Controls Are Dangerous, Keep Them Off Detectors

[phrunt]

I would like detectors where you pay an upgrade price to unlock more features by firmware rather than having to buy a new detector, easy enough to do by plugging your detector to your computer and buying the upgrade online where it then flashes it on, beats buying a new detector.  You can start off the cheapest price to buy the unit and pay for upgrades when and if you want them.   Makes sense, software companies have been doing it for years with plugins and addons with license keys. 

The 600 and 800 are extremely likely to be the exact same hardware, paying an reasonable unlock fee to turn a 600 to an 800 would be desirable for people wanting to upgrade over time to add gold mode and so on if of course it was by design with both detectors having the same button layouts.  Even if by design when you do the upgrade they post you out a new decal when you order the upgrade but it'd be better if the detector design was just suited to upgrades in the first place by the screen having the differences, not the buttons.

[Geotech]

7 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

The reality is the 800 still outsells the 600 by huge margins, even though most of the users don’t employ the extra features they paid for. I think some of it just boils down to the price difference not being that great, and the fear of missing out somehow by not getting the higher price machine.

That was also the case with the VX3 vs the V3i. It also argues against an upgradeable detector because then sales would likely be dominated by the base model and the company looses money in the short term.

[mh9162013]

2 minutes ago, phrunt said:

I would like detectors where you pay an upgrade price to unlock more features by firmware rather than having to buy a new detector, easy enough to do by plugging your detector to your computer and buying the upgrade online where it then flashes it on, beats buying a new detector.  You can start off the cheapest price to buy the unit and pay for upgrades when and if you want them.   Makes sense, software companies have been doing it for years with plugins and addons with license keys. 

The 600 and 800 are extremely likely to be the exact same hardware, paying an reasonable unlock fee to turn a 600 to an 800 would be desirable for people wanting to upgrade over time to add gold mode and so on if of course it was by design with both detectors having the same button layouts.  Even if by design when you do the upgrade they post you out a new decal when you order the upgrade but it'd be better if the detector design was just suited to upgrades in the first place by the screen having the differences, not the buttons.

I agree, 100%. It would be nice to pay a fee to upgrade the 600 to an 800. I'm curious as to Minelab's reason for not allowing this. The only thing I can think of is hacking fears, but I could be wrong.

[Chase Goldman]

1 hour ago, phrunt said:

The 600 and 800 are extremely likely to be the exact same hardware

 

1 hour ago, mh9162013 said:

I agree, 100%. It would be nice to pay a fee to upgrade the 600 to an 800. I'm curious as to Minelab's reason for not allowing this. The only thing I can think of is hacking fears, but I could be wrong.

Perhaps neither here nor there, but there is a minor hardware difference associated with the physical User Profile button that exists only on the Equinox 800.  Also not sure about the LCD artwork differences between 600 and 800 as some options and settings don't exist on the 600.  This was an issue that delayed the Legend 2 Rollout as a minor layout change required a redesign and re-order of the Legend display on the final relese.

[phrunt]

8 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

There is a minor hardware difference associated with the physical User Profile button that only exists on the Equinox 800.  Also not sure about the LCD artwork differences between 600 and 800 as some options and settings don't exist on the 600.  This was an issue that delayed the Legend 2 Rollout as a minor layout change required a redesign and re-order of the Legend display on the final relese?

yes, I wasn't going into finer details like the control buttons which is obvious and screens, I was meaning the PCB running the detector is very likely the same between models with different firmware running on it so if they designed the housing to be upgraded by firmware to an Equinox 800 the existing 600 PCB would likely be suitable. Obviously this was never their intention so they didn't factor in the design to be upgraded between models.

It's extremely common in manufacturing electronics that circuit boards are shared between lower cost and higher priced models to save with manufacturing costs. 

[Steve Herschbach]

1 hour ago, Geotech said:

The V3 is a counter-argument to this. It had (almost) as many controls as possible but people complained bitterly that it was too complicated to use. Even though there was a simplified interface mode (the "6-block" menu screen) for newbies and the placement of advanced features in the aptly-named Expert menus. Even adding a full interactive help system in the V3i didn't do much to curb the complaints. And many of those complaints came from dealers who were so uncomfortable with the detector they often wouldn't try to sell it.

The issue is that the user always feels he is not getting peak performance unless all controls are optimized. So they feel the need to try to adjust everything, often for the worse. With 5 controls you couldn't get in too much trouble... with 50 controls trouble comes easy. Add to this that buyers of the V3 were often newbies who felt that if they are going to buy a metal detector then they should just go ahead and buy a top-of-the-line model and skip the learning stage.

snip….

