Frequently Asked Question

Sensor Availability
Because ProTAACS sensors are battery powered it is critical that customers leave the radio inactive between transmissions to conserve power. A CR2032 battery that can last for a multiple of years transmits a signal every hour or two, thereby conserving power and in return preserves battery life. (ProTAACS’s recommended heartbeat is not more than once every hour.)

If transmissions from the sensor are increased and left listening for continual communication, the battery life is impacted harshly (maximum battery life could be as little as approx. 2 hours). This forces iProTAACS to pass sensor updates to the sensor only after the sensor has turned on its radio and listens for an acknowledgment. During the acknowledgment, iProTAACS can notify the sensor that the database (DB) has a configuration update and from there the network can communicate the update to the sensor. At this point the sensor acknowledges the configuration update and iProTAACS marks the transaction complete (removing the pending transaction flag).

Gateway Lag:
Similar to the sensors, iProTAACS can’t instantly initiate communication to the gateway. The reason is many firewalls and security measures keep intruders from accessing the customer’s network. Out of the box the gateway is configured to communicate with iProTAACS once every five minutes. (It uses the same communication protocol as your web browser does while communicating to your bank.)

Because of the five minute heartbeat of the gateway there is a lag (delay time) between the time the user saves the configuration settings on ProTAACS’s server and the time the gateway checks in to receive the updates. Only after the gateway has acknowledged the updates the sensor checks in and receives them.

Network Stability:
During pending transactions it is impossible for iProTAACS to know which stage of the process the configuration is in. For example, if a user has set a configuration change to set the sensor’s new heartbeat to 30 minutes, the gateway received the request while the sensor still hasn’t.

There are certainly other network stability cases such as if iProTAACS modified the configuration to a 3 hour heartbeat to conserve battery life, the following could occur to cause network instability.

The 3 hour change is observed in iProTAACS, from here the gateway is ready to talk to the sensor and inform it that the heartbeat should be 30 minutes now. When the sensor checks in and receives the configuration change it will receive the 30 minute heartbeat rather than the 3 hour heartbeat. If the sensor was to communicate up to the server that it has successfully updated its configuration, iProTAACS must assume it has been updated to 3 hours and marks the transaction as complete. This is the reason ProTAACS marks transactions that require communication with the sensor as “Pending”.

To be able to update sensor configurations the user needs to make sure the sensor is communicating well to iProTAACS and wait until the pending configuration completes.