Can you guess what new product Biotek Marine has working on lately by looking at the above picture? Well, if you guessed a new BioTek Marine USB BTM-3000 PAR Sensor with Aquarium Specific Software then you would be correct. In the very near future BioTek Marine will be launching the new USB PAR sensor into the market. The BioTek Marine PAR sensor is the result of a collaboration which began about a year ago when Scott Groseclose from Aquarium Specialty reached out to Apogee Instruments with an idea to co-develop a USB PAR sensor geared towards aquarists. Apogee began to research and develop the new chip design while BioTek Marine specified the software requirements. If you find yourself asking "how is it different from the Apogee MQ200 PAR Meter?", then READ ON......
Here is a sneak peak of the product and some of its features:
Like the more expensive MQ200 model, the new BioTek Marine USB PAR model will offer data logging. However, BioTek Marine has included some other nifty software features not available in the MQ200. Due to the current stage of development, the details on those features will be discussed in a later article. The PAR sensors will be laser etched with the BioTek Marine name and they will come standard with a 15 foot USB cable. The firmware will be be downloadable to any PC or MAC (MAC firmware coming soon) device and the firmware and updates will be downloadable from the Aquarium Specialty website.
The first 3 production models will be going to Jake Adam (Reef Builders), Sanji Joshi (Engineer at Penn State University) and Dana Riddle from Advanced Aquarist. With their input we hope to further develop and enhance software features.
Final pricing hasn't been set at this date but Aquarium Specialty should be able to have the pricing in place sometime later this week. Once the pricing is in place, Aquarium Specialty will allow preordering to those who want to be the first to obtain this great new product.
