You've reached the end of your three years or you've received a replacement sensor and you need to switch your current sensors with your new ones - here is a process for that!
🛠️Option 1
Full swap (regular)
- Your new sensors arrive (Yay!) You should see the new sensors in the Conserv app and will be put in a holding “Space” in the sensors tab until you have assigned them to their new locations and merged them.
- You will be able to move the sensor as you wish once they are added to your account, this “Space” will disappear once all of the new sensors have been moved into their correct spaces.
- Assign names that correspond to the current sensors, so you may match them easier when merging the old with the new.
- While doing this, we recommend creating a spreadsheet with the serial numbers for the sensors and which corresponding sensor you will merge them with. You can also label each sensor with blue tape or other label tape (Removable) so you know which is which.
- Activate each sensor by pulling the tab on each sensor
- You can do this in-situ or at your desk depending on your preference
- some people like to do this so they can do a comparison of the sensors for calibration information (and do a little side bar on what's acceptable for calibrated sensors - our new sensors are ±1% RH (typical), ±2% RH (maximum) and ±0.1°C (typical), ±0.3°C (maximum))
- You may want to do this in batches depending on the number of sensors you are merging and swapping. Do what you feel is manageable, we recommend 10 or less at a time
- You can do this in-situ or at your desk depending on your preference
- Once each sensor has had the tab pulled, give it a moment to connect to the gateway. The connection will be visible on the sensor card in card view. (NOTE: It is very important that you confirm that the new sensor is online and reporting data in the cloud before you move onto to the next step as merging with an offline sensor can cause the software to become very confused).
- If you have waited several minutes and you are not seeing the connection happen please give the sensor a shake, this pushes a message to the gateway helping establish a connection.
- Troubleshooting sensors: if you have a hard time establishing a connection to your gateway, (Soft reset instructions) then move to (Hard reset instructions)
- Once your sensor is connected, and is labeled as you wish, you can merge the old sensor with the new one.
Caution: Please watch the video above carefully. The old sensor must be on the left and the new sensor must be on the right. If you accidentally try to merge your sensors the other way around, this will break the process, and the only way to fix that is to get the engineers at Conserv to fix it from the back end. Please send us a support ticket saying you may have merged your sensors the wrong way round. This will help us fix your problem faster. Don't forget to name the serial numbers for the equipment involved and say which one is which (new vs. old).
How will you know the merge broke because the sensors were chosen the wrong way around?
Your graph for the new sensor will continue to report although the Wi-Fi icon on it will look offline. Your new sensor may give you a continuous yellow or orange blinking light. Your old sensor will move to the Inactive sensors view, but it is actually the one reporting into your new sensor's graph.
6. Once merged, all you need to do is take the old sensor down and replace it with the new one.
Important: Once your new sensors are merged and up and running, it's important that you remove the batteries from the old sensors. This will stop them from remaining connected and sending you doubled up data for the same sensor card on your dashboard.
If you have recently merged and switched out old sensors for new, and your graph starts going up and down suddenly, you may actually be seeing the data from both the new and old sensors reporting in the same graph. Please remove the batteries from the old sensors to stop them reporting.
📦 Returning the Old Sensors:
- When sending the old sensors back, we ask that you remove the batteries, and recycle them according to your local regulations. Please do not place them in the package you send back. Lithium Thionyl Chloride batteries are considered hazardous goods and should not be sent back loose in bags or envelopes.
- There will be a prepaid shipping label provided for the return of the old sensors once you send us the approximate weight and dimensions of the box. Please reuse the packaging that the new equipment arrived in, and simply repack the sensors as the new ones came in. Affix the prepaid label to the outside of the box and it is ready to be returned to us. You must use the prepaid shipping label within 30 calendar days from the day that we issued it, or it will stop working and will need to be re-issued at extra cost.
🧷 Option 2:
If you are concerned about data overlap, or collecting data that is not in the location/environment that your current sensor is in, you may want to activate and merge the sensors in situ.
This will allow you to have data continuity, without much or any disruption in the data collected as it will be activated and start collecting data in the same location/environment as the current sensor.
If this is not a concern, and you are okay with there being a small amount of time of the sensor data collection happening in a different environment than what it will be monitoring, then it does not matter where you activate the devices. The latter allows more flexibility and comfort while swapping your fleet.
If you are concerned about the data continuity, and you recognize that there will be a small variance in the collection from activation to installation, you can always make an observation on the sensors timeline so you know why you are seeing any irregularity, this is of course optional.