Specifications, Availability and Pricing

Looking at the Recon as if it were in the case, you are given a thin black bezel that is given the SofTouch treatment. The top left has BitFenix painted in white and the bottom right has the Recon name, also in white paint. Taking the vast majority of the area up is the 4.7"� touch screen. The screen has a glossy finish so it will be easy to clean and once powered leaves complete control of your PC's cooling at the touch of a finger. Keeping the theme going, when the Recon is powered, the white LEDs of the information it displays keeps the black and white thing going throughout the whole design. On this screen you have control of five channels with ten watts going to each of them. There is auto controls that allow the PWM circuitry to do its thing or a manual override to allow finite control of each fan on the controller. It will display temperatures from its sensors, fan RPMs, which channel you are reading or adjusting and an image of a fan in motion or not depending on settings, even an icon for the alarms and a power icon.

Along with being able to keep track of the fans speeds, temperatures from included probes or let the Recon do it all for you with the auto setting, the trick that really sets this controller apart is all attached to the PCB that contains all of the power circuitry. There you will find two unusual things for a fan controller. The first is a pair of dual USB 2.0 connections (9-pin) to connect to the motherboard; these allow communication to the second oddity on this controller. There is an ELAN EM78P520NL44S chip and the ATMEL211 chip which I believe is onboard memory for the profiles. These take controlling fans to the levels of being able to do so from either a phone or any PC on the network; it simply doesn't get any better than this.

As for where you can one get this trick bit of kit? Well in the US there are currently only three listings. One listing was at Newegg, but I don't believe stock has arrived yet as they are shown as Out Of Stock, priced at $37.99 with shipping included. The other two locations are within a dollar of each other. Those are Xoide and Outletpc with a $42.90 and $41.93 shipped pricing, respectively.

Considering the cost of the Hydra Pro and the lack of features compared to this being sold at $35, it almost kills the Hydra unless you demand a high powered controller and in my mind is the only reason to go with the Hydra Pro over this really amazing amount of tech packed into what appears to be an ordinary touch fan controller. Even compared to other digital or touch controllers, the $42 US dollars it is going to cost is just a drop in the hat once this thing is all set up and running.