Field notes
The RoamVitals Blog
Setup guides, sensor teardowns and what we learn taking Bluetooth devices apart so you do not have to. Written by the people decoding them.
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Fresh going down, gray coming up
A tank that will be a problem on Thursday is already saying so on Tuesday. How to read fresh, gray and black, and why the two directions together catch a leak that neither number catches alone.
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The pump runs, and nobody is using water
A demand pump only runs when pressure falls, so with every tap shut it is either a leak or a passing check valve. One is a floor to replace and one is a job for next month, and one extra reading tells you which.
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Put a bottle of water in the fridge and watch that instead
An air sensor in the fridge alerts on every door opening. A probe in a bottle of water alerts when the food is actually warming, which is a different and much more useful thing. Five methods, and what each one cannot see.
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A door is a moment. Water is an afternoon.
A bay can be opened, emptied and shut again between two polls, and the door sensor will honestly show nothing. What a person cannot do is put back the water they used or the propane they burned.
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Heat gets there before pressure does
The earliest signal is one wheel behaving differently from the wheel opposite it – and that comparison is the one thing the app cannot do for you, so it stays a habit rather than an alert.