One challenging part of running a tech startup is making people understand what your powerful and complex product does – in a quick and easy way. Ever since we launched Valarm people have been telling us we should produce an overview video. When we describe Valarm some people just don’t “get it”, sometimes even the smartest people at Silicon Beach tech gatherings! So we’re hoping this video will clear things up and make the nature of Valarm a little more obvious.

We’ve created this 1-minute video with animations showing what Valarm can do and we’re curious to see what effects it will have on product interest. The product is still the same, it does remote environmental monitoring, mobile data acquisition, and asset / fleet tracking. However, is a friendly, colorful, animated video an effective way to generate interest and good first impressions for a tech startup? We’ll find out now that the video is front and center on the Valarm.net homepage, as well as the Google Play listing for Valarm Pro.

• Valarm Pro installed on an Android device
• Yoctopuce Yocto-Knob sensor
• A magnet switch for each window (up to 5 per Yocto-Knob sensor)

1. Connect your phone or tablet with the Yocto-Knob using a USB OTG cable. Use the lead wire(s) and ground wire to connect the Yocto-Knob to the magnet switch (alligator clips used in demo picture). The magnet switch will be attached to a window after Valarm app configuration.

2. In the Valarm app, launch the menu for All Settings > Yoctopuce > Knob.

3. Verify that any channels using trigger switches like the magnets are set to “Open triggers MAX” as shown in the photo below. In this example I’m just using Channel 1 but the Yocto-Knob has 5 channels available for any combination of electrical resistance sensors.

4. Now we’re ready to set up the windows for remote monitoring (a Sony Xperia U ST25i phone is shown in the photo below). Attach one piece of the magnet switch to the window and the other piece to the wall.

5. Arm Valarm and whenever the window is opened you get alerts according to your active responses: email, SMS / text message, audio, web via tools.valarm.net.

6. The moment your window is opened Valarm alerts you since you chose the “Open triggers MAX” setting in step 3.

7. The Valarm app with the Yocto-Knob supports up to 5 channels so you can set up a station for remote monitoring and data acquisition in all kinds of situations. Below is a picture with Valarm monitoring potentiometers, a force-resistive sensor (measures pressure and weight: how hard is it being squeezed or stepped on?), and liquid detection / flood alerting (Trader Joe’s chocolate almond milk in this example). Use photo-resistors, e-tape, or any combination of sensors you like to monitor anything, anywhere!

Sony Xperia U ST25i is an inexpensive, small device that works with Valarm’s external sensors.

The Sony Xperia U ST25i is used to monitor Longoria’s Fe Ciega vineyard in Santa Barbara, California. It is a great fit for Valarm Pro since it supports internal and external sensors: weather (temperature, humidity, barometric pressure), CO2, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), switches, knobs, electrical resistance. Valarm running on this Sony device provides economical:

• Air quality monitoring
• Intruder detection
• Flood alerts and water detection
• Mobile data acquisition with OBD2
• Remote home monitoring
• Personal environmental monitoring
• Asset tracking
• Monitoring home gardens, aquaponics, hydroponics
• Agriculture & viticulture monitors

You can get an Xperia U ST25i on Amazon, eBay, or anywhere else you like to shop! If your Xperia does not come with Android 4.0 or greater then download Sony Bridge for Mac or Sony PC Companion to upgrade it for USB OTG support with Yoctopuce sensors.

	GPS	Accel-erometer	Light	Mic / Audio	Audio Recording	Camera	Bluetooth (OBDII)	USB (Yoctopuce)
Sony Xperia U ST25i

Other Device Features

Note: These reviews and comments are our own opinions from our own experiences and your results may be different!

Use Valarm to monitor and alert you of environmental conditions like temperature, humidity, and CO2 levels.

Valarm provides remote environmental monitoring for agriculture and viticulture.

The air we breathe every day has volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as methane (from human breath), alcohol (cleaning supplies), formaldehyde (materials for building), ketones (paints), esters (glues), and terpenes (perfume). These are harmful to human health so:

• How can we find out how much bad air we’re breathing?
• Are there areas that are better for us to be when we’re outside?
• If you had the choice of where to go for an outdoor activity, would you choose based on air quality?

I was curious about this so I conducted a study in the Los Angeles, California, area using the Valarm app and the Yocto-VOC sensor. You can follow these steps and do the same thing in your neighborhood or area of interest.

For some people the Los Angeles area is notorious for pollution, but LA covers a lot of area so which parts of town are more dangerous for your health? Air quality can be observed to vary dramatically from the west end of the city (where the ocean is) to the east end, where mountains seem to trap pollutants.  There’s also variability from the north to south in air quality (and other health factors). My curiosity about this led to a presentation at the Vespucci Institutes: Synthesizing Population, Health, and Place on Catalina island. The pink dots in the map below show the areas where I collected Valarm VOC data.

Los Angeles, California, a diverse and sprawling city with dramatic air quality differences between each region. [Esri ArcGIS]

Some residential neighborhoods like El Segundo, California, are surrounded by chemical emitters such as refineries, airports, busy roads and freeways, and sewage treatment plants. Below are a couple pictures of the city of El Segundo taken on a Valarm data collection trip.

To do personal environmental monitoring with Valarm I plugged the Yocto-VOC into an Android device with the Valarm Pro app then placed the sensor in my jacket before I ran and walked around the different neighborhoods.

