How much water to drain, in a number When stabilizer is too high to dose around, the app no longer just says a partial drain may be needed. It gives you the percentage, sized from your own reading and your own target - and when that is more than is safe to drain at once, it lays out the rounds: drain about a quarter, refill, retest, repeat. An acid amount even without an acid-demand test High pH used to produce a number only if you had found the acid-demand field. Now everyone gets one, clearly labeled as an estimate rather than a measurement. It is set deliberately low, so you start there and retest, and it tells you how much your alkalinity comes down with it. If the alkalinity step already has you adding acid, there is no second dose - the card explains why instead of going quiet. Safe to swim after ___ One banner above your steps answers the only question most people have. It uses the longest wait that applies, so you are not combining 4 hours, 24 hours and a week in your head. Where the wait genuinely depends on a retest, it says so rather than inventing a number. A beat before a big dose When a shock-level dose lands alongside a safety warning, the dose list waits for one deliberate tap. The warning stays on screen the whole time - nothing is hidden, you are just asked to read it first. Refer a Friend and instant answers, in Account Both were built and both were hard to find. The referral screen and the ask-anything support assistant now have their own rows in Account. And "What I use" is now "Chlorine & acid I use", so the row names what it sets. Text that fits its screen The sign-in screen no longer paints past its own boxes after you sign out, and long titles no longer overprint the back button or the logo. The testing habit card, sooner and smarter The Dashboard's testing pulse used to stay hidden through your entire first loop - exactly when the rhythm is being formed. It now appears from the start, and the last-test date turns amber when you are due and red once a reading is too old to dose from. Sign-up tells you the truth Signing up with an address that already has an account now offers you sign-in and password reset, instead of sending you to check an inbox for an email nobody sent. Log what you actually did Logging a recommendation now opens a checklist: check off what you added, change any amount to what you really poured, and only then does it save. Your next test is judged against what you actually added — a dose you knowingly halved is never scored as a failure. Warnings beside your dose, not instead of it When something needs checking — stabilizer over its ceiling, say — the app now shows the warning above your plan instead of refusing to show a plan at all, and the same rule holds on the website and the free calculator. Only a reading the engine truly can't act on stops the dose. The log button stays put Logging is what starts every reminder, retest and trend, so it's now pinned to the bottom of the recommendation screen instead of hiding below the scroll. Your history is yours Download every water test and dose as a CSV, straight from the pool's options sheet. The saturation index, for everyone The free no-account calculator now shows the same water-balance verdict subscribers see. Know exactly what you're paying Account settings now spells out your plan, the price, the renewal date, and where to cancel — in plain English. Referrals show their math Banked months, pending rewards, and friends joined now appear on the Refer a Friend screen, matching the website. More to read, right in the app The built-in Knowledge Base now carries the same library as poolcntrl.com/learn. Also: a gentle testing-habit pulse on the Dashboard, both season checklists reachable again, a failed sign-up can simply be retried, and the paywall is upfront about the price.

How much water to drain, in a number When stabilizer is too high to dose around, the app no longer just says a partial drain may be needed. It gives you the percentage, sized from your own reading and your own target - and when that is more than is safe to drain at once, it lays out the rounds: drain about a quarter, refill, retest, repeat. An acid amount even without an acid-demand test High pH used to produce a number only if you had found the acid-demand field. Now everyone gets one, clearly labeled as an estimate rather than a measurement. It is set deliberately low, so you start there and retest, and it tells you how much your alkalinity comes down with it. If the alkalinity step already has you adding acid, there is no second dose - the card explains why instead of going quiet. Safe to swim after ___ One banner above your steps answers the only question most people have. It uses the longest wait that applies, so you are not combining 4 hours, 24 hours and a week in your head. Where the wait genuinely depends on a retest, it says so rather than inventing a number. A beat before a big dose When a shock-level dose lands alongside a safety warning, the dose list waits for one deliberate tap. The warning stays on screen the whole time - nothing is hidden, you are just asked to read it first. Refer a Friend and instant answers, in Account Both were built and both were hard to find. The referral screen and the ask-anything support assistant now have their own rows in Account. And "What I use" is now "Chlorine & acid I use", so the row names what it sets. Text that fits its screen The sign-in screen no longer paints past its own boxes after you sign out, and long titles no longer overprint the back button or the logo. The testing habit card, sooner and smarter The Dashboard's testing pulse used to stay hidden through your entire first loop - exactly when the rhythm is being formed. It now appears from the start, and the last-test date turns amber when you are due and red once a reading is too old to dose from. Sign-up tells you the truth Signing up with an address that already has an account now offers you sign-in and password reset, instead of sending you to check an inbox for an email nobody sent. Log what you actually did Logging a recommendation now opens a checklist: check off what you added, change any amount to what you really poured, and only then does it save. Your next test is judged against what you actually added — a dose you knowingly halved is never scored as a failure. Warnings beside your dose, not instead of it When something needs checking — stabilizer over its ceiling, say — the app now shows the warning above your plan instead of refusing to show a plan at all, and the same rule holds on the website and the free calculator. Only a reading the engine truly can't act on stops the dose. The log button stays put Logging is what starts every reminder, retest and trend, so it's now pinned to the bottom of the recommendation screen instead of hiding below the scroll. Your history is yours Download every water test and dose as a CSV, straight from the pool's options sheet. The saturation index, for everyone The free no-account calculator now shows the same water-balance verdict subscribers see. Know exactly what you're paying Account settings now spells out your plan, the price, the renewal date, and where to cancel — in plain English. Referrals show their math Banked months, pending rewards, and friends joined now appear on the Refer a Friend screen, matching the website. More to read, right in the app The built-in Knowledge Base now carries the same library as poolcntrl.com/learn. Also: a gentle testing-habit pulse on the Dashboard, both season checklists reachable again, a failed sign-up can simply be retried, and the paywall is upfront about the price.

