Just found RT 2.5.0-beta on GitHub.
Bruce
Should I update any new function?
We’re having a cool morning in SE Arizona, so I’ll get another try at roasting (yesterday was a disaster of my own making!). Maybe I can offer some insight afterward. If I had to speculate it would be that RT 2.5.0-beta is essentially the same as 2.4.4-alpha.
Keep in mind I don’t use Recipe’s (so far!), so I’m not looking at everything. Sometimes I find new goodies days or weeks later.
Bruce
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RT 2.5.0-beta worked fine except for the issue with jittery window…
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Window size is changing because IR Bean Temp (in the little data box at the upper right) varies from a single line for IR Bean Temp to 2 lines. That extra digit adds one line to IR Bean Temp when the temp goes from XXX.X to XXX.XX (the trailing “0” is truncated to XXX.X). It could be fixed by simply (yeah, I know- nothing is really simple) reducing the resolution of IR Bean Temp from XXX.XX to XXX.X.
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This version of RT has a setup feature (where you choose chart background color) that allows the user to select line color for each line on the chart. It uses a full spectrum of color and intensity.
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Still no ability to fill in the header portion of the Chart (roast name, bean weight, etc.) that I was able to spot.
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Interesting display now of control features during Pre-heat- you can see power cycling (in my case) between P1 and P3 as the R1 brings the pre-heat temp to stability. I tried doing this on a gyro test stand over 1/2 century ago and I failed miserably. It’s not an easy thing to control temp of a sizeable mass because of the huge lag in response, but they’ve done it well on the R1.
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The audible nag (the ‘dead-man switch’) seems to have disappeared. That was the A2 (?) alarm that required the operator to hit a button on the control panel. Not sure if the deletion was intentional, but I’m glad to have it gone!
Not using Recipes yet so I can’t comment on that. All-in-all, this felt like a fairly solid release in performance except for the jittery window. I admit I didn’t check Trello for what was included in this version (I was roasting, not testing s/w per se), so I didn’t methodically check all the things Aillio has changed. Yes, it’s a guess as to which RT version relates to each feature listed, but the changes are at least mentioned.
Bruce
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I took a moment to read some of the ‘cards’ (status) on Trello and found that nothing listed on those cards has been finished & released since January 2019; most closures were in Oct 2018. Apparently it’s not been maintained even though I thought I saw changes from time to time in category (Ideas, Next Up, etc). Disappointing.
It would appear that initial “good intentions” for information-sharing put too much demand on Aillio’s capability to maintain same. I noticed that the Trello site was life-less a while ago while attempting to locate a support site for 2-way communications with customers. The RoasTime Release Log is another example that ceased to be maintained about 7 months ago.
I see much the same thing. I’ve never managed a small commercial project where budget rules every aspect. Must be difficult.
I always had sufficient staff including for config mgmt because we got paid to do it. They wanted to know everything we did and planned to do.
I try to remember there’s not one bit of income for Aillio from telling us what they’re doing day-to-day. When they do take the time, something else isn’t getting done. I just hope someone skims info from here occasionally.
Bruce
When running a small (or large) company, the daily care and feeding of the customer base is key to staying in business. In addition to home-roasters, Aillio is attracting start-up roasting business customers that won’t be amused by the support model that Aillio currently uses.
Aillio needs to mature in their customer support thinking if they are going to successfully own and grow whatever share of the market they are seeking. I say these things (as you do) in hopes that someone at Aillio is paying attention.
There’s an old adage “for every customer that takes the time to tell you what is wrong, a hundred more just leave in silence”. But in today’s world, that “100 in silence” has morphed into “social media” communications that touch a larger base of potential customers. 
There are folks who believe that their initial purchase funds upgrades in perpetuity. Which is why a number of software companies have gone over to a subscription model instead of “selling” the software. In the cold light of day, the developers can’t continue to work for free especially when new features require more work than bug fixes.
I don’t know the cost/break even per unit for a Bullet and the return on R&D for the project as a whole but I would be willing to contribute something towards the ongoing software development costs in lieu of it quietly petering out. I suspect those for whom the Bullet is a source of actual income might also. Or maybe not. I think from reading between the lines, that the new power boards for V2 for 110v may in part be delayed by the trepidation of unleashing a bunch of support tickets when people install them who have little or no working knowledge of electronics. I suspect the support load increased a fair amount when the IBTS was made available as a user install kit.
I’m grateful to the Aillio team for keeping our current machines up to date on hardware and firmware and understand that comes at a cost beyond just the price of the kit. I don’t want them to walk away from that.
Sorry for the ramble, I for one, as many others, don’t want to be just beating on Aillio - we all want them to crush the competition and the new Behmor 1Kg roaster may well cause ripples if nothing else because of their US based support and general reputation in that area. I had a Behmor 1600 at some point in my journey, needed help with hardware and they were excellent to work with.
For me, focus on one Source of Truth for releases, release notes, trouble ticket entry, etc should be the first priority. I don’t see why with Roast.World here and running, external sites like Trello (nice and pretty as it may be) are needed to be kept in sync. Then maybe with Patreon or some similar kind of support we can provide some additional money in the pot for development. Marko over at Artisan works in this way - not sure how much beer money gets to him for people using his “free” software but I have donated a couple of times just as a home hobbyist because I see behind the curtain, working in the software world. I mean most hobbies come at a cost of enjoyment right ?
Dang, rambled on even more. Chime in with your thoughts gents.
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@stuartmcknight - Good points about a revenue stream for Aillio to provide the kind of support that will be needed to grow the business.
I believe that Marko and team (Artisan software) have a fair amount of corporate customers that pay them in addition to home roasters. They also have the new fee-based Artisan Plus inventory management software that (if successful) could yield additional income from businesses.