I used Valarm’s interval timer to collect data about the environment every 15 seconds. Next the Valarm data was uploaded to the Valarm Tools website where I could see the mobile data acquisition points and view graphs of sensor data.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in Santa Monica, California, using Valarm Tools.

Graph of Valarm VOC data on the Valarm Tools website.

Then I downloaded the VOC and air quality data in KML format from Valarm Tools in order to see it in 3D with Google Earth.

Downloading Valarm data in KML format for 3D Visualization in Google Earth.

Now I can see the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and their various ppm levels on a 3D globe.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) near University of Southern California (USC) in downtown Los Angeles, California.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in El Segundo, California. El Segundo is boxed in by a Chevron refinery, LAX airport, sewage treatment plants, and the busy 405 freeway!

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in Santa Monica, California.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in Palm Springs, California.

And you can do spatial interpolation with GIS analysis methods like inverse distance weighting (IDW) and kriging to create pollution maps.

Esri ArcGIS with spatial interpolation (inverse distance weighting, IDW) of VOC data gathered by the Valarm app.

Valarm mobile sensor data acquisition for analysis with Esri ArcScene and CityEngine.

The study shows parts of the Los Angeles, California, area that are potentially more dangerous, your results may vary! As a result of all this I’ll do my running and outdoor exercise in the western part of Los Angeles. This opens up the possibility for crowdsourced air quality measures since anyone can download and share their Valarm data as much as they like! Where in the world are the most dangerous levels of air quality?

Use Valarm to gather CO2 levels, water levels, temperature, humidity, and other sensor data. Valarm also does asset and fleet tracking, intruder detection, home monitoring, and more (monitor gardens, aquaponics, hydroponics, even agriculture and vineyards!). How do you use Valarm?

Two 3.4-watt solar panels provide plenty of power.

In March 2013 we deployed a solar powered Valarm unit to monitor the local climate of the Fe Ciega vineyard site of Longoria wines in Santa Barbara County, California. We built a waterproof box to contain our hardware and attached it to a south-facing fence. Inside the box is the Valarm Pro app installed on a Sony Xperia U ST25i, a beefy lithium-ion battery, a solar/lithium-ion charge controller, and a tiny USB hub for attaching multiple sensors, e.g., the Yoctopuce Yocto-Meteo sensor which gathers temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure data.

Deploying the Valarm solar unit for remote environmental monitoring at Fe Ciega vineyard of Longoria Wines.

Monitoring the environment is critical for agriculture, especially remote farms and vineyards so managers know the exact conditions of the micro-climate of their crops. By analyzing temperature and humidity trends, irrigation and other adjustments can be made to maximize crop yield and protect crops from freezes, or climate-affected pests such as mildew. Below is an example from tools.valarm.net showing five days of temperature and humidity values collected by Valarm at the vineyard.

Monitor remote environments: Valarm weather data collected at Longoria’s Fe Ciega vineyard.

Compare this with the general weather data for the nearest city, Lompoc:

While the low temperature for the nearby city of Lompoc was reported as 45° F, the actual overnight low temperature on the vineyard was 34° F. The Valarm app tells you what’s really happening in a remote environment.

A solar-powered Valarm unit with Yocto-Meteo climate sensor monitors a remote vineyard.

Some common users of CO2:

• Hydroponic growers (and to some degree aquaponics) frequently supplement CO2
• Captive reef aquarium facilities are also users of supplemental CO2

Some common producers:

• Brewery and winemaking operations are significant producers of CO2
• Humans in poorly-ventilated enclosed spaces like boardrooms, classrooms, music practice rooms, recording booths, and small music or video editing studios

Valarm on a Nexus 7 connected to a Yocto-CO2 sensor via USB.

Monitoring CO2, whether you’re using it for agricultural or ornamental purposes, or producing it due to industrial or food production activities, or simply living and working in enclosed spaces of any kind – can be critical for human health, productivity, and creativity. Edward is currently creating a CO2 page with much more information. We’ll link to it here as soon as he’s done. Perhaps the most important info: late last year the highly respected Lawrence Berkeley Labs released a study that shows in frightening numbers just how negatively CO2 affects human mental performance! We’re talking about CO2 in a not-unusual boardroom, classroom, studio, or other enclosed space full of people.

The Yocto-VOC USB sensor

Also in this latest release of Valarm Pro: VOCs or Volatile Organic Compounds can now be monitored and alerted upon like our other sensors. VOCs detectable by the Yocto-VOC include alcohols, aldehydes, aliphatic hydro-carbons, amines, aromatic hydro-carbons (e.g. gasoline vapors), carbon oxides, methane, LPG, ketones, and organic acids. All of these substances are seriously harmful to human health. Valarm allows you to monitor VOCs in real-time, record data to visualize trends, and trigger alerts at configurable levels. Check out this air quality study with the Valarm app in the Los Angeles, California, area to see which neighborhoods have healthier air.

In other news, we’ve dropped the price of Valarm Classic to $3 USD, and we’ve raised the price of Valarm Pro to a whopping $10 USD. For the customers who purchased early, yay! You will continue to receive updates to Valarm Pro for the entire product lifetime (forever, we hope!). Will the price go up again? Almost certainly. As we continue to develop Valarm, we will occasionally adjust the price to compensate for the rising value of our flagship product. With everything Valarm Pro does now, we still consider $10 to be a terrific value (and in fact we are frequently advised to raise the price significantly!)