Glossary

Who can do this: anyone. This page defines the terms you see in Pulse and links to the page that explains each one.

Acknowledge / acknowledgement — An operator's confirmation that an active alarm has been seen. It stops repeat notifications at that severity (and below) but does not change the alarm or hide it. Cleared automatically when the service recovers or when its limits are changed. See Acknowledging alarms.

Active alarm — A service whose current severity is WARNING or CRITICAL, or which is stale. Listed under Active Alarms on the dashboard. See The dashboard.

Alarm history — The record of alarm events (ALARM, CLEAR, STALE, RECOVERED, ACKNOWLEDGED, UNACKNOWLEDGED) for every service in your organization. Organization administrators only. See Alarm history and audit log.

API token — A bearer token you obtain with your email and password to call the Pulse API from a script. It has the same role and 8-hour lifetime as a browser session. See Authentication.

Archive (service) — Removing a service from the dashboard while keeping its history. An archived service can be restored, after which its channels must be mapped again. See Archiving and restoring services.

Asset — The physical equipment a service monitors, such as a fridge, incubator or chamber, with its manufacturer, model, serial number and location. Also called a chamber in the interface. See Assets and locations.

Audit log — The record of configuration and security changes in your organization: who did what, when and from which address. Organization administrators only. Times are shown in UTC. See Alarm history and audit log.

Band — One threshold rule on a channel: Critical Low, Warning Low, Warning High or Critical High, each with a limit, a delay and a sustained time. See Alarm limits and policies.

Battery — The sensor's battery voltage, reported with every uplink and shown on the service page for information. It cannot be mapped or alarmed on. See Supported sensors and channels.

Calibration — A per-device, per-channel correction value = raw × scale + offset applied to new readings as they arrive. Earlier readings are not changed. See Calibration.

Channel — One stream of readings from a device, such as temp_1 or humidity. A channel can be mapped to only one service at a time. See Supported sensors and channels.

CRITICAL — The higher of the two alarm severities. See How alarms work.

Dashboard — The home page: service cards with current values, the Active Alarms list and the Current Downtimes list. See The dashboard.

Delay (minutes) — How long after a band becomes an alarm Pulse waits before sending the notification. Set per band. See Alarm limits and policies.

Device — A physical LoRaWAN sensor, identified by its Device EUI, registered in exactly one organization. See Devices.

Device EUI — The 16-character hexadecimal identifier printed on a sensor. See Devices.

Device profile (sensor type) — The setting chosen at registration that tells Pulse which hardware a device is and how to decode its messages. Defined by Lab Monitors. See Supported sensors and channels.

Downlink — A command sent to a device, such as Set uplink interval. Applied on the device's next downlink window. See Devices.

Downtime — A scheduled window during which a service is left out of Active Alarms and no notifications are sent for it. Readings are still recorded. See Muting and downtimes.

Escalation — A change from WARNING to CRITICAL while an alarm is active. Pulse notifies again, and a WARNING acknowledgement does not cover it. See How alarms work.

Export (CSV) — A download of a service's raw readings for a chosen time range, with times in UTC and in your timezone. See Exporting data.

Gateway — The LoRaWAN receiver that relays sensor messages to Pulse. Gateways are installed and managed by Lab Monitors. See Getting help.

Group — A named set of assets (an Asset (device) Group, used for dashboard filtering) or of users (a User Group, used as a notification group). See Users and groups.

Limit — The value on a band. A reading equal to the limit is in range; only readings beyond it count. See Alarm limits and policies.

Location — A room, area or zone in your organization to which assets are assigned. See Assets and locations.

Mapping — The assignment of a device channel to a service, with a display label, unit, order and primary flag. See Services and channel mapping.

Mute — A per-service switch that stops every notification for that service until it is unmuted. The alarm remains visible. See Muting and downtimes.

NORMAL — The severity of a channel whose readings are within all its limits. See How alarms work.

