Ondilo Reviews 147

The Good: This is a brilliant idea. Robust, well engineered plastic device and professional looking probes. The App is well thought out and easy to use. When it works, it is 5 star. Service is polite, thorough
but slow. Bought Nov 2023.

The Bad: Water and electronics (even in a well sealed unit) do not mix. I am on my 3rd replacement in 18 months. The first lost battery life after 3 months and was replaced. The second refused to re-calibrate pH at 11 months. Replacement pH probe. No good. Then new base unit. I took the old unit apart and can confirm that the board is potted to protect it from water and they have removed the on/off switch on the latest version to limit water ingress (now uses a Reed swich and magnet). The lithium battery is exposed with a simple line connector - weak point. Same for the temperature probe. There is a sachet of silica gel in the body. Probably a bit pointless since it has limited absorption capacity. Also calibration kits are expensive at Euro25 for one calibration which is supposed to be done every 6 months.

It maybe needs a redesign with the main unit out of water and a probe unit on a lead into water. The calibration kits should cover at least 4 calibrations for that price.

Would I buy it again? I'd think hard and see if there are any better designs. It really is a great way of monitoring the tub.

Do not buy this product. Poor quality. It broke on me 2 times in 2 years. The first time it was replaced within warranty. The second time they came with no solution. Left me with such an expensive broken device.

Poor battery life for the last 6 months, currently only getting 2 days then the battery dies.

Bought 2 of the Smart Water Pod via Smart Water Care / Hydrolife hot tubs and had trouble with them since day one. The concept is great but their reliability is not good. 1 unit seemed to work well for 6+ months before the PH sensor was giving incorrect readings, bought the calibration kit but the unit would not calibrate.

The other unit was having battery and communication issues from day one and went through no end of emails and calls to try and sort out but just kept getting fobbed off. Eventually got a replacement base unit sent from Josh at Hydrolife and new PH sensor. Changing the PH sensor in the first unit didn’t fix it so used the replacement base to get this one working.
Now the 2nd dodgy unit has started to misread the PH to the point of making the water unsafe to use but getting no help from Ondilo considering that it has been going on for over a year now. Have tried to recalibrate the unit but like he first one it will not calibrate.
Considering that hat the units are £400 each and been having issues for he whole time and results in unsafe water I would not recommend these

The product is great when it's new. But when the battery runs out of power, the problems start. You can't charge the battery back to 100%, and if you're lucky, you'll get 30-40%. The next time you try to charge it, it won't accept any charging. I've had 3 of these now with the same issue. The first time, I was able to exchange it without problems here in Norway, but then the dealer went bankrupt, and I had to contact Ondilo support, which has been very poor. The first time I contacted them, it took 6 months before I received a replacement unit. Now I have the same problem with the new device, and Ondilo's support department isn't responding. It's been about 8 months since I tried to reach them, but they don't reply. I only received a vague email saying they had received my inquiry, and that's where it ends. I ABSOLUTELY cannot recommend this product, nor a company with such poor after-sales/service. Stay far away.

I have have asked for my money back a few times as this product has been nothing but rubbish but have been told I can't get it because I bought it elsewhere. They have replaced certain bits but still not working. Do not buy.

I purchased an Icare hot tub water monitor about 2 years ago. When it would no longer connect with the network I contacted both the retailer we purchased from (hottublady) and ICO support. When they found out the unit was out of warranty they basically told me to pound sand and they could not assist. So while the unit worked fine during the warranty don't expect any assistance after your warranty expires.Its a throw away device with no out of warranty repair service or support offered.

Don't buy this rubbish. Failed out of the box

Worked well initially, that is until the device failed. The company replaced the device and again worked well at first, but began giving me bad recommendations when compared side by side with readings from a standard pool test kit (drops). I replaced the sensors as recommended and recalibrated. I continued to have inaccurate readings when compared to standard test kit and a water sample that I brought to the local pool store. The main issue is that the device does not provide total alkalinity readings and only throws recommendations to add chemicals which in my case led to lowering the alkalinity, ph bounce, and inaccurate (high/low) ORP, readings that changed drastically from reading to reading.
This was a good idea but poorly executed. It is nothing more than a glorified and costly thermometer. In all honesty, a bottle of test strips and a standard pool test kit will serve you better.

Very unstable. Always something wrong. Reporting Out of water, no reporting ph, missing all reports....always something missing. Not happy with this tool.

Started well for first 6 months. Replaced twice usually takes 3-4 weeks.
Now sensors will not calibrate after spending £30 on 3 little sachets of water.
Wasted hours trying to work out whether it was me or this piece of rubbish save your £400 it is not reliable

I had both the SPA and Pool version. Both failed several times. If customer support was kind enough at the beginning to change the unit, they now do propose 200€ for revision or a 40% discount for brain new one.
Hardware is not trustful... I agree with all the previous user experience... Great idea, bad execution. If customer support was initially good, it is getting worst...

