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Reserve Your Seat TodayA humidity gauge can be a useful tool for monitoring your business's network infrastructure. Humidity gauges can give you a continuous reading of your site's relative humidity. This is great for protecting your hardware from dangerous environmental conditions. Humidity doesn't discriminate between certain devices or industries. It doesn't matter what your business is. If you use complex electronic gear, you are susceptible to the dangers of high and low humidity.
How Does a Humidity Gauge Work?
Overall, a humidity gauge is a pretty basic device. The gauge itself contains two metal nodes. There's an electric current between them. The sensor measures recorded voltage relative to the surrounding air temperature. Higher voltage means more humid air. Basically, the humidity gauge runs an electric current between two metal nodes. It measures the voltage level that occurs as a result of the air's humidity. Humidity gauges are popular, efficient, and reliable devices for determining the environment's humidity conditions.
Reasons You May Need a Humidity Gauge
Weather and environmental conditions change quickly. They can unexpectedly wipe out your electronic infrastructure. If you manage electronic devices, then you likely know the effects that humidity can have on your equipment. High percentages of humidity cause elevated moisture levels in the air. They quickly lead to short-circuiting electronics. Alternatively, low humidity will cause brittle circuit board. You will have buildups of static electricity that generate spontaneous and unexpected failures.
Analog and Digital: The Two Basic Types of Humidity Gauges
When it comes to keeping electronic devices online, there are two basic industry standards for monitoring humidity. Digital sensors, often called "discrete sensors," are gauges that monitor and control humidity using a specific limit. You know what? You may be familiar with this type of gauge through your personal air conditioning unit at home. When the discrete sensor records a pre-set temperature, the thermostat will alert the air conditioning. It will then turn on and provide cooling. Once the temperature falls back under that limit, the air conditioning will stop.
Analog humidity gauges are a bit more complex. Analog gauges provide you the ability to monitor humidity levels within a range of limits. This provides you with a continuous and specific humidity percentage (i.e. 73%, 32%, 10%, etc.). Analog humidity gauges can function exactly like discrete gauges. They are also useful when you need to know the exact percentage of your environment's humidity.
Customize and Integrate Your Humidity Gauge
It is useful having a humidity gauge tracking your infrastructure's humidity level. But humidity gauges are useless if they don't provide you with an easy way to access and control their data. Most companies find it necessary to combine their humidity gauges with an RTU, or remote telemetry unit. You can't just teleport to a site in order to read the levels on your humidity gauge. RTUs conveniently bring the information right to you. Many of the advanced RTUs available today can provide you with customized alerts (email, SMS, voice call). Alerts can be set up to match the size of the humidity problem. Slight problems trigger minor alerts. Major problems wake you up at 3AM if needed. One such RTU, the NetGuardian 216, can operate 16 discrete sensors, 2 analog sensors, and 2-18 controls. It displays its results through a series of online gauges. These are right within your web browser or smartphone.
Certain systems, such as T/Mon, developed by DPS Telecom, allows more advanced options for viewing your humidity levels. T/Mon is known for its ability to provide detailed environmental readings via a web interface. It pinpoints the geographical locations of your humidity gauges. It displays pictures of your gear and location. It provides detailed history, alerts, and error analysis.
In addition, many firms choose to integrate their humidity gauge within a larger monitoring system. This improves the efficiency of their entire operation. Humidity gauges can be integrated with other gear. Let's think about some examples. You can add temperature sensors and battery voltage monitors. You can add climate control and smoke detectors. You can add fuel tank gauges and more.