The free tier is gone, and that is good news. Everything, for two weeks A new account now gets the whole app for two weeks — history, trends, reminders, weather, strip scanning, photo diagnosis, more than one pool. No card, nothing to cancel. Previously the free tier locked you out on your very first test; now you get the whole loop before deciding anything. The no-account calculator is unchanged and still permanent. Dosed against your jug, not a generic one Tell poolcntrl the strength printed on the bottle in your garage and the amount changes to match. A 12.5% jug and a 10% jug were never the same instruction, and low-fume muriatic is less than half the strength the old formulas assumed. Why this amount? Every recommendation now opens to show its arithmetic — your volume, your target, the math, and where the rounding went. Somebody to ask A new in-app assistant answers questions about your water, your equipment, the app, and your account. It explains and points you at your own numbers; it never prescribes a dose. Made for people who just got a pool A first-run checklist that takes you from empty app to first dose. Tap any acronym — FC, TA, CYA — for a plain-language definition without leaving the screen. Learn articles now reachable from the dashboard, and "Why?" links from the readings themselves. Closing the retest loop "Retest now" straight from History, plus a reminder four hours after a dose, when the water has actually had time to move. Trends worth reading Chart any reading over 30 days, 90 days, the season, or everything you have. Saltwater Salt now appears in every summary that should mention it, with honest generator guidance instead of brand-specific claims. Your data is yours Download your full water-test and dose history as a CSV from the member area at poolcntrl.com. Also: saving no longer interrupts you with a pop-up, the satellite trace asks you to confirm the pool it found, you can resend a confirmation email from the check-your-inbox screen, subscription status reflects what the server actually knows, and the permission prompts finally explain themselves.

This update is mostly about what happens after you add the chemicals. Did it actually work? Log what you added, and poolcntrl checks your next test to see whether it worked. When it didn't, you get the likely reasons in plain language — a faded jug of chlorine, a dose that never mixed, rain since the last test. Check my kit Compare your test kit against a trusted reference — a fresh kit or a pool-store reading — and poolcntrl learns how much weight to give your numbers. Every reading now records how it was measured, and how sure you were of it. Smarter strip scanning Strip scans now match pad colors against measured reference colors instead of guessing, for reads you can actually trust. Reminders on their own Retesting, shock, floater refills, and weather headed your way. Keep the kinds you want, turn the rest off. Doses you can measure Amounts come in real containers — "about half a gallon jug," tabs, cups — instead of decimals of a pound. Tabs come with guidance for your feeder, a shock comes with an actual dose, and every screen shows a dose the same way. Weather and seasons Freeze and cold-snap alerts, heat and heavy-rain guidance, and guided closing and opening checklists. A Knowledge Base, built in Plain-language guides on how a water test works, what each reading means, and how to add chemicals safely. A better free calculator The no-account calculator now handles saltwater, total chlorine, and water temperature. Also: readings charted over time, summaries that stay honest when the water isn't, better contrast, bigger touch targets, sign-out that never leaves you stuck, and a long list of pool-side fixes.