iCare Calibration and More

Welcome to Tub Talk with The Hot Tub Lady, the hottest podcast in the world of relaxation and hydrotherapy! In this exclusive live episode, Jacque The Hot Tub Lady is joined by a very special guest, Jim Walz from Ideal Water Care, as they unveil some incredible news.

Prepare yourselves for the groundbreaking announcement of the highly-anticipated chemical line from iCare Water Monitor! Join us as we delve into the fascinating details of calibrating this innovative water monitoring system and discover how it takes your hot tub experience to a whole new level.

But wait, there's more! We're taking a deep dive into the captivating world of salt water generators and their profound impact on hot tub maintenance. Jim Walz, an esteemed expert in the field, will share his invaluable insights and insider tips to help you maximize the potential of this cutting-edge technology.

Join us for an engaging discussion filled with industry secrets, surprises, and exclusive knowledge. This is your chance to stay ahead of the curve and revolutionize your water care routine.

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Transcript

0:27

Hey, hey, hot tubers. Welcome to the podcast Tub Talk with the hot tub lady. I am your host Jackie Johnson, and I am very much looking forward to talking to you, to you today. And I do have a guest, a, a very special good friend of mine, uh, Mr. Jim Walsh from Ideal Water Care. And we're gonna bring him on now. Hey, Jim, how you doing? Good. How are you? Thanks for having me. Always good to a good time to hear your voice because we never talk. I know, I know. It's, it's, I think it's a daily conversation between you and I, but that's, that's all good. It always has been. So that's, uh, that's been the case there. I don't know what I've got going on here. I need to, that might get in the way later. So anyway, um, we are here to talk about, of all, all things is iCare. Everybody always has lots of questions, iCare, and couple of new products that that we've got going on. We're gonna talk about the hot tub scrub, what we gotta mention, the soft skin spa. We'll talk about your salt systems and maybe you got a special announcement for us down the road here. We'll, we'll see if, if you decide to go that down that road or not. So, um, The big thing that you and I both been running into lately, and I think it's because the iCare itself, the app has updated and, and now is that something that you have to do on your own or is it just automatically updating? Uh, so they, no, the app itself will update it, uh, by itself if they have it on auto update. So that's a function on their phone that they can have their apps. That's true with any apps that are auto update. Um, but the updating of the app is different than updating the hardware through the app, which we'll go through on how to go do that when you're trying to look for software upgrades. Because ultimately there's one thing to update the app, but it's a second thing to have the app update their hardware or their board that's on the iCare itself. Uh, and it's actually a very simple process and you know, as you and I have been talking in your customers and our customers, they've got questions. We wanna be able to help 'em with those questions to make it super easy to be able to use their iCare, understand their iCare, uh, know how it functions and, and really where to go within the app to make it easy to have, um, ownership of their eyecare and ultimately their pot, tub, or pool. For sure. Well, and, but one of the things that the, the app has updated, it does remind you that you need to calibrate your eyecare every six months now. I believe so, yes. That's becoming a more and more hot topic within, within the, the, the group here. People are wanting to know how to do that and need how to do that. And I do have a video that I did on that, and then iCare on di has some really good videos on how to do that as well. Um, and you've got some coming from what I understand. Um, Yes, yes. So even just a how to, how to navigate the app is the most recent one, which was a, a short clip that I ended up sending you yesterday. I dunno if you'll be able to post that, but how to, how to go through the app, how to get questions answered. Um, and then ultimately, ultimately how to go calibrate the sensors and what do you do when there's, when the calibration doesn't work, or you run into a snag within that, you know, how do you resolve it? So those are part of the things I'd like to be able to cover today, to be able to help, um, for, for sure couple customers. Okay. And the reason that I, I went down that r that rabbit hole as early as I did, was just so people understand why we're now talking about calibration, where we didn't talk about calibration as much earlier. You know, in the first couple years of the, of the eyecare being out there. It would, it was something that you al were always supposed to be able to do. It was something that you were always supposed to do, but it wasn't necessarily something that we were pushing or telling people that they had to do after doing it. It is such a simple project and so it's so easy to do. I, I wish I would've done it a long time ago, and it does make a big difference on your eyecare to do that. But I mean, we're just gonna, I'm gonna just start over here with my first question and, and that is, why do we calibrate the eyecare? What, what's the reason for doing that? Okay. That's a great question. So, and a lot of customers have that same question. So the, the reason why you want to calibrate it is sensors. Over time will, what's called drifting will drift from their original settings. So even though the eye cares are calibrated from the factory over a period of time of being in water and just being, uh, functioning, they're gonna drift. So as an, what we mean by drifting is, let's say that the true reading of the water, uh, we'll use pH as an example, is 7.2. Well over a period of time, even if the water is 7.2, uh, the eyecare may show 7.3, and then the longer it goes, it goes to maybe 7.4, 7.5. And a lot of people wonder why they have, um, their pH as an example. They, they believe the water is 7.2, but in reality, the eyecare is reading it at 7.9. And if that happens, that ultimately affects their O R P reading. Um, because the O R P is taking consideration where the pH is standing. So when you recalibrate, it's actually bringing that back down to 7.2 if that truly was the, the pH of the water. So in the calibration, and it's all done through the app. And when you navigating to the app to be able to do the calibration, you actually want to go to the cell phone, uh, icon in the lower right hand corner of the app, anything that is on the cell phone icon, you have to be Bluetooth connected. So a lot of customers will go, well, I'm, I'm right next to it, and my iCare app tells me that I've gotta be right. I gotta be closer to my iCare and I'm right next to it. How come I can't go connect? Well, the reason you can't connect is because we don't have the Bluetooth and wifi on twenty four seven. Like your phone, your phone, you have to charge every day and. The iCare, you literally get months in between chargings, and this is one of the ways that we get so long is because we're not having the Bluetooth and wifi on. So the Bluetooth and wifi are gonna come on once an hour for five minutes, push the data to the cloud, and then we're gonna shut it off. Well, you can, you can connect to Bluetooth one of two ways, either by looking at your timestamp, and let's say your timestamp said that the, uh, last time it connected to your eyecare was at 7 53. Well, you know that