There may be something interesting and unpredicted from getting this data from many people more frequently, aka emergent phenomena. This has happened before in our hobby. For that reason I’m following along with interest.
But since they do not fluctuate daily, there is no a priori reason to think measuring Ca and Mg 2x/day with good prediction and/or accuracy will be helpful based on our current understanding of reef tank biochemistry.
My interpretation is that they had a lofty stated goal with this hardware, and the only way they could get it to work technically without further delay was to make this compromise. Their promotional material isn’t forthcoming about this; they say reagents will last 2 months depending on frequency of testing but don’t point out that that is the minimum testing and maximum time between refills. If their experimentation required them to test Ca and Mg 1x/day or 4x/day it would be for the same reason and with the same justifications, and not the biochemistry.
I think it’s great we have 1st gen of this kind of testing. Although I don’t see the advantage of this over testing alk with my Hanna checker a couple times a week, I’m looking forward to how this will advance with further generations of hardware.
For me the cost of the Trident and the refills are not the important consideration. It is purely how much time would I spend on maintaining the Trident and refills vs time spent manual testing much less frequently, plus which approach is more enjoyable and better for the tank. For now, manual testing makes more sense, but I’m looking forward to automating this, maybe with the next gen.