Does Your Apex Have A Heartbeat?

08 Mar, 2017

Connectivity alerts are now available within the APEX Fusion cloud service..

Reefkeepers who have run an Apex aquarium controller for several years may already be aware that with some creative setup, Apex users were able to detect a power outage and be notified of the problem despite the power failure in progress.

To pull this off required the use of one or more battery backups, which were used to power the Apex unit during the outage and maintain Internet connectivity (if it could be kept active) by powering network hardware (routers and modems). This scheme also required the use of a secondary power supply option for the Apex head unit, with programming to detect when power was lost to one of the two power sources, using this status as an indication to start firing off email alerts.

While such a setup can still be established with the Neptune Systems Apex controllers, a far more elegant and simple approach has recently been added to the Apex Fusion cloud service: Heartbeat.

With the new Heartbeat feature, Apex Fusion monitors communication with your Apex, and if it goes silent for a certain amount of time (30-40 minutes), the cloud-based Fusion service can send you warning notifications. This functionality is available to all Apex users who utilize the Fusion cloud service.

Neptune Systems stresses that this is a very basic warning; it cannot tell you what is wrong, only that communications have been lost. What you do with that information is up to you.

In discussing this latest addition to Apex Fusion with Terence Fugazzi, VP of Sales & Marketing at Neptune Systems, he was quick to reiterate that the more intricate “classic” power-outage setup described above still has merit.

“That will still tell you a bit more as it will let you know that it is [specifically] a power outage. But [Heartbeat] will let you know if network goes down, or should there be an issue with your Apex itself.”

Learn more about APEX Fusion Heartbeat in the video below:

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