somewhere around the 53rd minute of the hour that that Bluetooth is gonna be coming on. Now there is another way to kind of trick the system, and that is to physically turn your eye care off and then turn it back on. And when I say physically turn it on, I'm talking about the actual eye care. Floating device that's in the water. So you're gonna have to take it outta the water. You're gonna have to dry it off. You're gonna have to take off both of the top caps. So you've got your top cap, which is the blue top cap, and then there's an inner white cap. Take both of those off, and if you physically turn it off and then turn it back on, what's gonna happen is it's gonna cycle the Bluetooth and wifi every 10 minutes for the first hour. And then outside of that hour, then it goes back into that five minute increment. So going back to the, once you're connected to Bluetooth, now you can go through the calibration and most people will start off with the pH calibration, which there are two solutions, um, in the calibration kit. One is the 4.01. You're getting ahead of me here. Let's, okay. You're just going hard there, which is great. Yep. Um, so I, I guess, so the first thing on calibration is you wanna make sure you're on the newest version, and that's both the iCare itself. I mean, so the device, you wanna make sure that you've just reconnected to the Bluetooth and you've got the um, right thing going there, and you wanna make sure your app is on the right. You wanna make sure that your app is actually on the right version as well. And now before you'd have to go in and up update that, but now it, as long as you have automatic updates clicked on, it'll automatically update. And the way to know if you are on the current one is there's a little question mark at the top of the screen here. I don't know if you guys can see that. So it says iCare, and then the top, top right of the screen, there's a question mark. So that is what you wanna have, you wanna have that version of the app. So if you have that, then you are, you're, you have the most current version, and that's as of today. So, you know, as time goes on, you know there's going to be additional upgrades to that app. And the question mark is just the easiest way to be able to identify right now in the future. You, it may be something else, but right now it's that question mark in the upper right hand corner, right? And things change very, very quickly in this world. So we are May or June 13th, 2023. If you're watching or listening to this, uh, if you're six months from now, it may be different, but that's, that's where we are today. And then, then we get into is, um, how do you connect to Bluetooth, which you just talked about. You physically turn it off, turn it back on, and, and then it will cycle. The Bluetooth and wifi will cycle faster for the first hour, so it's easier to connect to Bluetooth at that point. Okay. So you wanna make sure that your Bluetooth is on. And let's see, um, after that we have, okay, we're not there yet. Um, okay, so now you go to the calibration kit. What all is included in the calibration kit and where do you get it? So the calibration kit you can either get from a local retailer if they have it in stock, which we would recommend going to your local retailer first. But if for some reason they don't have it or you can't find it, um, you can actually order it directly from our website. You now can actually order products through the app. So the way that you order through the app is as the icon, uh, coming across the top, what I call it a banner. Um, when it says iCare Ideal water Care, if you click on it, the app, at that point on that iCare, um, it'll actually take you to a landing page and then you can order the calibration kit. Now, one thing with the, I'm, I'm showing this on the screen, so, okay, so you go to, you hit the question mark. Uh, no. So on this one you would hit the iCare, uh, icon on the very top banner. So it's gonna scroll between like your messages that saying you. Have to add something to your hot tub or pool, and then it's gonna go back to eyecare ideal water care. So when it, when you see that eyecare ideal water care, click on it, it will then take you to the landing page where you can order products if for some reason you can't find 'em at your local retailer. Okay? So, like mine right now says, add three pounds of salt, which I probably need because I just changed my water, just did my hot tub scrub, and then an eph decrease. But that's just because my eye care's stuck in the corner right now. So then where, where would I actually order at that point? So if you, uh, so right now on Jackie, just so you know, you, we can't see your screen or at least I can't, you can't. Everybody else can. Oh, okay. Um, so you would then, uh, scroll down and you're gonna see that landing page is basically the, all of the products. So you're gonna scroll down to where you're gonna see the calibration kit. And there is a view more. We are in the process of updating our website, which will make this easier. But, uh, if you click on view more, then you'll see the, uh, calibration kit. Now, to answer your question as you're looking for that, in the calibration kit, there's gonna be a little instruction manual. There's gonna be a fancy box, there's going to be three solutions, and those three solutions, the first one is your pH 4.01. Uh, so we're, the reason why we do a 4.01 is that is a set, uh, pH, um, that we're putting in the sensor to be able to calibrate it. So since the iCare now knows that it's a 4.01, if it was reading that solution at 4.012, it's going to make it where it's reading it as 4.01. And then once that passes, then you go to the 7.01 and then ultimately you want that to pass. Uh, one thing to that we would recommend is you do not wanna dump any of your solutions until you've completed all three calibrations in its entirety. Cause sometimes eyecare, you may pass your 4.01 and then all of a sudden you go, okay, I'm done with that one. And you dump it down the drain and now you go to your 7.01 and it says, you know what? It gave a mismeasurement. Start over. Well, if you've dumped your 4.01 now, you can't go back to your first step. Uh, so always keep your solutions until you've completed all three. And then the third solution is your O R P, which is set at four 70. Um, and so, so just so people understand is your sensors that are in there, the blue sensor is your pH sensor. So that's gonna be the one that you're doing the 4.01 first, then the 7.01, and then you're gonna be switching over to your O R P, which is your orange slash yellow, uh, sensor, um, to be able to calibrate that. So in the same sensor, we're doing the pH one, we're doing the O R P one. If for some reason it was reading that solution at four 80, it now is going to say no. We know that this is supposed to be four 70 and it makes the reading four 70. Uh, the other thing that's gonna be included is a little white tray. Now we also want you to keep that little white tray because to save you money, we've, uh, incorporated a refill kit that if you keep that little white tray, now you can order just the three solutions to be able to do it the next time. And there's a lot of people that will order a calibration kit and a refill kit at the same time because those solutions, as long as they're not open, Will literally last years, I think our current stock of those solutions, um, doesn't expire till 2027. So you've got a long time before those solutions are gonna go expire. Now, once you've opened them, they're gonna last about a week. Um, before those, um, those solutions will change their parameters. Okay, so you have about a week. So