My wife is, essentially, a freelance science teacher. Schools hire her to develop their science programs or augment their science staff when they need a little more scientific rigor. So I figured he would be a great person to evaluate this water testing kit. Here's what she told me.
- They can't count. This test set actually does eight water quality parameter tests: Acidity (pH), Oxidation-Reduction Potential (ORP), Dissolved Oxygen (DO), conductivity, Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), salinity, resistivity, and temperature.
- There are 21 routine water quality tests but this covers almost all the standard water quality tests. Of the standard water quality tests, the only one this doesn't cover is turbidity.
- This set compares very favorably with a similar set sold by a competitor that retails for nearly $3000. Unfortunately, she didn't have access to that other test kit at the moment so we weren't able to do a head-to-head test to determine each set's relative accuracy.

One area where this might help that I hadn't considered was home brewers - beer makers - who need to understand water quality when they're brewing. According to a beer brewing website I read, the important tests are Water Hardness, Alkalinity, pH, Salinity, TDS, Conductivity, DO, and Potassium. So this meter can definitely help brewers make better beer.

I know, it may seem like a lot of money for a brewer to test their water. But a few of the brewers I know are serious - I mean REALLY SERIOUS - about the quality of their beer. This seems like an easy way to step up your game.

Meter came in a big box with empty slots left and right feels empty. Wonder what's in the empty slots. First use took 1 min for meter to stable. Easy to use as all apera. Calibration is easy. Meter feels heavy for the size. If only the box can fit meter back in without removing the cable again.. 4 stars cuz I don't know how long it will last yet.. over all not bad.

Got this DO meter for my pond. Had no experience with DO testing. The video tutorial is really helpful! Finding a proper swirling speed in water is critical to getting a stable reading. Thumbs up for the elegant DO probe design!

I have a fairly nice pH meter and some of the junky single-stick TDS and salinity meters that I use not only for my indoor gardens, but also to keep an eye on my RO filters in the house to keep on top of filter changes.

While this is probably overkill for my home use, I have to say that I absolutely love the set. Being able to really zero in on the water quality in my hydroponic gardens has made some noticeable improvements not only in water changes, but also in how I'm taking an approach to nutrient changes and adjustments.

The all-in-one kit is easy to work with, and easy to store. And if I had known that it would have made such a difference for me, I would have bought a similar kit a long time ago!

I hate those ph test strip for pools, you are always guessing what the reading is, not with this Apera instruments device. We used this to get an exact ph of our pool so we could add the right amount of chlorine and acid. The feature I also like on this device is the temperature reading of the water. Im not a scientist, and I don't work in a lab but I like this device. I had to watch the company's video and read the instructions pamphlet over and over to correctly use this equipment as I have no previous experience using a device like this. I only gave 4 stars because the price is too expensive and not really affordable.