartphone, tablet) in range of the Brewometer. I don't have a spare device to leave next to my fermenter.
Indeed. That can be a difference maker, however, I like the direction they went with placing the data in your control.
I contributed to the Brewmometor kickstarter, and when that did not make its goal, I bought a BeerBug. I am glad to see the concept is still moving forward and nearing fruition.
I like my beer bug, and think it works pretty darn well. I like the abilty to track my brews remotely on my phone while I am at work, but in some cases, I am uneasy about the the ability of the device to continue to function if the company decides to go a different direction. (i.e. the beer bug company needs to be around to give you access to your data)
The Brewmometor, while requireing a device to be in range, is kind of a big thing in my book, because it gives you the data in YOUR CLOUD. I feel better about being in control of the data, and having in a google spreadsheet... that means I can manipulate the data and possibly add it to my brew logs on my own. The extra step of finding a spare tablet or old phone... or even picking up a base model Kindle Fire... not too bad a compromise to get the data in my own control! (I would really like it if they had a PC based app, since I have a computer close by my brewery already)
That being said... I like the Brewbug features and logging it provides, and their support in asnwering questions has been wonderful. What they do to make the data points available and the methods they display them (graphs, choose the resolution and how many points...) are spot on for what I would do with a more "open source" data logger (like the brewmometor).
I would love to hear futher feedback/updates on the Brewmometor from users!