like I've got a baggie full of solution over there at this point that is no longer good. Correct? Yep. Okay. But if, if you keep it, um, and I would say, so I've done my eyecare calibration several times, um, just because I'm showing people and I'm making videos and that type of thing, and. I, I have had it three outta 10 times. Something has failed. One was, well, two was user error. I actually tried to calibrate the pH with the O R P solution, and it's smart enough to know that that doesn't work. Um, right. And then I, the other time I had a Bluetooth colle, uh, um, connection problem. And so I've poured that out a couple of times and then I have to wait for another kit and, and all of that. So that is something that I have learned. You do wanna save it until you're completely through the, uh, calibration. That does make a big difference to, to fix that or get all the way through that. And it's just a really simple thing to do. But, and then, If you save these, it makes it really good because then you can just, so I've got two now, but if I had three, I could just line'em all up and just plop, plop, plop. So you just literally just set the eyecare inside of that. And I meant to grab, grab my eyecare before we started the podcast, and um, I got distracted doing something else. So, but it's so simple. And if you guys go into the, um, if you go into the app, actually this, let's go there now. Um, we're going, if you go into the app, so to go in the app to do the calibration, you're gonna go to the cell phone in the lower right hand corner. Okay. Let me, I'm gonna put you on the screen here. Okay. Okay. So you go into the corner and then it pulls up the, the calibration screen. Right. So the first one, well, the very top one says retrieve measurements, and then the ones below that are calibrate your pH and then calibrate your O R P. And then you'll see a tutorial or video if for some reason you have questions on what we're talking about today. Right? So you would start off with your pH connect you right to YouTube in. Um, it's just, it that's a fantastic little video. It's, I don't think there's any verbiage on it, but it, it makes it very simple for you to, to do that, right. So you can Yeah, it's, it's that simple. I mean, you literally just go there, you hit your pH um, pH calibration. I don't have my eyecare sitting right here, but that's really all you do is you just do that and it, and it goes, so it's right. It's really simple. Um, and do you have anything else you wanna say on the calibration before it goes? Yes. So there are times where the, when you're doing calibration, and let's say it's the 4.01 and you get a, uh, inaccurate reading mismeasurement, it basically fails on that calibration. Um, it's going to give you suggestions on how to get it to pass, and the first thing is to take it out, um, wipe it off. Uh, another trick to it is to put it in regular water, whether that's in your hot tub, water, full water, a Tupperware bowl of water. Just put that the sensor in regular water so it can kind of rinse itself. You also wanna wipe it down on the little blue sensor. There is a little eyeball. You wanna make sure that there's no film or, um, residue on there because if there is, then it's gonna, ultimately, it's gonna not pass that calibration. Now in certain cases, um, let's say that you're in the 4.0. You've gone through, you've retested, it failed, you did it again, it failed again. Another trick to it is to go to the app. If you scroll down just a little bit, you'll see a restart button on the app. And if you restart it while it's in that 4.0 or 7.0 solution, and then all of a sudden it starts back up, it's, and you go to calibration and calibrate your pH sensor, it, then a lot of times will solve the problem. So that's in the bottom left corner. You've got, you've hit the telephone and then that, and that's in the bottom left corner. And it literally just says, restart. You hit that and it, it goes really? So you hit restart and then you go back to the pH or o r p, whatever one is failing. Um, and start over again with the calibration while it's in the solution of 4.01, 7.01 or the four 70. So you now, for some reason, do the, the restart while it's in this tray? That's correct. Okay, perfect. Yep. Simple little things, but they do make a difference. And it can get, it can get, um, it can get a little bit frustrating because it's not working and you don't know how to make it work, but it's just simple little things like setting it in the tray, hit the restart button while it's in the tray, and then the rinsing of the, the sensors, you know, putting that in a bowl of water before you actually start the whole process is a big deal too. That makes a big difference. And, um, I've, it, it is very, very simple, but it, it is just, there's little things just that make a difference as far as fixing that. So, and, and the re the restarting is no different than. If you have a computer and you go to your IT department and says, my computer's not running right, or there's a glitch to it or something, the very first thing they're gonna tell you to do is to go reboot the computer. And a lot of times because it's reloading the software, all of a sudden your computer starts to work better. The iCare is basically a small computer inside that floating device, and it's, uh, you know, people complain that it glitches out every once in a while. If you think what this product is actually doing. I mean, it is literally doing the work that I have done for 20 years, um, every day, all day long. I mean, so people bring me water samples and this is doing it in your hot tub every hour on the hour. And it does a really good job. And sometimes it gets a little tired and you just gotta reboot it. Just like you said, just like in your phone, you have to reboot your computer, you have to reboot. It's just technology. It's one of those things that has to happen. So it's not. So it's just now the other thing with Cal, another thing with calibration, I think that would be helpful is the calibration. If we're within 0.9 of your pH reading, we can be, the eyecare can be recalibrated. If it's 1.0 or greater off of the actual, um, eh, of the water, then that sensor needs to be replaced. So calibration does have its limits. If it's, you know, if you know it's sitting in water that is, you know, 7.8 and it's reading at 10, that sensor is not calibrating. Um, and in essence, we, you want to create a support ticket to be able to get your, um, sensor replaced under warranty. Okay, we should, uh, talk about that. That's actually, so I actually had a consultation call yesterday and, um, we had a, we had a situation like that where their pH was, was too high and we, they're going to need a new pH sensors. What's going to happen? And so we kind of, um, talk about how to do that. So I guess how, let's just go into that. How do you actually, um, file a claim and now, now we can actually do it on the app and that makes it so much easier. So I'm gonna get yes to my overhead. So to, so to create a support ticket, uh, one of the things you're going to need is what's called your UU i d and um, there's two different places you can get your UU i d one. It's on the inside of the box where you initially scan that QR code to start your iCare. Um, up in the first place. Now, some people don't keep the box. They don't know where the box is, and so we've placed it in another location. As soon as that QR code is scanned, it's actually put into the app. So the recommendation is, uh, again, first get your U U I D and if you don't have the box anymore, the way to get it, uh, through the app is you were gonna hit the icon that looks like a bow tie. It's towards the bottom of the screen, towards the middle, right below the wave. So, right, so you would, you would hit the bow tie, and this was the little, uh, video I sent you yesterday. Uh, so you're gonna hit the bow, tie the entire screen. Okay. So the entire screen's gonna shrink, and then you're gonna go to the gear on the top. So that's right up at the top of that there. Yep. And then you're gonna go to my iCare and you're gonna see your U U I D and your serial number next to your U U I D. Is icon for two pieces of paper, you're gonna hit those two pieces of paper, which is going to copy your UU id. You're gonna think that nothing happened. The word copy doesn't come up, but it did copy it. And then you're gonna back all the way out to where you're going to, um, where you initially hit the bow tie. Oops, I'm getting there. You're gonna hit the wave. