To better fit our customer's use cases for events that lead to a email or text alert, we are introducing Sensor Zones. This feature allows you to treat a collection of sensors as a single group or virtual sensor.

To set up a zone you will want to first navigate to the Air Quality home in command. You will then see the option + Sensor Zone above every site and subsite.

The + Sensor Zone button will open up a sub menu for configuring the zone. You will need to give the zone a Name in order to save it. You will also be prompted to add the devices from your site into that zone. You can only group devices from the same site into a zone. Finally, you can configure notifications schedules for that zone the same way you would configure notifications for an individual device. Device Events created by a sensor will still notify you independent of Zone Events. Think of the zone as an additional virtual sensor that the devices within the zone pass events into.

The triggers for the sensors alerts and events are still configured at the device level. However, the option to edit sensor settings and alert thresholds of the devices selected for the zone are available by clicking on the gear icon at the top of the list.

Note: To create a sensor zone all sensors in the zone must be in the same site or the same subsite. To use a zone effectively you should have at least 2 devices, or it is recommended to use the device level notifications instead of zone functionality.

Once a zone is created under the environment tab you will see the sensors appear in a box with the zone label in the top left. Sensors not in a zone will appear as normal. You can use the Edit button in the top right to reopen the zone settings panel.

You are able to have as many zones per site as you desire with any number of sensors, zones have no impact on access level permissions and are treated differently from subsites. Sensors do not have to be at the same physical location; however, it is important to note that a sensor can only be apart of one zone. It is recommended that sensors in a zone be in the same room or space.

Clicking the neighboring Zone Alerts button will bring you to the Events page where events will be pre-filtered for that zone.

Alerts from zones are just like alerts from individual sensors except they will also include the zone name in the alert, followed with the name of the first sensor to trigger that alert category.

An on going alert will prevent the dispatch of any additional alerts from any other devices in the zone for that specific sensor reading only until the zone event has been resolved for at least 10 minutes. For example, if two devices detect a temperature alert, the alert will be resolved once both devices are no longer alerting on temperature for at least 10 minutes.

Zones were designed to ensure that a single trigger source, i.e. a student vaping does not create a duplicate events across multiple devices within the same restroom. This can cause issues if there is an expectation that the devices should be more independent. Take for example if you put all Men and Women's restroom within a building in the same zone. If there is a vape event raised in the men's room it will mean that the zone will not create an event for a separate incident of vaping on any other sensor until the first event is resolved and 10 minutes has passed.