ICO unit, Ok initially, then problems, wifi struggling new unit, then battery failing, new unit, ph probe failure not able to calibrate, sent new probe, now orp is way off, new orp probe hasn't solved the issue, response time from support is very slow, any spare parts take weeks to arrive, I'm getting fed up with it all. Good idea but awful implementation. Not recommended.

The product is flawed. The v2 was promised to address several issues not least the internal circuitry getting wet and failing. However, looking at the stock photos on Ondilo’s website, the sealing looks the same so if you buy one, prepare for more of the same faults, malfunction and failures.

The worst is not the poorly executed technology, but the Ondilo customer and technical service. They mock the customers and resellers. It is frankly appalling, the lowest of low and is so frustrating. They insult our intelligence and try to run down the clock to a point where our consumer rights are weak.

For this reason, avoid Ondilo and their products and save yourself a lot of stress, time and money. Or jump on board and share my several months of pain.

I am disappointed, frustrated and fed up. I paid a lot of money for an ICO to use in my hot tub. Set up is not easy but with perseverance I got there and for first couple of months it did work really well. Then I went on holiday and since then it’s not worked, I’ve spent literally hours emailing and talking to the company. I’ve followed all their instructions, dry ICO out , reset, sit by router, connect to blue tooth etc etc. I did finally get it to work for one measure before it stopped working. More emails but nobody seems to look at everything that has gone on just repeat the same advice again and again. Email get same advice. Finally asked to return very expensive item for refund and been totally ignored. So finally decided have to get it out there. Useless.

Worked great for about a year and then quit. Three warranty replaced the unit and worked good for about a year and battery became useless. They sent another unit and having trouble with Bluetooth connection. My advice, not worth the effort! If you have lots of money and time, it is a nice toy.

Got this worked fine for a few month and completely failed. Then was sent another and within 3 months gave incorrect PH readings causing me to add so much PH down to my tub and cause the alki to drop also could have caused damage to my hot tub. Customer support is in France and the guy who sells them in the US never replies. Useless save yourself the money and don't buy this crap!

Should be less than 1 star. I have two ICO units, one in my pool and one in my spa. The first one worked well for 6 months then started acting up with readings that I knew by other test methods were way off. They believe its a sensor problem but now the unit won't even do any measurements. Unfortunately in the initial time with that Unit I thought it was worth getting a second one for my hot tub-well it lasted exactly 4 months and stopped reporting measurements. Just gives a "sensors must be in contact with water error" despite them obviously being in the pool. I have done all the suggested fixes including factory resets, running sensors under clean water and drying them carefully; removing them to make sure they are locked properly in place. Like a previous reviewer said I now have over $1000 worth of pool temperature testers because that is all either of these can do. Support is slow and they never seem to understand what i"m trying to get through to them. Currently they said they will send a new pH sensor for the first unit and am waiting on some resolution with the second one's support ticket. Very doubtful that they will turn these lemons into trustworthy water monitors.
WISH I HAD NEVER BOUGHT THESE; especially in North America since support is even worse here due to the time zone issues of having support from Europe.

After receiving my new ICO spa – I connected it to my 2,4 GHz wifi but couldn’t connect to the server – an error message was “ I was unable to reach the server” , this is STILL the issue.

After many requests and waiting in many days , I finally did get an answer from Ondilo support:

“It seems your device is currently connected to your wifi network, the error message you are getting is due to a temporary bug in the app, we are working on fixing it”

Still no answer about when it is fixet ?.
I also did wrote on Ondilo’s Facebook page – the answer was : make a request to support !

Well - please consider carefully if you need this ICO – in case of problems as there is no really help that will try to inform you and to make solutions within reasonable time.

FR
Après avoir reçu mon nouveau spa ICO - je l'ai connecté à mon wifi 2,4 GHz mais je n'ai pas pu me connecter au serveur - un message d'erreur était "Je n'ai pas pu atteindre le serveur", c'est TOUJOURS le problème.

Après de nombreuses demandes et une attente de plusieurs jours, j'ai enfin obtenu une réponse du support Ondilo :

"Il semble que votre appareil soit actuellement connecté à votre réseau wifi, le message d'erreur que vous obtenez est dû à un bogue temporaire dans l'application, nous travaillons à le corriger"

Toujours pas de réponse sur quand c'est fixe ?.
J'ai aussi écrit sur la page Facebook d'Ondilo – la réponse a été : faites une demande de soutien !

Eh bien - réfléchissez bien si vous avez besoin de cette ICO - en cas de problème, car il n'y a pas vraiment d'aide qui essaiera de vous informer et de trouver des solutions dans un délai raisonnable.

I have two ICO's, both are now reduced to acting only as floating temperature meters. I have had one of them replaced twice. Calibration is a pain to do, and it is costly, doing it at regular intervals.. The two units show different readings while placed next to each other. For several days now, the server at Ondilo is down and again there is no functionality at all.
Support ask you to do strange things, obviously meaningless.
Temperature readings work fine but the other readings are way out of scale. Buy any other floating thermometer and stick to test strips for the chemical analysis.