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So now once you're all the way back out to the main screen, you're gonna, you're now going to see the question mark in that upper right hand corner. Okay. So we're, and here there is, there's a whole selection of different things that we can talk about if you'd like to, but the, the, the icon you want to hit is contact form. And then you hit that and you're gonna scroll down a little bit and you're going to put your cursor in the U U I D and then hit haste. And then you're gonna fill out the rest of it, which is gonna ask for your name, your email address. Um, it's gonna ask whether you're using Android or iOS. Um, in the field there's a dropdown, which is a pre-selected, you know, basically what is the issue, which in this particular case, if it was the pH sensor, you're gonna say, uh, sensor or measurements, either one. So you got application connection measures, product measures, recommendations, and other requests measures. So we'd hit measures, and then there's a box that allows you to kind of put in your own notes. You can say that, uh, pH sensor is reading high, and then ultimately you're gonna hit submit. Which is creating that ticket. Once you create the ticket, you will be given an auto-generated email to the email that you put above that says, we have received your request and we're going to be analyzing your iCare over the next 48 hours. Ultimately, you're l and there may be some questions that'll go back and forth between our customer care and, and the customer. But ultimately, um, you, well, you wanna answer those questions. Number two, the ultimate email you're looking for is, we've determined what the issue is with whatever your request was, and your replacement part will be shipped in the next seven days. So we ship out replacement parts every Friday, uh, to the end consumer so they can be up and running. Um, and let's say that it was a pH sensor. The neat thing that we do is if we replace your pH sensor, we also give you the calibration. For the pH. So we'll give you a 4.01, we'll give you a little white tray, we'll give you the 7.01, so you can actually go calibrate that pH sensor. Now, once you get that pH sensor, the first thing you want to do, just like we mentioned earlier, is you want to go put, put it into the eyecare and then go put it into regular water. Let it do some readings, and then go into the calibration. You don't wanna just jump into calibration right away. You wanna put it in regular water, whether that's your spot, water, pool, water, uh, Tupperware Bowl, doesn't matter. Just let it go. Do some readings, and then you can go do your, the calibration to calibrate it to your board. That is in your eyecare itself. So would you recommend maybe putting in it into the hot tub or the swimming pool for 24 hours and then, and then calibrating? Yes, it's a great idea. So it's, that's just an easy way to do it without. Without overthinking it. So, yes, and I think that's a a, what I find with a lot of customers is they kind of try to overthink it a little bit. They want it to be so perfect all the time, and it does better than anything else that's out there. But we give it some gray. I mean, there's, you can't, you can't make a test strip do that. You can't take it into the local spa dealer and get it, get the exact same reading every single time. It just doesn't happen. So what the eyecare actually does and how accurate it really is, is mind blowing. Yeah. So it really is a, again, it's, it's a product that's made by people just like you and me. It does fail, but we're continuously making it easier and easier for customers to get back and up, up and running. And if there's questions, we wanna be there to answer those questions. And this is one of the reasons why we do videos like this. Right. So, and we're trying, we're trying to get everything out there a little bit more, so I'm still on the screen. Do you wanna talk about any of these other stuff that we have on the help and services? I mean, any of the other, uh, things that we could do? I think for me, one of the, the really cool things that's in there is the video tutorials. There's a lot of really good stuff there. There's like, what'd you tell me? Like 31 videos in there. There's, yeah, there's a button. There's over 30. Um, and some of 'em are gonna pertain to hot tub people. Some are gonna pertain to pool people. Um, some are going to be how do I start my eye care up? Uh, which in most cases you've already done that. That's the reason why you're looking at the app in the first place. So some are, even though there's a bunch, you're really not going to be u utilizing all of them. But we continue to grow that library of, um, videos again, just simply to make it easier and easier to be able to know how your eyecare work functions and, and how it learns. Okay. And then a couple things I think we should probably touch on. There's, uh, on the contact us, so where you would fill that contact form. There's a couple other things. There's an online chat and a phone appointment if you live here in the us Most, most of the people that you and I deal with are, are US residents. Um, those aren't overly helpful cuz we're what about 12 hour difference timeframe? Yeah. So yeah, so our customer care is in France and so, you know, you're ran running anywhere from probably six to eight, maybe as much as a nine hour, actually 10 hour difference depending on where you are in the us. And so those are not always as easy to go, uh, use. Uh, so if there was the online chat, you're, you are going, you are going to be waiting. Uh, to request a phone call a lot of times, um, it literally will be days and days. We would sooner be able to try to help you directly. So if you would like a phone call, um, rather than using the app and, uh, dealing with somebody in France, just simply email us at info Ideal Water Care and we'll set up a time to be able to, um, call you and maybe be able to answer all your questions. So I, I do have to tell you one of the, um, my consultation call yesterday, she had actually sent you an email about Soft Skin Spa. She wanted to know if it would help her with, with her current situation. And you called her back directly and mm-hmm. She was, she was like blown away. She goes, this is the man. The man called me, not just anybody, but the man called me. And I, I thought that was really awesome, and I thought that you needed to hear that, but, um, you take this very seriously. I've, I do. I, I do. I mean, and genuinely I wanna help people and if I can help, I want to help. And I have, I have, if I ever get stuck and I can't help someone, I will forward them onto you and you a hundred percent every time. Call them. I shouldn't say call 'em, but you're call 'em or email 'em, but you