Gadgetory

hey guys welcome back to another hard-working axe review we are checking out two fan controls from BitFenix today the Hydra Pro and the Recon fan controllers are very popular within the modding community most of the time and adds to the creative appearance of the case and monitoring those temperatures and noise levels are a must for many enthusiasts so let's first take a look at the Hydra Pro this is the five in the quarter inch compatible main mount with five channel fan control with up to 30 watts per channel this is good news for enthusiasts who are mounting powerful fans and just for reference these standard 120mm fans that you see here and they move about 42 CFM and draw a maximum of about 2 watts per channel so now you can really see how much head room there is per channel for a much more powerful fan the front faceplate is covered with big Phenix a soft touch coating which does add a nice quality feel we have a white LED to indicate power the 5 sliders and the LED on and off switch for the fans all the sliders have a really nice smooth motion when adjusting the speed this contributes to the overall quality of this unit how are the knobs that sit on the sliders can be removed when changing the speed this doesn't disturb the function of the sliders but a tighter fit would have been better but on the bright side such low-profile design allows compatibility with cases that have front panel doors that open in terms of connectivity at the back we have 5 LED connectors that would be used with compatible fans this would allow the LED button on the front to switch them on or off then we have the 5 3 pin fan connector with proper labels that are on the fan headers great for organization during the build they are fairly long which would allow the wiring without any extensions and we have the dual box connections for power and lastly all the connectors can be removed in case you need to limit your cable clutter so let's put it to the test I've connected five fans and notice the fan controller doesn't turn off the fans completely at its lowest power I would say the sliders really give the user flexibility between low medium or high speeds and also the fan power is reflected by the brightness of the fan LED and I also wanted to mention that if you want to fully utilize a fan controller I recommend using higher speed fans something around 2,000 rpm or even higher just to have the flexibility of proper speed adjustments because if you are using standard 2000 rpm fans switching between the maximum and the minimum power will not be that noticeable well alright enough for the hydro Pro let's check out the Recon which between exclaims to be the first Internet connected fan controller this one is a touchscreen fan controller also five and a quarter inch Bay mount with soft touch coating for the front plate the screen size here is 4.7 inches diagonally unfortunately the height of the screen is not even an inch so there isn't much room to work here there is a large bezel around the screen so minimizing that for a larger display would have been ideal this is also a five channel controller with up to 10 watts per channel still pretty good for an enthusiast build but don't expect anything too powerful like the tree work fans for example that required 12 watts so check it out the touchscreen here we have a very bright blueish interface we are using the Recon in manual mode circling the first channel and pressing the digital fan will highlight the speed and then you can adjust that with plus and minus signs each of the channels can be adjusted in increments of 10 and you can shut off the sound as it does tend to get a bit annoying and this is a pressure-sensitive display so using your pen or anything else will work just as fine there's no brightness adjustments but you can shut off the screen by holding down the power button for three seconds and press anywhere on display to wake up the controller one major disappointing aspect of the Recon are the viewing angles and now I'm not expecting this to be an IPS panel but you can't make anything on the screen unless you are directly at the front of the controller and unless you have your desktop at eye level it's not very practical but on the brighter side we have temperature monitoring and an alarm system for each of the five channels with either Celsius or Fahrenheit which is monitored by the temperature sensors included on the controller and the rest of campbell's include 5/3 pin fan connectors dual molix for power and USB ports that allow the network link and this is actually quite cool very innovative you download the drivers off the website from between and you get all the same options as you do on the actual fan controller by using your web browser on your desktop or a mobile device with internet connection so you can adjust the speed you can set the alarms create different profiles and you can also shut down the reekin service completely with this shut down monitor button for some reason recon service did not work for me with Internet Explorer now in terms of functionality monitoring the temperatures and adjusting the fan speed right from your Explorer is very convenient you don't have to wiggle with a small display in the controller but having the ability to connect your mobile device to this service makes things a bit more interesting that's because you can monitor and control the fan speed while you're on the go as long as you have internet connection it could be useful for server type systems just to make sure everything stays nice and cool instructions are very simple you just have to make sure to allow the link in your firewall and if you are using a mobile device while not at home you have to enable port forwarding in order to get connected all right so let's recap what we have here with the Hydra Pro is a low profile 5 channel high wattage fan controller that has great feedback sliders that rings in at an excellent value of $35 my only critique are the falling out knobs on the sliders I wish between X we'd have done a bit more in terms of quality control and the Recon has a fairly decent touch interface 5 channel control with temperature monitoring and Internet connectivity they can use on your desktop instead of reaching for the fan controller itself and the ability to use the Recon service while you're on the go is very appealing and works great now there are several things that bother me screen sizes one of them all the buttons do seem to be cramped in and the smaller bezel would have been better also the viewing angles are very limited and you can only make of things when looking directly from the front so to conclude the Hydra pro is on the right track for delivering all the practical functions we need in a fan controller and there serves the damn good to file your work and the Recon does offer something we haven't seen yet and that's on the go control and we're giving in the hardware canucks dam in the video of a word and that is it for this one guys thanks for watching we'll see you next one