Notification — An email or SMS that Pulse sends when an alarm starts, repeats, escalates, is acknowledged or recovers, or when data goes stale or returns. See Notifications you receive.

Notification group — The user group whose members receive a service's notifications. A service with no notification group sends nothing. See Alarm limits and policies.

Notification schedule — The days and hours during which you accept email or SMS notifications, set in your profile in your timezone. See Your profile and notification settings.

Operator — The role that can acknowledge alarms, mute services and schedule downtimes but cannot change configuration. See Permissions matrix.

Organization — Your company or site in Pulse. Users, assets, devices and services belong to one organization, and you see only your own. See Overview.

Organization administrator — The role that manages users, locations, groups, assets, devices, services and alarm limits within an organization. See Permissions matrix.

OTAA / ABP — The two ways a LoRaWAN device joins the network. OTAA (over-the-air join) is the default; ABP uses fixed session keys. See Devices.

Percentage deviation mode — A way of setting limits as a percentage above or below the equipment's own setpoint instead of as fixed values. Requires a setpoint channel. See Alarm limits and policies.

Policy — The current set of bands for a service channel. Every save creates a new version, so earlier limits are kept for the record. See Alarm limits and policies.

Primary channel — The channel, marked with a star, whose value is shown as the service's headline value. See Services and channel mapping.

Range / resolution — The chart window (1h to 365d, or a custom From/To) and whether the chart shows raw points or averages per interval. See Service pages and charts.

Recent Events — The last eight alarm events, shown at the bottom of a service page. See Service pages and charts.

Recommendation (AI) — Limits and delays proposed by Pulse from a service's past readings, which an organization administrator can apply. Not available for percentage deviation mode. See Alarm limits and policies.

Recovery — The moment readings return within limits (a RECOVERY notification) or data resumes after a stale period (a DATA RECOVERED notification). See Notifications you receive.

Repeat interval (minutes) — How often an unacknowledged alarm is notified again. Default 60. See Alarm limits and policies.

RSSI / SNR — Radio signal strength and signal-to-noise ratio of the latest reading, shown on the service page for information. See Supported sensors and channels.

Service — What you monitor: a named card on the dashboard fed by one or more device channels, with its own limits and notification settings. See Services and channel mapping.

Setpoint channel / state channel — Companion channels used by percentage deviation mode. The setpoint is the target the equipment is holding; the optional state channel, when 0, means the equipment is off and no alarm is raised. See Alarm limits and policies.

Severity — NORMAL, WARNING or CRITICAL, decided by which band a reading has crossed. See How alarms work.

Stale — A service that has not received a valid reading for longer than its stale threshold (twice the device's uplink interval once one has been sent from Pulse, otherwise its stale-after time). Shown as a grey STALE badge; the last severity is kept. See How alarms work.

Stale after (minutes) — The per-service time without data after which the service is marked stale while its device has no uplink interval sent from Pulse. Default 15. See Alarm limits and policies.

Sustained (minutes) — How long a reading must stay beyond a limit before it becomes an alarm. Set per band. See Alarm limits and policies.

System notifications — STALE and DATA RECOVERED notifications, switched on per service with their own delay. Off by default. See Alarm limits and policies.

Test notification — A message you send to yourself from your profile to confirm that email or SMS delivery works. See Your profile and notification settings.

Timezone — The IANA zone in your profile. All times in the interface are shown in it, and downtime start and end times are entered in it; the audit log uses UTC. See Your profile and notification settings.

Trend arrow — An up, down or flat arrow next to a value on a dashboard card, showing the direction over the last hour. See The dashboard.

Unit — The text shown next to a value, such as C or %, taken from the channel's mapping. See Services and channel mapping.

Uplink / uplink interval — An uplink is one message from a sensor. The uplink interval is the number of minutes between them, set with a downlink command. See Supported sensors and channels.

Viewer — The read-only role and the default for new users. See Permissions matrix.

WARNING — The lower of the two alarm severities. See How alarms work.