personally take care of 'em. And I do. There will be a time when that isn't going to be the case anymore. You're, it's growing, it's getting bigger. Things are going on. And, and, and you'll have to have, to get somebody hired and trained to do, do and care as much as you do. But you do, you do take it very seriously. And I can, I can guarantee you any of the other testers that are out there and trust me, I have five or six here at the house that, um, people have sent me because they want me to, uh, review 'em and put 'em up on online and stuff that this isn't what, they are not gonna get. The service that they get when they get with you. And, um, Yeah, there's some glitches, but they all have glitches. There's not one water monitor out there that doesn't have glitches. It, it just can't, it's impossible. There's, there's too many factors involved for it. Not to glitch out a little bit, but this is the most accurate of all of them that I have tested. And it does it, it does its thing. Yep. And just keep it charged and keep it connected to the Bluetooth and you're good. So. Right. And that's one of the things that, you know, we wanted to make this product a product that was repairable, um, by the consumer. That's one of the reasons why the sensors can come out and you can put a new one in. Whereas a lot of 'em, you just have to replace the whole unit. Uh, we made it very user friendly. If, if one sensor goes bad, we can replace one sensor. If the. The board or the battery goes bad, we can replace, uh, everything that's white, uh, which is what we call a smart core. Um, and that that can just be replaced and you can put your sensors that are good and the caps that are good and just recalibrate it to the new board, which is a huge deal because, I mean, these are not the, the least expensive thing that you could ever, ever buy for an accessory for your hot tub and all the other ones that are out there, they either there's a subscription or you have to buy reagents that you have to buy on a monthly basis and put those in there. Or like you said, you just have to throw it away at the end of it, and then you have to replace the whole thing again. And then, you know, we're talking four or $500 every single time and nobody wants to do that. Right. Um, for me personally, I live far enough away from the hot tub store that I don't wanna take my. Water sample down there all the time either. So the time, convenience of the eyecare is worth a ton. So there, if you don't have one, I honestly think that, that you should get one. It is. I probably have made more videos about eyecare than I have any, anything else that I, um, support or use. And then of course our, our relationship has, um, I mean, we're partners. Yeah, we, we definitely. So the other thing you brought me into the industry, a lot of people don't know that. Um, but you brought me into the industry and now I can't get out. But, so I, I, you know, you'd mentioned how there's other ones that are out there. Um, this is one thing that I think separates us dramatically outside of building, I believe a superior product. Uh, we, we stand behind that product, whether that's answering your questions or being, being able to make that phone call. Um, but when you look at electronics, which this isn't electronic, most electronics have a 90 day warrant and there are some other water monitors that, you know, might have a one year warranty to em. We have a two year warranty across the board on all componentry, which is just, it's unheard of when it comes to electronics and, um, and we honor that warranty. And when something messes up and it might mess up multiple times on the same customer, we do the right thing and we continue to replace those parts. We're not perfect. We never claim to be perfect. Um, the only we can do is do the right thing. And we want to, to help people as much as we possibly can. And you, I, the, the customer service that I have seen and the warranty that I have seen with this product compared to all the other products, and I'm talking hot tubs, I'm talking cover lifters, I'm talking. Steps, uh, all the stuff, the customer, your warranty has been fantastic and they've done a really good job of taking care and replacing and fixing and doing, doing whatever needs to happen. And, you know, they're, they're were some growing pains at the beginning, but you figured that out. And, but just same thing was true with is with the hot tubs and with the salt systems and with, there are, there's always a little, some growing pains. And you, one, once you figure it out, it's fantastic and it's, you, you've gotta get through that and you guys are past that and you're through it and you're, you're, I think you're ahead of the game when it comes to all the rest of the water monitors that are out there. I think you guys are a little further along. And overall long term by far the icar iCare is the best value out there. So thank you. So did we cover everything that we needed to cover on the calibration and, and. Um, I, as far as the calibration, yes. Um, the, I want to give one other hopeful tip when dealing with calibration, cuz a lot of times customers will go, I think my iCare is, uh, not reading correctly on, on pH or o R p. And one of the tricks, um, that even our customer care department will have a customer do to really find out whether or not the sensor is misreading and that's using bottled water. So rather than taking a sample to the, the retailer or taking a test strip and trying to say, well these readings are all different, which I can almost guarantee you they're always going to be different cuz you're dealing with, you know, in those other applications, one, a small amount of water, one second in time. Also, you don't know if the retailer has calibrated their sensor. They have to calibrate also. And if they don't, Their calibration or their test results are gonna be off. But one of the simplest ways is to get bottled water. And the most common one I've seen is the 8.8 pH. It literally is on the front of the bottle. It tells the customer it's alkaline water, it's 8.8 pH. Well, that's supposed to be within one 10th of that 8.8. So if you go take your eyecare and put it into that water and it reads it at 8.8 or 8.7 or 8.9, uh, you know, your eyecare is actually reading correctly. I've had customers to where they've taken pest strip, put it in that 8.8 water, which is a known pH now, and it's, those test strips were reading at 7.5 or 7.6. It was the test strips that were off, not the eyecare. And I can also tell you, being someone who's ran water labs for over 20 years, they don't get calibrated nearly as much as they should. Um, no, they do. The only time we calibrate 'em is if we, we feel that we're consistent consistently getting a reading that's off. And that could take three months before we realize that that's, that's what's going on there. Now, I, I'm a big fan of those, uh, water te water labs. I don't, I don't discredit them in any way, but, um, and if, if they're not overly busy, I would also ask them to test the water twice, cuz you'd be shocked how, how different those test strips come off. Um, very rarely are you gonna have the exact same test come out twice. Right. I agree. So you, the only difference is, is you can't see, you can't, you're not analyzing it. You're not, you're not like, oh, this is people will, they look at it and they're like, compare it to everything. Compare they, they've, they're like, well this test strip says this and this O R P test or this liquid test says this and the water lab said this and this dealer says that none of 'em are ever gonna be the same. But the one that they pick on is the eyecare. The