A new Cobra Model the 18R3

[displayfireworks1]

It looks like the folks at Cobra have a new 18 R3 on the horizon. Here are some pictures released by Cobra.
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[BMoore]

Looks nice, but word on the street is this will be around $2,000+ and geared more towards display companies while the current R2 will live on for most shooters.

[KDirk]

Saw (brief) video of this from CobraCon a couple of weeks ago posted on YouTube. Based on what was said about it, I expect it to be quite costly; a street price of $2K doesn't strike me as unlikely, given the specs and construction). While I can see that true pro operations have a need for something more robust than the current 18R2 for durability under heavy regular use (and an improved self contained user interface, rather than the Control Center approach of linking an external tablet to the controller), at that price point it will likely have limited appeal to the consumer/"prosumer" market, which is where I figure much of the growth in the market has been the last few years. The professional market only has so many companies involved, and there is some competition from other high end firing systems (some of which are far more expensive than Cobra, admittedly) in that area.

It would be nice to eventually see an upgraded 18R2 with a better display than the current 7 segment LED readout (really it's only notable shortcoming, IMHO, and even that is a fairly minor quibble). An upgraded metal case could even be offered in the same form factor as the 18R2 for those who find the plastic enclosure too easily damaged, but I guess that's less likely now that a clean sheet heavy duty design has emerged. The upgraded communications facilities are also clearly geared towards professional operators shooting over very large, spread out sites where the current mesh network may not be adequate in all cases. To be clear, none of the above is to be critical of the new product, just my observations that the 18R3 is not something I perceive the small timer (like me) is likely to invest in (unless the price ends up being lower than present speculation).

I guess my only concern is whether the 18R2 will continue to be offered long term. The bigger potential issue there is that all hardware has an EOL point where the constituent parts (proprietary IC's, primarily) become difficult to source, which forces a redesign of the product to use newer chips that will be available. This has sort of happened once already with the RF module having to be changed, and forcing a redesign of the original 18R2 to accommodate a new communications module. Given the time that has elapsed since the 18R2 was first introduced, I have to wonder when that will become a concern. In any event, I'll be interested to learn more about the 18R3 as more information is made available.

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[BMoore]

My understanding is that the 18R2 and 18R3 will be marketed as two distinct products as opposed to the R3 being an upgrade to the R2. I had suggested to Cobra that they should maybe offer a new R2 with the upgraded form factor or an 18R3 "Lite" without all the bells and whistles that could sit in between the basic R3 and full monty R3. It sounds like that is not in the cards, but they do have some advancements to the current R2 in the works so we'll see how that plays out.

My concern is the future direction of the Cobra system in general. A controller for display companies in the $2K range puts it on par with Fire One. For that kind of investment are the modules and slats going to be upgraded as well? Does it make much sense to have a metal enclosed controller but plastic modules? Is the end game going to be to push Cobra to the display companies while the Ignite system will be meant to start capturing the hobbyist/small display company market?

[KDirk]

@BMoore, your last paragraph raises a valid point. While the controller can certainly be viewed as the "weak link" for those pro operators who need a true heavy duty professional class product, the 4 presently available firing modules are built to the same basic standard as the 18R2. While that certainly isn't bad, since they do benefit from external cases, and various other protective options like the silicone covers, I'm left to wonder if the eventual intent is to take the Cobra system strictly upscale/pro market, and steer hobbyists towards ignite. I think that would be foolish, as there are many hobbyists who already use Cobra heavily, and while Ignite is a good system, even in it's already slightly expanded form, it will not scale to the level that many "serious hobbyists" are already running with Cobra system hardware. Unless, of course, Cobra has plans for upgrading Ignite that are yet unknown.

If the eventual intent is to bifurcate the market between hobbyists and pros, then either Ignite will have to be much further expanded in it's capabilities, or non-professional operators will have to expect to pay far more for newer generation Cobra hardware, if the present model designs are eventually phased out in favor of heavy duty pro versions. Of course, I have no inside info on what the future plans are for either system, and perhaps the status quo will be maintained long term. But the 18R3 strikes me as the opening effort to target the segment of the market presently served by FireOne, and it isn't unreasonable to surmise that upgraded firing modules will eventually follow, in turn.

Heck, just upgraded firmware programming would've a major improvement for large operators, instead of having to manually reflash each module via the USB programming stick. I don't know if that's possible with the existing hardware or not, but if it is, I'd expect that will be done to further entice large professional pyro firms with dozens of firing modules in their inventory to consider Cobra. From what I see preliminarily on the 18R3, this feature may be in play.

Overall, I've been quite pleased with the Cobra system. It does what I need it to well and reliably. I'd hope that I'm able to continue using it (and expanding, as is needed) without suddenly being faced with a massive increase in hardware cost because the target market for Cobra hardware has changed.

[topshelfpyro]

No, Fireone for 150 cues and only manual controller is $10,000 and go up almost exponentially from there.
The 2 output "automatic" controller is $5000.