Aillio is the “youngster on the block” in the roaster business. They still have things to learn about how they are running the business and support model. I am OK with the concept of additional income to fund better support for the software side of the business. If a fee-based support model would yield exceptional support, Aillio should explore that idea IMO.
I know there are those that like “free everything”. But, for those of us that have run/managed business operations, we know that effective support often needs the associated income than extends beyond the product sale revenues. This is especially true for a smaller company that doesn’t have huge volumes of product sales (yet). 
Thoughtful reply Stuart.
Right you are. I think we all want to see success and growth in the brand. We may not get bragging rights for being first adopters, but we’re close. A year from now, their success will be our success.
Btw, I donated to Artisan as well. I was using it exclusively with my HotTop. It was a little quirky and it had control features I would never use, but I was happy enough to ante up $$.
I think I may be to the point with the Bullet and RT that, if I must, I can do what I need to do and just ignore the RT limitations if I have to. They’re pretty close. Well… other than that %&&^ jitter! 
I have at least 2 versions of RT that ‘get it done’ for me. And, since I don’t roast 1 kilo loads, I can slide along till the V2 power board shows up and you guys get the bugs worked out… I want to slide home without leaving a skid mark!!
Btw, I believe you’re right that the IBTS mod kit must have left Aillio a little bruised. When I finally dug deep enough to realize what owners had to do and the support needed, I was a little shocked. There are surely lab techs among us, but I suspect the mass of owners earn their living another way and just want a good cup of coffee. Or just want to keep their customers coming back!
Bruce
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@stuartmcknight, I’ve kind of been thinking along the same lines recently as I’ve kept up with the goings on here, on the Facebook group and with what we’ve heard from the folks at Aillio directly.
In fact, running some quick math in my head, I’m thinking that with maybe 3,000 units (and I bet that number is high) in the field multiplied by Aillio’s cut of $2700US, less hardware cost, divided by the (admittedly) small number of staff and the length of time they’ve been working on this product comes out to…well, I’m impressed we have everything we do, much less that there’s still effort being put into new features and updates.
I’m rooting for the team at Aillio and happy to be on the ride with them (and everyone here.) I’m not sure I see a path to getting all the new features we (and they) want to deliver along with the support experience we and future customers may want without changing the pricing model. I, too, would be okay with that.
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Please any help here. I just upgraded to RT 2.5 beta. There is now an option to change the colors for the Drum (IBTS), Bean probe, Exit Temperature and ROR. I don’t have a probe for exit temp so this is not needed. The problem that I have is that I roast using the light background option and the default ROR curve color is almost white. I can barely see it. In the settings section there is an option to change the color but every time I select a new color for ROR and hit update nothing happens. I am stuck with an invisible ROR curve. I tried reinstalling RT 2.4 beta but that did not work. Help! I am using Windows 10 and installed the win32-x64-prod-v2.5.0-beta file
@pnrenton - You may hafta use the wipe of the Aillio and RoasTime folders that Jacob once suggested in the past. I think that @bab just had to do that to get back to a previous version of RT after getting stuck in a 2.4.4. release of RT. Fyi, using the “wipe” will clear your locally saved roasts. but your cloud-saved roasts will still be there.
Clean-wipe of Aillio/RoasTime data
I don’t use any of these “buggy-betas” of RT because of this very thing. So, I can’t speak to what may be done to get 2.5.0 working. I’m on Artisan and don’t have this kind of stuff happening to me.
THANK YOU! That fixed it. I am back on RT 2.4 beta.
I am usually like you, I don’t use alpha or beta software, but in this case, I do really like the Recipe program so RT 2.4 beta it is.
Honestly the poor charting and display of Fan, Drum and Power means Artisan is dead to me. Sorry Marko.
From what I’ve seen Marko doesn’t participate here and mainly hangs out in his own Github site for the Artisan software. I expect that you may be referring to the on-the-curve changes that are made to heat, fan, etc. Yes, that can get busy when changes are made within close proximity or other on-curve status indicators. I think that is why Artisan offers the option to display those things below the charted area so that they can be cleanly seen individually.
My perspective about RT is that Aillio really took a yeoman’s responsibility to even attempt to write their own Roasting software. Many roast manufacturers (that are many times larger) decided to just focus on their roasters and leave/recommend the software choice to companies like Artisan.
But Aillio is doing a poor job (as we all know) of telling people what changed in these “beta releases”. That puts using the releases as overly risky if the person is more focused on actually using the roaster vs being a guinea-pig. I’d love to be using Aillio’s RT software, and wouldn’t mind helping them test, but they are doing a poor job of managing the software changes.
I also think Aillio made a mistake (that other roast manufacturers don’t do) in making the user participate in the “cloud” just to have full use of the RT software’s capability. The user’s roast data belongs to them, not to Aillio. We should have the option of not posting all roasts to the cloud and still have the freedom to use all the analysis tools in RoasTime. Why Aillio can’t understand that fundamental thing frankly escapes me.
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I’ve struggled with this. It’s easy enough to disconnect from the internet while using RT. The downside is you lose the integrated bean inventory which I find very useful.
I’ve been anti-social media from the git-go and here I am in a parallel environment I don’t feel comfortable with. [If you haven’t seen it, try watching Netflix’s documentary “The Great Hack”. Yikes!] I’m here because I trust Aillio, but the alternate FB offering is out.
Guess I’m trapped by my green beans! 
Bruce
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I downloaded RT 2.5.0 for Mac. Seems to work fine, except the option of changing of the colors of the curves has a problem. In particular changing the color of the ROR does not work. As also mentioned by another user, this is rather awkward. Please solve asap.
I think the color was chosen as a default for the dark background. If you need to roast, you might try switching to that background till they get it sorted.
Bruce