US EPA Environmental Response Team
User Manual For
Viper - Smart Gateway
ERT Support: 800-999-6990
Page 21
Section 2 – Smart Gateway MeterApp
Safe Environment Engineering has developed a Smart Gateway MeterApp to monitor the performance of
the Smart Gateway. This MeterApp can be added to Survey Controller and allows for viewing Smart
Gateway performance metrics such as battery life, cellular signal strength and noise interference, CPU,
temperature, available disk space and memory use (RAM). Deployment Manager alarms and notifications
can also be configured on these metrics, and alert you when potential Smart Gateway performance issues
exist.
The Smart Gaeway MeterApp also contains some default alarm values for the battery, CPU temperature,
cell signal strength and noise interference. Other than the battery values, the other default values were
developed on deployments at large venues during high-attendance popular events. As such, those default
alarm values might not be representative of a typical EPA removal deployment. ERT and Safe Environment
Engineering welcome feedback on any observations about these performance metrics/alarms and how they
may differ during EPA responses, and what values were more appropriate for the response.
Smart Gateway Sensors
Battery:
Monitors the Smart Gateway battery life. A full battery is indicated by a reading above 16
volts. The MeterApp will turn Yellow to indicate a warning when the battery reading falls below 14 and
red when the battery reading falls below 12.
Signal:
Monitors the cell signal strength from the
SIM card.
See the graphic and discussion below
for additional information signal strength.
The
default values will turn the MeterApp sensor yellow
when signal strength falls below -75 and red when
signal strength is below -80. Rule of thumb is a
lower negative number is better. Information is
also provided on time of the last acquisition and
which cellular carrier is being utilized.
SINR:
Signal to noise ratio. Sometimes you can
have a great signal strength but still have bad
bandwidth. This can happen when there is a lot of
cellular noise. Usually a range of +7 to +20 is
good. Zero or negative is bad.
See the graphic
and discussion below for additional information on
SINR.
CPU:
Monitors the temperature of the laptop CPU. There are 4 values – one for each of the quad-
processors installed. The MeterApp CPU sensor will turn yellow when temperature exceed 155.2 °F
and red when it exceeds 164.9 °F. These values are based on the highest operating temperature for
the processor of 194 °F. The default alarm values are yellow at 80 percent of 194 °F and red at 85
percent of 194 °F.
Used Memory:
Displays the amount of RAM being used. This is informational and MeterApp alarms
cannot be configured on this value. The motherboard has a total of 4GB RAM.
Available Memory:
Displays the amount of RAM available. The motherboard has a total of 4GB RAM.
MeterApp alarms can be configured on Available Memory.
