This is a fruiting chamber, not a mushroom growing device. Fruiting is by far the most trivial part of mushroom growing. You still need to sterilize a growth media, innoculate it with spores or mycelium, grow it out without contamination, and mix into a substrate long before it enters this device. Or buy their overpriced pre-packaged, pre-grown substrates.
As a fruiting chamber, it does nothing that a $2 plastic Sterilite shoebox cannot do. They already self-regulate humidity and CO2 when set up correctly. Use your favorite search engine and look for Shoebox Tek.
I've seen a few mentions of Uncle Ben's pre-cooked rice Tek on here. Using UB for mushroom cultivation is the mycological equivalent of programming in Visual Basic or writing a database in Excel. It's a technique for uneducated new users which is technically inferior, and in the long run way more expensive, than learning to do it the correct way. But it uses components that users have easy access to, so it is irrationally popular.
I've tried my own hand at automating fruiting chambers, using a RasPi with CO2/humidity/temperature sensors (Sensiron SCD30), misters, and fans. Nothing but a pain, didn't increase yields, too much data leads to too much tinkering and tweaking. The best thing you can do for a mushroom grow is to leave it alone.
>This is a fruiting chamber, not a mushroom growing device. Fruiting is by far the most trivial part of mushroom growing.
You've hit on exactly the value being provided here - they are handling the culture, inoculation, spawning, and colonization stages and selling you an expensive box to put the result in. Sometimes people just want a quick fun activity and they don't want to research it beforehand. This product fills that need - send them money, they send you a mushroom growing experience.
As a fruiting chamber, it does nothing that a $2 plastic Sterilite shoebox cannot do. They already self-regulate humidity and CO2 when set up correctly. Use your favorite search engine and look for Shoebox Tek.
I've seen a few mentions of Uncle Ben's pre-cooked rice Tek on here. Using UB for mushroom cultivation is the mycological equivalent of programming in Visual Basic or writing a database in Excel. It's a technique for uneducated new users which is technically inferior, and in the long run way more expensive, than learning to do it the correct way. But it uses components that users have easy access to, so it is irrationally popular.
I've tried my own hand at automating fruiting chambers, using a RasPi with CO2/humidity/temperature sensors (Sensiron SCD30), misters, and fans. Nothing but a pain, didn't increase yields, too much data leads to too much tinkering and tweaking. The best thing you can do for a mushroom grow is to leave it alone.