one that's always wrong is the eyecare because everything else is different. But I'll guarantee you that not one of those is exact same. They all may be close, but none of'em are the exact, the exact same. I agree and I agree. Yeah. Again, if, if, if you got a good relationship with your, with your dealer or your water lab person and you want to get that done and they have time to do it, ask 'em to run it twice just so you can see the difference, cuz they're not gonna be the exact same water test. They're gonna love you for saying that different. We can make it the same, but Yeah. Um, so there's definitely that going on. And again, with all of this people, they get really, people get really locked into it. They're like, oh, it says exactly this. And they can get, they want it to be perfect. It is really hard to make a hot tub water test, perfect swimming pools. You can do it. I don't know. There, I've seen a few perfect pools that I've tested over the years that, and we used to have contests at the store when we, we do swimming pools. You can't, I think in my 20 plus years of testing hot tub water, I've seen one perfect hot tub come out of the lab without me tweaking it. It's just, it's really hard. There's, you know, you got 300 gallons of water. It's, you know, a, a body in that 300 gallons of water versus a body in 20,000 gallons of water. It doesn't affect it nearly as much. So there's so much, so many things in there that are affecting it and that when you start, it's a range. You just wanna be in the range. You don't have to be perfect. You're, yes, I want your pH at 7.6, your chlorine is going to work better, and your O R P and your, that is the ideal range for it to be in. But it's gonna bounce a little bit and don't freak out if it's off 0.2 parts per million than it was yesterday. It's. Things are gonna happen, and you just wanna see how it's trending. And that's one of the cool things on the eyecare is it'll show your pH when you get into the wheel, it'll show your pH, but then it also has that arrow next to it and tells you whether it's trending up or trending down. Mm-hmm. That's almost more important than the exact R reading that you're seeing. I mean, are you agreeing with me or am I No, I, I agree with you because, and some people will ask, well, how come iCare's not recommending me to add pH down? If their pH was high, and let's say their O R P was low, how come it's not telling them to go at a sanitizer? Em, it's not telling them to go add pH down because iCare is looking at how it's trending. And in this particular case, uh, for this example of this customer, um, their pH was actually trending down. And as pH comes down, your sanitizer or O R P is going to go up. So iCare was not telling them to go dose. Their pH did come down into the OK Range and their O R P went up. They literally didn't have to go at anything. But normally if you were to go get your water tested from a store or test it with a test strip, and you saw high pH and low sanitizer, you'd go, okay, I gotta go add pH down, or I have to go add sanitizer. And all of a sudden you've added those chemicals when in reality you didn't have to. Because iCares, again, looking at how it's trending and we're testing every hour, uh, more than anybody else, and we get accuracy by testing more often. And that's, that's a huge difference in that. And, you know, even, even the commercial stuff doesn't test that often, so no, it's not at all. It's a big deal. And the amount of people, and, and again, with all my years of experience, you know, I've had people that'll stand out there with their test strip and their bottle of pH increase and their bottle of pH decrease and literally pour a whole bottle of both in trying to get it perfect in a, in a three hour period. You can't do it. It just, you can't do it. You gotta let it settle. You know? I think you said at the very beginning. Yeah. You gotta let it do its thing. Let it settle, let it, um, be patient with it. Um, eyecare is going to learn and you gotta let your water settle. So, um, where do you wanna go now? I've, I've got a couple options you want to talk about. Soft skin spa. You wanna talk about hot tub scrub? Anything else you wanna talk about? Um, let's talk about hot tub scrub, cuz we do have a new formula. Um, it is a granular formula. You, it is actually more potent than the original. The original was a liquid. Uh, we switched over to a granular, um, uh, one to allow us to be more potent, a little easier to ship. Uh, it does not go active until you add it to the water. And then each bottle now does two draining cleans for a hot tub or one for a swim spa, whereas the original formula, original liquid formula was only, uh, one one hot tub drain and refill. So it's, it's actually less per cleaning now than it was on the original formula. Uh, we still utilize the surfactant, which is surfactant as part of the foaming process. Foam is needed to lift that stuff up and out of the plumbing. Uh, so you can either use a surfactant, which that's what we use versus what most use as a detergent. Reason why we use surfactant is it, it has a different type of foam. It's a little bit easier to clean up. And then, uh, our second ingredient, uh, which originally was 7% hydrogen peroxide, now it's 27% hydrogen peroxide, uhhuh that may, okay, so it's, it went up dramatically. And part of the reason why we went up dramatically is be it by being granular, it can ship and not be a hazardous material yet. 27 parts on a granular, if it was a liquid, we can only go to 7% without being a hazardous chemical. Um, And then we also made it a deodorizer. So it, it makes everything smell really good. It does actually. Yeah. It, it's, so I actually did use it and, uh, I do have a video, um, if you guys wanna check that out. I just posted that on Sunday. Um, I wasn't a hundred percent accurate on everything in that, but, uh, first of all, I did overdose. I did, I used about three quarters of a bottle versus half a bottle, and I've got a big hot tub. It was too much. I mean, it, it, it foamed, it definitely lifted the stuff up and, and out of it. But you can also see in that video that I did, um, Um, it, it was kind of moldy and gross cuz I was just, I was out for six months with my knees and didn't, the hot tub didn't get the, the care and attention that it needed. And it just, when that foam came up, it literally took that foam off the edge of the, I didn't have to scrub it or anything, it just literally cleaned it and then I just had to hose it down and it was good. So, um, and then the other thing I wanted to, to touch base on there as well is in the video, I, I took the filters out, but you can, that's, this is one of my favorite things about hot tub scrub is you can actually leave the filters in the hot tub while you're using the, the products. So that makes a, a big difference there. So, just so people understand what you mean by leave them in the hot tub, you do want to take them out of their, uh, where their standpipes are. And hose off, get the majority of the debris out and then put 'em into the main body of water and use your hot up like a big washing machine. So that's what she re uh, refers to as leaves them in there. Um, and what you'll see is the, even though it's not, uh, necessarily taking the grime off right then and there, it makes it easier to take grime off. So once you go to the, to draining your hot tub, you're gonna take those filter filters out and you're gonna hose 'em off. And when you hose 'em off, you're gonna see how much more white they get because you're able to utilize the, the chemicals within hot tub scrub. Well, this works for me. So a lot of times people