Boatsense revisited, works good

Hot and humid in Maine, a good chance to hang in the lab with the Boatsense Solutions remote monitoring system I’ve been meaning to test further and photograph. Today I learned to program it so it will send the particular message you might want depending on the particular sensors you’ve hooked to the three auxiliary inputs. You have to get the syntax right, but once I sent the text message “#AM3Intruder!” to the monitor’s phone number, then broke the connection between the Aux #3 wire and ground, the unit called me with the “Intruder!” message above.

Auxiliary 3 is meant for on-until-alarm sensors like a magnetic door minder. The other two are meant for standard off-until-alarm sensors like, say, an engine room temperature alarm (right). I also simulated a high bilge alarm. It, and the battery monitoring built in, are nice in that they return a different message—like “Bilge Water Normal”—when the sensor resets to its normal state. The Auxiliaries just send the same message when reset, like “Intruder!” when the door is closed (you’ll need a switch on that sensor for when you use the boat’s door yourself). Not a biggie. And, by the way, most alarms rang my phone in less than one minute. Nice.