Transcript
Introduction to PMI View for Android
In recent developments in software, we have released the PMI View app for Android. This is a direct counterpart to the iOS application available on the Google Play Store. Any Android phone that is modern enough, that is 7.0 or later, will be able to download it, and it has support for dark and light mode interfaces.
The main idea is that the PMI View app is the companion app, and it’s mainly used for technicians to connect to recorders, be able to see the live data and verify that their hookup is correct, and then to be able to start any recordings on it. This allows them to then retrieve the same recording, to be able to download it, to upload it to PQ Canvass, and to do a number of other things. This is useful for technicians, especially in areas where there’s not a lot of cell coverage, that it allows them to easily connect up to it.
USB Support on Android
The other thing that the PMI View Android has that the iOS does not have is USB support. Anything like firmware upgrades or setting the network settings through USB, it’s going to be a lot more stable, and we want to recommend that for major transactions like that. But of course, you can still download wirelessly or to any cell units as well.
As we said before, it’s got live data, it’s got recording management, and you can connect locally and through USB.
Installing the App
It’s really easy to install it if you just go to the Google Play Store and you search up PMI View. It should be the first recommended by Power Monitors, and then you would just install it as you would normally.
Main Navigation
Once you do, you’re greeted with this interface. There’s a couple things that you can do. Right over here is our main navigation bar. You have your devices here. Any recordings you download will be over here. Any recording templates, previously known as initialization settings on ProVision™, will appear here.
You can also import any of your previous XML settings from ProVision™ via web sync, which we can get into in a little bit. But we have a number of starter templates for you here that’s good for generalized PQ investigations, depending on what it is that you’re trying to do. And of course, you can see what they’re exactly set to over here.
PQ Canvass Account
You have your account right over here. This is where you would sign in with PQ Canvass. PQ Canvass is our cloud power quality investigation platform. So if you would like to upload your recordings, you just enter in your email and your password and hit login.
But of course, if you don’t have a PQ Canvass account, you don’t need one in order for this to work. PMI View can work as a sole app by itself. You don’t need to have PQ Canvass, although it is recommended.
Firmware Updates and Additional Features
The last couple things we have are for any firmware updates. If you want to check to see what version is cached on your phone, you can take a look over here. So if you’re sent out and you would like to upgrade the firmware, you can make sure that you have the latest one. For example, over here, we don’t have the Seeker+ one.
Any time that your phone is connected to the internet and you open PMI View, it will attempt to download any updates onto it, and then it stores them on there so that if you’re in a place without any cell coverage, you could still do the firmware update.
You can take a look at any calibration certificates for your Bolt™s. You can call PMI support, and we also have a glossary here for any vocabulary or any jargon term that you need to look up.
Adding and Connecting Devices
Over here is our main device page. If you would like to add a device, you just have to hit the plus button over here. There’s a couple ways that you can do this. The first one is through Bluetooth. It will attempt to scan for nearby devices, and it will populate over here.
If you already know your device is already up, you don’t have to do that. You can just hit manual, and you can enter the serial number if its Wi-Fi point is already up. Since we’re using this Android emulator, it won’t let us actually do Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, but we can connect to our devices that we have here at PMI headquarters.
If you have any device that is a cell unit or that is connected to your office’s network, you would enter in the IP address over here. So for example, if you have a cellular revolution, you would check this to ensure that that’s on, and then you would just enter the IP of the revolution. Over here are a couple that we added that we know that are here at PMI. And after that, you just hit connect, and boom.
Live Data and Visualization
This is the main interface for devices. You can see that we’re connected here. We can see what firmware version we’re on, and this is our Tensor™. Over here, we have the meter base. This just displays all the live data values as a meter.
You have your live waveform over here, and you can switch the channels as well too. Pause it. You got your vector diagram, and you can focus on phases. And then lastly, you got your harmonics, and you can toggle the fundamental on or off to help you visualize it. We also have the harmonic chart as well too, if you prefer that and you just prefer the numbers.
Since there’s not really an installation for a Tensor™, let’s try a Seeker™ and see what some of that looks like. Although I don’t think it’s connected to a live load right now. You can see what that looks like with a little bit more data.
Recording and Device Information
The other thing that we added too is this recording stopwatch. This tells you exactly how long the device has been recording for.
Couple of other things. Any information for any diagnostics, if you want to know what the time zone of the device is set to, frequency, the hookup type. Although for certain things you may not really need to do all this. You can hit the information button.
Over here we can do a new recording, we can restart, we can inspect the measures and see what it’s currently set up to. And we can download the recording that’s currently on the device. I think this one actually has a lot of data on it, 146 megabytes. But as you can see, it’s downloading, and this is the same exact way that you download it if you’re connected via the access point or if you’re connected through USB. So the paths don’t change.
Device Settings
For the device settings, you would want to be connected to its access point. That’s really the only way that you can set those, although we are working to add USB support for that. You cannot access the device settings through the IP, which is what we’re currently doing at the moment.
Viewing Downloaded Recordings
For example, right over here, we just downloaded a recording, and we can go back over here and take a look at that. That tells us the duration of the recording, the start and the end, which was just when we did it, size, and then we have all of the data.
You can see this one was initialized with PMI View iOS. We have all the waveforms. We were testing the pre and post cycles, so as you can see, it’s got a lot of cycles on this waveform. But you get the general idea here.
Go back here. If you wanted to download it to your computer and open it easily, you can just have your computer and your Android phone connected to the same Wi-Fi network, and then just enter in this IP address on your PC. This lets you also upload any settings or any recording templates that you’d like to as well.
Starting a New Recording
That’s the main paths, and then if you wanted to start a new recording, you can just go over here, do a new recording. Now we can say PMI View Android. And we already downloaded it, so we don’t need to worry about that. Now we can just start a new recording on it.
This right over here is the countdown mode. Once it hits zero is when the device will officially start recording all the data. So it gives you about two minutes, that you can see here, for you to get it installed properly before it starts recording data so that it doesn’t mess up any recording.
Wrap-Up
It’s straightforward. It’s the exact same capabilities that you have on Windows PMI View, PMI View iOS, it’s just on Android. This is new, and Android has a wide ecosystem, so it is supported on other devices like their tablets and their foldables and anything else.
If there’s anything that you would like to have added or any ideas or any bugs that you encounter, please reach out at support@powermonitors.com, and we’d love to take a look at that. You can always email us at support@powermonitors.com with any questions, and we’d be happy to reach out. Thank you guys for coming here today. Hopefully you guys are excited about the Android app, and if you could, a review helps us out. Thank you, guys.