think to show that video when you see your air controls or water valve. Let's see if I can get that going. Maybe I can't. Well come on. Here we go. So this is actually Jim doing his, I'm getting there, you guys. Yeah. And this is just a small snippet of the entire process. It's one of those things that I think a lot of people miss and they think they did a, a good job, but they actually didn't. So, And this is, I went and looked at mine after we talked about this, but, so this is a gem, okay? So a lot of times people think this is clean. When you see your air controls or water valves, they think you're perfectly clean. This is one that we've actually cleaned. This is one we thought we cleaned, but we didn't clean completely. When you've taken off, you can see how much stuff is actually underneath there. Again, you want to use hot tub scrub, clean all that off cause of the hydrogen peroxide. It makes it super easy to clean and you just want to get all of that out of the cracks. Some crevices, I need them up here so you can see it doesn't take long to go clean them, but the end result. Is the fact that it's very clean and then you just simply put 'em back on. So that definitely, um, that's a good li good little video and it's a nice little thing in as far as for things for people to check out and popping off pillows, that would be a great thing to do. You just wanna pop your pillows off and actually, would you just suggest throwing 'em in the hot tub water and Yep, that's exactly what you do. And let 'em soak in there as it's running. And again, using your hot tub, like a big washing machine, you're after the same thing. So even though the pillows are in there and if there's, uh, dirt or grime or mold or whatever on 'em, you're gonna take that, take a brush, whether it's a toothbrush or a, like a sponge pad of some sort, uh, to be able to kind of scrub 'em. And then again, put 'em in the, put 'em back into the hot tub. The. Again, the surfactant and the hydrogen peroxide are what really are, what is sanitizing and cleaning all of those components, including your plumbing, which most people always talk about, just the plumbing. But hot tub scrub really allows you to get an overall cleaning of that hot tub. Yeah. An ultimate clean on that. And it makes a big difference. And little things like that are huge. I mean, that's just taking the toothbrush and just kind of scrubbing it down. And again, I don't say think that you need to purge your hot tub every single time you drain it, but I would say once a year it needs a really good mm-hmm. Uh, clean. I mean, you've been around the industry long enough that we never used to do it at all. So I know. And now after you see what it does, it's, it's a big deal. And it ma it makes your chemicals more effective and it helps with all that stuff. So that's, that's a big deal. Um, But I, I would actually challenge people. Anybody who's ever, I would challenge people, if anybody's ever used any other type of pre drain cleaner, um, is to use hot tub scrub. And just give a comparison. I, I, I believe that once they use it, they'll never use anything else. It, the ingredients really do make a difference. Um, we, we believe that ingredients, regardless of the product that we're making, um, really make a difference. And chemical companies over the years have started to use cheaper ingredients. People don't even know that it's happening. And all of our products, uh, we really dive into what the ingredients consist of to, to make the best product possible. Um, we don't build cheap product. We build products and ingredients that make a difference. And it's very, very evident that that is the case. I mean, I've done a lot of tub scrubs over the years, and this one has really impressed me. And I love the fact that you can use the filters as a filter cleaner. And the older version was fantastic. And if this one's got a even 20% more peroxide in it, it's really gonna make a difference. So, um, that's, I'll have to make another video about that because that's, that's a big deal. Um, you wanna talk about Soft, soft Skin Spa for a second or? Sure. So the Soft Skin Spa is another product, um, that does make it easier. Uh, so if you're using the, uh, soft Skin Spa, it is something that because it has silver nitrate in it, it allows you to have a lower level of sanitizer. Silver is a natural, um, Bacteria stat, bacteria stat to where it'll help you, um, again, have a lower level of sanitizer. So it's just an added pro, um, added protection. It also makes the water feel incredibly soft and, and feels great. Uh, another one of our ingredients is the fact that it's, uh, gives a layer of protection. It's, uh, similar to how rain X works on a windshield, but it literally is going to protect your body, the hot tub, your equipment, including your salt cell, um, from the harshness of chemicals, similar to how rain X works on your windshield. We also utilize pH buffering agents that make it easier for you to manage your pH. And the reason why we put in so many different buffering agents is because of the fact that by buffering your pH um, and having it closer to the ideal range, your sanitizer becomes more effective. And then again, the silver nitrate. That's in there, um, makes it again, just another way to, so you're in less chemicals. There's actually over 15 different ingredients, all natural. Uh, it does not have an expiration. So, um, you do, we put so many ingredients in there. I wanna go back to the fact that ingredients do make a difference. Uh, we put so many ingredients into the soft skin spa that it literally settles in the bottle, and you have, you have to shake it before you go add it to the hot tub. And because we know you're gonna be putting it in 2, 3, 4, 500 gallons of hot tub water, uh, we can, we can add more ingredients. Whereas most companies, again, to save money is they only put enough ingredients to be able to dissolve into the water that's in the bottle. Um, the, the water that's in that actual bottle of the chemical we put in a ton because we wanna make it easier for you to be able to enjoy your hot tub. And the products that you use definitely make a difference. Um, let's talk about phosphates. I mean, do you, are your products, do you, you don't have any phosphates in, in the products, don't have any phos phosphates? No. So we don't use any phosphates, um, simply because the phosphates, even though they're measured in parts per billion, uh, phosphates are one of the things that's inhibiting your sanitizer from being as effective as, as it possibly can, regardless whether that's you're using chlorine, bromine, or saltwater, you're having to over generate or over add product just to compensate for that. So rather than using phosphates, um, that inhibit your sanitizer from working correctly, we don't use any phosphates. Phosphate based ingredients are less expensive to use. Um, but in the long run costs you more because you're having to either, um, deal with your salt system having to overproduce mm-hmm. To compensate for it or to add more chlorine or to add more bromine or to add phosphate removal. So, and that's, I am finding more and more and more products ha have higher and higher and higher phosphate in them and mm-hmm. It's definitely, again, you know, we never used to worry about phosphates and salt systems weren't as big a deal as they are today, but it really is a hard thing with fo with salt systems, whether it's a hot tub or a swimming pool. And if you, if you're actually adding phos phosphate products into your hot tub and not knowing it, You're, you're just making things more difficult. So the more stuff you can find that doesn't have