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Humidity monitoring (RH)

The importance of humidity monitoring and the benefits it offers

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OmniWatch dashboard

News: New indoor air quality monitoring to limit the spread of Covid-19 and other aerosol related infections.

Monitoring specialists

Spook's award winning remote monitoring service called OmniWatch monitors Humidity. Measuring humidity across many different assets and areas; OmniWatch presents realtime readings in an easy to use real-time digital dashboard.

Irregular RH levels can cause harm to a wide range of electrical equipment, ruin produce, encourage pathogen growth or even indicate unseen issues elsewhere.

Spook and OmniWatch was voted Specialist Technology Company of the Year and Most Innovative Solution of the Year at the annual UK CIR Business Continuity Awards.

What is relative humidity?

RH is a measurement of the amount of water vapour present in the air and is stated as a percentage of the amount needed to achieve saturation at the same temperature.

The aim of humidity monitoring is to ensure the safety of the local environment and allow a quick and correct response to the shifting humidity factors in the surrounding area.

Being able to react correctly and quickly can not only save products from unnecessary damage and create a safe environment for people but it could also be used as a cost saving initiative when it comes to the demands of power consumption on air conditioning units.

High humidity

High RH can cause an undesirable level of moisture in the air which can negatively impact a wide range of products as well as creating an uncomfortable environment for people.

Increased moisture in the air can damage electronic equipment due to rusting and corrosion. Tiny water droplets cause short circuits when they come in contact with the devices circuitry. In addition, if the asset overheats, it might break down.

High humidity also effects manufactured products, structures, encourage the growth of mould and mildew and cause perishable items to rot.

Low humidity

Low RH levels can cause excess build up of static electricity, increase the susceptibility of colds and respiratory illnesses and allows viruses and germs to thrive.

To illustrate how harmful a static discharge can be to electrical equipment; the human body is capable of carrying up to 25,000 volts of electrical current from static buildup, but it only takes 4,000 volts to damage the sensitive circuitry of electronic equipment.

Low humidity can also have adverse effects on plants, wood, paint and other objects that are hygroscopic as their natural moisture levels are decreased in line with the low humidity level.

Goldilocks zone for electrical equipment

The typical desired range for humidity in an electronics environment is between RH 30% and RH 70%. Some facilities try to maintain a constant moderate RH level of ~50%, while others may want a lower RH% rate due to humidity sensitive parts.


OmniWatch key features

Cloud based

OmniWatch is cloud based and is accessed via any internet enabled device.

3-tier alarms

Alarms are handled using Spook's unique 3-tier alarm escalation process.

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Digital dashboards

OmniWatch dashboards provide interactive and intuitive access to sensor readings 24/7.

Scaleable installations

Totally scaleable from a handful of sensors to a global solution monitoring 1000s of devices.

Trend analysis

Sensor readings are held in perpetuity; providing accurate historical trend analysis.

Automated reporting

Comprehensive reports can be scheduled to be auto emailed daily, weekly and monthly.

Bedford Borough Council

Our Computer Room Air Conditioning (CRAC) units have automatic de-humidifiers. We have humidity sensitive server room equipment that needs to operator between 40-60% humidity, therefore it is important for us to know when there are any readings approaching these thresholds. When the humidity becomes too high or too low our CRAC units change their settings to adjust the humidity automatically. OmniWatch helps us to ensure humidity levels remain within their expected levels.

Bedford Borough Council - Unitary authority of the borough of Bedford.

Fun fact

Tonal language and humidity

A humans vocal cords contain a pair of mucus membranes that stretch across the larynx. As we speak air is controlled from our lungs and cause the larynx to vibrate. The level of moisture in the air effects the elasticity of our vocal cords and hence have a direct effect on our tonal range.

Recent scientific research has proven that the environment has a direct impact on speech. After studying more than 3,700 languages it was discovered that tonal languages found commonly in Asia rarely develop in dry climates.

Humidity helps bug diversity

Because most bugs are small, humidity increases the opportunity for them to survive. The smaller the bug the more likely it is to dehydrate because it has a larger surface area relative to their whole body size.

Humid nights are especially helpful to moths who make the most of moist climates. A world leading Professor of Entomology at the University of Arizona, Goggy Davidowitz, determined that hawk-moths (Manduca Sexta) can detect a four percent difference in humidity by sensing changes in the evaporation of flower nectar.

The warm, moist atmosphere of a humid environment helps hawk- moths to identify which flowers are higher in nectar than others and as a consequence helps them to conserve energy whilst foraging.

Support for new monitoring customers

New to monitoring

We help organisations start monitoring projects from scratch. We have a wealth of experience that is free and helpful in creating an informed approach to monitoring.

We are also resellers to industry leading sensor and equipment manufacturers and can recommend the most appropriate hardware and sensors to fit any size monitoring project.

"

We had been considering monitoring for a while but did not have the resource or the knowledge to fully understand how to go about doing things from scratch.

We approached Spook as they have lots of experience in looking independently at monitoring projects. They recommended and provided the most appropriate hardware and sensors for us.

The sensors arrived pre-configured and were implemented on OmniWatch by Spook before we installed them.

VAX
Support for customers with existing monitoring

Additional monitoring

Many of our customers have tried monitoring for themselves.

This ranges from institutions that rely on equipment onboard data loggers and communications cards; to organisations that have started monitoring projects but need help to extend monitoring to new areas and/or implement a central monitoring solution.

"

We needed a remote monitoring service that did not require an on premise PC and was independent of our network.

Spook provided pre-configured cellular routers for each of our five locations across the UK. The whole project was a simple plug-and-play solution with no involvement from us.

NHS Business Services Authority
"

We had been considering monitoring for a while but did not have the resource or the knowledge to fully understand how to go about doing things.

When we Googled the various areas of interest we got more confused.

We approached Spook as they have a different outlook to simply buying hardware and sensors. Thankfully we now have a fully installed, joined up monitoring solution.

VAX
"

We had a series of climate monitors installed in our server rooms. Due to a change in our security policy we needed a remote monitoring service that did not require an on premise PC and was independent of our network.

Spook suggested a technology upgrade and provided pre-configured cellular routers for each of our five server locations across the UK. The whole project was a simple plug-and-play solution with no involvement from us.

NHS Business Services Authority

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Used by

888
Alder Hey Children's
Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership
Creative Assembly
Clatterbridge Cancer Centre
East Riding of Yorkshire
Fiskars
Friends Provident
Generali
Greene King
Handelsbanken
Hilti
Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital
Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells
Muller
NHS BSA
Nisa
P&O Ferrymasters
Principality
Reed
St Albans
Thermo Fisher
Vax
Waterstones
  • 888
  • Alder Hey Children's
  • Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership
  • Creative Assembly
  • Clatterbridge Cancer Centre
  • East Riding of Yorkshire
  • Fiskars
  • Friends Provident
  • Generali
  • Greene King
  • Handelsbanken
  • Hilti
  • Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital
  • Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells
  • Muller
  • NHS BSA
  • Nisa
  • P&O Ferrymasters
  • Principality
  • Reed
  • St Albans
  • Thermo Fisher
  • Vax
  • Waterstones

Get in touch with Spook

Please contact us if you wish for further information on how Spook can help with your environmental and power monitoring needs.

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