6 Different Ways to Use the Smart Logger Temp & Humidity Monitor

Previously published by CFI eNews

You already know about the Smart Logger’s unmatchable monitoring and reporting capabilities. It’s so handy to just place it at the job site, knowing it’ll track and produce reports for up to 300 days worth of ambient temperature and humidity data, even while you’re away. You can also view current conditions in real time from the Smart Logger mobile app.

But did you know just how many different ways you can make use of this handy, convenient device?

How the Smart Logger™ Works

The Smart Logger is most commonly used at a job site, especially during and after major projects like cabinetry, door, and/or wood floor installation.

The compact sensor is placed in the area that needs consistent, long-term monitoring of ambient conditions. That if doors, cabinets, or new wood flooring start to develop issues like cupping, crowning, splitting, or warping, you can create a report that covers the timeframe that the Smart Logger has been installed, showing any changes in temperature or humidity that may have contributed to those issues.

The Smart Logger can be programmed to record ambient temperature and relative humidity at selected time intervals that you can download and analyze with the free app.

But aside from construction, a wide variety of circumstances require a controlled environment in terms of heat and moisture. From storage to shipping to labs to archives, Smart Logger captures and stores up to 300 days of reliable RH and temperature data, giving you the best record of ambient conditions that you’ll find from such a discreet, user-friendly device.

This makes it significantly easier to assess and protect the integrity of your products or materials—which is why you can often find Smart Logger devices among several different types of industries.

Lumber: Milling, Processing, and Shipping

Maintaining optimal and consistent wood moisture content is an ever-present concern for those in the lumber and woodworking industries.

Many lumber mills benefit by keeping the Smart Logger with their stored timber after it is kiln dried. Having a long-term record of any changes in temperature and humidity can help them determine if or why there might be a change in the stored wood’s moisture content, and if the boards need to be re-tested or if kiln dry schedules need to be adjusted.

During shipping and transport of wood products, the Smart Logger can be placed in a shipping container or attached to the kiln-dried wood to keep a log of ambient temperature and humidity readings in case the equilibrium moisture content (EMC) is compromised while in transit.

Post-Installation of Wood Flooring for Residential Customers

Even after a flawless installation of a beautiful hardwood floor, it wouldn’t be unheard of for you to get a call from a recent customer reporting defects related to ambient moisture.

You know you did everything right with that install job, but they’re telling you that they see cupping or crowning or checks in the boards. So you ask:

“Has there been any changes to the environment in your home since the floor was installed? Any increases or decreases of humidity or temperature?”

They’ll likely say no, so it’s just your word against theirs. And if you guarantee your services, it would be nice if you could easily prove that these wood floor defects do not indicate a flawed installation.

Fortunately, some wood flooring installers now leave a Smart Logger sensor in the customer’s home after installation. They’ll let it collect data for an appropriate amount of time and then return to read the data.

Not only does this demonstrate to the customer that you care about the quality of our job’s performance and not just the install itself–it also arms you with data in case there are changes in the home’s temperature or humidity that cause warping in the floorboards.

Shipping of Perishable Goods (Meats, Produce, Pharmaceuticals, etc.)

There’s no room for guesswork in keeping perishable cargo within highly-specific temperature and humidity ranges.

Food can spoil or if nothing else, lose it’s crispness or fade in color.

If dried goods are exposed to ambient moisture for too long, they could change in consistency or shape, or even develop mold.

Pharmaceuticals could lose their potency if the temperature is not kept constant, and when transporting medical liquids or biological specimens, conditions must be monitored closely and consistently in order to keep them viable.

In 2013, the international liner shipping industry transported around 120 million containers, filled with approximately $4 trillion worth of cargo. It is estimated that 10% to 12% of shipped cargo is lost from moisture damage.
Source: http://gcaptain.com

Temperature and humidity are set and tested at the start of transport and tested again upon arrival. But what happens if the arrival reading shows a considerable change? How do you know how long the goods were sitting in suboptimal conditions? How do you know if the cargo was truly compromised or not?

You might also find out that even though the arrival temperature is within range, the cargo doesn’t look right. Was there a temporary fluctuation in ambient conditions during the trip?

Often in the name of safety, any doubt in the integrity of perishable goods means disposal.

But if you placed a Smart Logger device inside the shipping container for the duration of the trip, the information provided in its reports can give you important indications as to whether your cargo was transported under the most optimal conditions. If not, Smart Logger’s reports will pinpoint the time of the compromise in conditions so you can make better-informed transport decisions going forward—which could result in significant savings.

Supply Stockpiles (Dept. of Defense, FEMA, etc.)

Even after the transportation of perishable supplies, several circumstances call for long-term storage or stockpiling. This requires careful management of temperature and humidity as well.

Say you’ve worked in incident response, mobile clinics, mobile mortuaries or cold storage. It won’t take you but a split second to figure out how the Smart Logger’s convenient monitoring and reporting capabilities can be invaluable.

To maintain a constant state of readiness, FEMA maintains several stockpiles of medical supplies, food, water, and other necessities to enable a rapid response after disasters. Being able to rely on high-quality environmental monitoring data not only streamlines the response process but helps accurately assess the integrity of the stockpiled goods.

Smart Logger’s ability to record the past 300 days of data can serve as a diagnostic tool as well. If you open up a storage unit and the goods are spoiled, even though conditions seem favorable at the time, you can have Smart Logger chart the changes in temperature and humidity so you can determine if and when something happened that compromised the controlled environment.

Vaults, Archives, Museums

Food and meds aren’t the only goods that need consistently controlled conditions. Libraries, museums, and document archives often have a strict preservation protocol to avoid degradation of their collections.

The Smart Logger adds convenience and applicable data to the maintenance of temperature and humidity, which directly affects the life of your facility’s artifacts, historical documents, film reels or even organic material.

Heat and moisture can warp or even ruin older materials and encourage mold growth or insect activity. Cold temperatures or air that’s too dry could cause other materials to become weak or brittle.

If your job depends on your ability to properly preserve these collections, you want to rely on more than just a tricked-out thermostat to assess the effectiveness of climate control. You want a 24/7 eye on the ambient conditions that can also provide you with important information that helps you modify storage conditions to attain optimal performance.

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Laboratories

Medical and scientific laboratories typically involve sensitive materials and chemicals along with sophisticated equipment. Failure to control a lab’s internal climate could result in corrosion, miscalibration, condensation, overheating … the list goes on.

Even before unfavorable temperature and humidity levels would outright damage equipment or raw materials, the reputation of a lab rests on producing consistent results through a highly regulated process. Just a few degrees of temperature difference can affect the outcomes of various tests and procedures.

That’s why Smart Logger can add precision to the controlled environment within a lab. Having that kind of historical data can determine if there was a difference in the optimal temperature or moisture levels during a certain time.

Any time or place that temperature and ambient moisture matters for the success of your work, the Smart Logger puts you in touch with the relative humidity data you need.

Where or how do you use your Smart Logger device? Let us know in the comments!

For discreet, reliable data logging of ambient temperature and RH, get the Smart Logger for your project!

Jason Spangler

Jason has 20+ years’ experience in sales and sales management in a spectrum of industries and has successfully launched a variety of products to the market, including the original Rapid RH® concrete moisture tests. He currently works with Wagner Meters as our Rapid RH® product sales manager.

Last updated on September 6th, 2023