phosphates in it, the better off that you are and the, all the products that we've talked about, um, you don't have any of that. So I think that's a really big deal. And that goes back to the quality of the products. So, um, it, that's kind of a big deal. And then, um, and, and the biggest culprit of putting phosphates in a hot tub are stain and scale for one. Mm-hmm. Stain and scale is extremely high in phosphates. Uh, a lot of water clarifiers, def foamers are, are all phosphate based. I can't say all, but most are phosphate based, uh, to where it's only making your life more difficult when you're adding it. And that's one of the reasons why our soft skin spa does not have any phosphates in it. Right. And it's. If I remember right, does it have a little bit of phosphate remover? I mean, not a maintenance dose, but it's got a little bit of phosphate remover in it. Yeah, it is. It is just a maintenance dose, so it's not a, um, you've got a problem that's gonna take care of it, but once you have the problem under control now it keeps it more manageable. And if you're using soft skin spa, you don't need to use stain and scale unless you have extremely hard water or you're on Well, I mean, I, I personally am on a well, and I still don't use stain and scale, I only use the soft skin spa cuz one of the ingredients in there is a chelating agent to help take metals out. It is not phosphate based. So you'll see after you add soft skin spa after a fresh fill, if you have metals, it'll turn around and you're, I mean, I literally did it the other day. I added, uh, soft skin spa. My water turned brown initially, and then I ran the jets and obviously the circulating pump. It pulls all those metals out, collects in the filter, and then once you collect those metals in the filter filters, you do wanna hose the filters out to get the metal out of the water. Right. You're gonna physically remove the metal. So, yep. So, and that worked with just your, um, soft skin spa. You didn't have to use any metal remover to do that? Nope, nope. No metal remover. Pretty impressive. Yep. I'm sure ingredients make a difference oxidize out quickly, but, um, so, okay. Do you, you have any big announcements that you wanna make or, um, so I can, I know we don't have much time, um, but we can go over a little bit. Okay. So, um, in a few weeks we are going to be having additional water care products. We're adding 10 water care products to our line. Uh, so we're gonna be having alkalinity increase or pH increase or pH down. Water clarifiers stain and scale def foamers, um, non chlorine shock granular chlorine, uh, cover, cleaner filter soaking. So for the times you wanna soak your filter, uh, this is a granular product that actually you put in a five gallon bucket, soak your filters, and it's going to decrease it. Uh, one of our ingredients, again, ingredients make a difference. We're using a sulfuric acid in this, uh, filter cleaner, which is the very first thing you want to do when you're trying to take oils out of the filter. Um, and the, the product itself will actually change color when it's done being utilized. So you stick a filter of filters in the spy gallon bucket. Uh, and once that solution is done and no longer effective, it will actually change color. Um, so that's kind of a, a pretty, it's a pretty cool, uh, product. And then the cover cleaner. Uh, so we have different categories. So we're gonna have, you know, balancers, which are pH up, pH down a energy increaser, and then we're gonna have sanitizers, we're gonna have shock, we're gonna have basically maintenance products to where are the problem solvers of cleaning your filter or cleaning your cover, those type of things. Uh, so there's gonna be 10 new products that we're going to be offering shortly, and that's totally awesome. And then those are also going to be available, or they're gonna be tied directly to the iCare, is that correct? Uh, they will be. Yep. So, and, and that's, consumers can order right from there. Um, or if the retailer decides to carry the product. Uh, they're all EPA e EPA approved, so our sanitizer is EPA approved. Uh, the other products you technically don't have to have EPA approval. Um, so yeah, so 10 new products, uh, coming out within probably the next three weeks. Okay, well once you get that all online and everything, we'll have you back on and we'll discuss it, discuss it in a little more detail. But, um, anyway, uh, we probably should wrap it up. Uh, anything else you wanna add? Nope, I think we're good. But, uh, well, actually I wanna add one more thing. If your, if your, um, viewers have questions or there's, they, they need answers, um, I'd love for them to be able to message you. I don't know how they normally would message you, um, but if there's things that we can answer their questions and incorporate into the next video, um, you know, we wanna know how we can help you and the best way we can know is by you asking the questions and, and knowing ahead of time. So if they would be able to message you, I'd really appreciate it. So the, the best way to do that one, you can just leave a comment on YouTube. I'll be more than happy to answer any questions there. And then we will, we'll get'em for the next, uh, podcast. Otherwise, if you wanna go to clean your hot tub filter on Facebook, that is, um, that is my face, my Facebook group. Uh, Jim is on there with me and he actually, I think lately he's been answering more questions than I have. He's, he's been right on top of it and there's quite a few per, um, there's quite a few people in the industry that are in that group. So there is always somebody that's going to answer your question. Uh, Jim and I are super active in there, and then Caleb also as well. But, and he answers a lot of eye care questions in there, but we'll also, um, we kind of let you know when we're gonna be on the podcast. And then, yeah, next time I'll make sure to, you know, whatever questions you wanna answer, if you wanna an ask them in advance, cuz I know this isn't the best time for everybody, but we can definitely get, um, Get the, get 'em so that they're actually asked on air and we can, can answer the questions for you. And again, if you want, if anybody needs help or needs some troubleshooting, where would they get ahold of you at? What's that email address again? So the email address would be info at Ideal Water Care. And so if I can answer then I answer. If not, it'll um, roll to somebody else that hopefully will be able to answer them. We try to do it as quickly as we possibly can, but you know, obviously depends on the request and the number of people. Um, so just, we just ask that people be patient and we will get to you. But most of the time we, we answer within a day, maybe two days, but. We try to get to everybody as quickly as possible. I'd say you're faster than that, but you're giving yourself some grace by doing that. But Jim, Jim is really good. And then guys, don't forget to buy my book. It's on, uh, hot Tub Clarity. It's on Amazon. Just search Hot Tub Clarity. You can get that there. And don't forget to join the Facebook group and, uh, give, give this podcast a review. And Jim's got one more thing, sorry. Uh, some people don't know the website. So the website is actually just ideal water care.com. Yes, and the links are in the show notes and are on the description, the YouTube description. So if you guys definitely wanna check that out, that would be great. But thank you so very much. Thanks for letting me and Jim help you become happy hot tub owners and we will see. Well, I will see you guys next week and we'll have Jim on probably here in about a month. So talk to you guys soon.