 

1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Great post Carl, and certainly there is such a thing as too much. I’ve made the argument myself, or at least recognized it as real as an issue. I clearly remember telling you at one point that what the world wanted was a simplified V3i stripped down to fit in a lightweight, waterproof package. 

I made a huge case for Equinox 600 being as good as the Equinox 800 for nearly all users. The reality is the 800 still outsells the 600 by huge margins, even though most of the users don’t employ the extra features they paid for. I think some of it just boils down to the price difference not being that great, and the fear of missing out somehow by not getting the higher price machine.

Is not reality simply different strokes for different folks? And that we need choices in the marketplace, so each can have their own?

I got to thinking more about this, and I do think there was one big issue with the V3i that lead to the problem of people getting too far and too deep into settings they did not understand. With Equinox, the default settings are really excellent. Like so good that in most cases people really are going to be getting little to no improvement messing with them.

V3i however the defaults seemed lackluster compared to the White’s machines it replaced. It had people complaining about performance, and being told that the defaults were not that good, and that they needed to learn the advanced settings to get the extra they craved. That in turn lead to this endless chase your tail scenario regarding the settings, especially as the interplay between V3i setting was more complex, with interplay between multiple controls. Adjusting one thing often screwed up something else unless both were done in tandem.

Long story short, if default settings truly are tuned really well for most people, it does negate the need for extra control. I’m the same guy that would make the case for a minimal controls detector, as long as the functions were being handled well enough with what was left. The GPX 6000 was the result of the blowback of the complexity of the GPX 5000, with absolutely as few controls as possible included. I wanted a threshold control, which I consider critical in a gold machine, and even that was voted down as too much. In the long run the trend is to smarter machines with fewer controls, and there is nothing wrong with that. All I really need is a power switch, as I am out there to find stuff, not adjust detectors. 

[mh9162013]

 

49 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

Perhaps neither here nor there, but there is a minor hardware difference associated with the physical User Profile button that exists only on the Equinox 800.  Also not sure about the LCD artwork differences between 600 and 800 as some options and settings don't exist on the 600.  This was an issue that delayed the Legend 2 Rollout as a minor layout change required a redesign and re-order of the Legend display on the final relese.

That could very well be the explanation. Even if the "guts" b/w the 600 and 800 are the same, just a few physical differences could make turning the 600 into the 800 impractical, no matter the desires of Minelab.

[Chase Goldman]

52 minutes ago, phrunt said:

yes, I wasn't going into finer details like the control buttons which is obvious and screens, I was meaning the PCB running the detector is very likely the same between models with different firmware running on it so if they designed the housing to be upgraded by firmware to an Equinox 800 the existing 600 PCB would likely be suitable. Obviously this was never their intention so they didn't factor in the design to be upgraded between models.

It's extremely common in manufacturing electronics that circuit boards are shared between lower cost and higher priced models to save with manufacturing costs. 

Yes.  In fact, if ML is not using the exact same internals on the Equinox 600/800 (I would even bet that the unused User Profile membrane switch pad actually exists on the 600 board) I would question their design for manufacturing IQ.  I was mainly pointing out that if you are going to design for the firmware as a paid upgrade path model, the current Equinox 600/800 physical interface design differences somewhat precludes a smooth implementation of that model at this point (Minelab apparently was not envisioning this model  at the conceptual start of the Equinox design).

[Cal_Cobra]

On 3/5/2022 at 1:16 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

On Equinox, a newbie can’t even get to the Iron Bias control, without knowing exactly where it is hidden. No such control actually is visible on the detector.

 

Nokta did the Salt Sensitivity setting like that in the Legend, which I'd consider an advanced user setting.  Go to the Recovery setting, push the PinPoint button and it goes into the setting, adjustable from 1-5.  I'm sure the Iron Bias control will be similarly accessible to advanced users wanting the most out of the detector, or that may have adverse conditions the default modes would do better at if adjusted to meet whatever challenges one faces. So while there was some kicking and screaming involved from a multitude of angles, the good news is that it is getting implemented.  Not only that, but far quicker then it took Minelab to improve/fix their Iron Bias settings update (which I applaud them for!).

 

[Cal_Cobra]

6 hours ago, phrunt said:

I'm confident adjusting my iron bias to F2-0 over the default FE setting is giving me my desired result when gold prospecting, I would not like to be stuck in the Legends default setting when looking for small nuggets.

I'm confident that the Iron Bias update and subsequent setting of Iron bias to F2-0 resulted in me finding a rare date U.S. $1 gold coin at a site we've been hunting for ten years and for sure over that exact little swath of ground multiple times with multiple metal detectors.  That little area has been highly rewarding not only in rare low mintage silver (and now gold) coins, but also a killer assortment of relics from the 1700's to c.1900, doesn't get much better that that where I live.