I shoot with FireTEK and my controller with GPS and all the bells was like $1100ish.

The prosumer firing systems: FireTEK, Cobra, Mongoose are all much cheaper than Fireone especially as a package.

https://www.fireone.com/pricing

[KDirk]

@topshelfpyro-

I knew FireOne was considerably more expensive, but didn't realize it was that disparate of a pricing structure (versus most others on the market). I recall looking at their site at one point a few years ago when I first got interested in firing systems, but didn't really make a firm note of the costs on their hardware. Even then, as good as the existing Cobra system is, I can easily see professional operators wanting something more hardened for long term durability, so I'm not surprised at the development of the 18R3, nor will I be surprised if hardened versions of the firing modules are eventually released with an eye towards that part of the market. I'd guess there is a decent amount of sales to chase in that category, especially those professionals who already use Cobra and will need or want to upgrade, in replacing existing hardware.

One of the things I mentioned before was reflashing firmware. From the preliminary talk about the 18R3 I've seen, it sounds like it is (or at least eventually will be) able to store firmware files for other devices (like firing modules and the audio box) and batch update them en masse while powered on and synced, rather than having to rely on the programming stick and do each one individually. While that doesn't seem like a big deal to someone with a half dozen modules (or less), I imagine for big pro operators it gets cumbersome and time consuming to manage doing a reflash on a large number of decices, so that feature makes a lot of sense.

I'm sure there are other future plans for new features, things I probably haven't even thought of, that haven't been revealed publicly yet. I'll be interested to see how far the Cobra hardware is taken in the coming years, but will hope that they don't end up pushing hobbyists downward into less robust systems like Ignite, in further pursuing the professional level market with upgraded hardware that displaces the present lineup. I guess the question is, how much business growth is there to chase in each segment, and how many different models they can justify making based upon the demand at each level. I have no idea the answer to that, but I'm sure the management at Cobra knows their business, given their success to date.

[topshelfpyro]

@KDirk-

Yea Fireone is nuts for the non-paid pyro or even the paid pyro LOL It's also primarily a wired system. I have a good friend that's a Cobra guy with maybe 50 modules. I was just kidding him about an R3, he likes some of the features, especially the case, but until he decides to need some of them, he has no intention even as cool as it is. Even if I had $ for fireone I would not buy it but that is me.

I agree some of the things you have to do with Cobra is a bit antiquated, but I don't really have a dog in that fight since I use a different system. The Cobra marketing machine is strong though.

[BMoore]

No, Fireone for 150 cues and only manual controller is $10,000 and go up almost exponentially from there.
The 2 output "automatic" controller is $5000.

I shoot with FireTEK and my controller with GPS and all the bells was like $1100ish.

The prosumer firing systems: FireTEK, Cobra, Mongoose are all much cheaper than Fireone especially as a package.

https://www.fireone.com/pricing

Yes, you are correct. I based my comment on the $2,195 MP2 controller but at second look that is a manual fire only controller. Like you said it's north of $10,000 to get into the FireOne game. Crazy. I feel like the only reason their price structure hangs on is because so many display companies were invested in that ecosystem before lower priced, quality systems hit the market. Nothing about FireOne has really ever really impressed me other than being built like a tank and virtually indestructible.

[KDirk]

@BMoore, it is incredible to me that a system that costly caught on at all. I mean, there are still large municipal shows I hear are fired with "nail boards" and pushbutton hardwired control panels. Certainly big venues like Disney could justify such an investment, but for the commercial pyro operator, I'd figure it'd have been cheaper to home brew a custom hardwired system than to go with a system costing tens of thousands of dollars for any significant quantity of hardware. Maybe I'm off base, but I never saw the commercial pyro show business as being so lucrative that it made the sort of money to offset that level of equipment investment. Being that it is highly seasonal, with limited business outside of July 4th and new year's (in the US), makes it a harder sell from a capital equipment standpoint.


Having viewed FireTEK's site, they clearly have a good system with well built hardware going at fairly reasonable cost. Not too different from Cobra, in that respect. When I first went looking a few years ago, I really liked the look of FireLinx initially, but was a slightly put off by the fact there was only a 24 cue module, and no slat type system implemented. I still find it an intriguing system, and wouldn't mind eventually owning some to augment my Cobra setup. I am a bit surprised there aren't more members here who use it. I've seen Dave use it in a couple of his videos.

I guess Cobra became the prevalent system pretty quickly with prosumer types, especially after the 18R2 was released and added scripting capability. That seems as though it coincided with the rise of larger scale pyro hobbyists. Part of the reason I went with Cobra was for the greater variety of firing modules, and for the wider apparent adoption among those doing their own shows. I've been quite happy with it so far. As well, I rationalized that there would be greater opportunity to get questions answered by fellow users, and also to buy second hand hardware (which has proven to be the case) which would allow me to expand my setup at somewhat lower cost. Like most, I'd love to see more cues, but for the cost of doing so being a tough pill to swallow as a small time hobbyist.