A Cannabis Dry with ZONE

What to expect from ZONE in the context of a real world cannabis dry. This article goes over data, alerting, and deployment monitoring.

Context 🔍

The cannabis dry used in this article was performed at one of Growvera's early adopter cultivation facilities in February of 2023. 

Figure 1. Demo Dry 2 and the events that occurred during the drying process

During this dry, the cultivator was experimenting with a new drying room. During the 8 days it took to dry the harvest, the drying room lost power and had a control system malfunction.

ZONE was able to alert the cultivator of the adverse conditions and informed the decision to transfer the harvest to a different drying room before further damage was done to the crop. After the switch, the cultivator successfully achieved the ideal moisture level for the strain without encountering any additional problems.

Data 📊

Current

Once a Dry has begun, the most current data points for average temperature, humidity, and moisture will appear underneath the End Dry button. Data is updated by ZONE every 15 minutes via cloud analytics. 

Figure 2. Current data of an ongoing dry displayed below the "End Dry" Button.

History

Data history is displayed in a line plot under the Data History section. The plot displays four lines. 

1. Average Humidity in solid blue. 
2. Average Temperature in solid red.
3. Average Moisture in solid green.
4. Moisture Threshold in dashed green. This is the moisture ceiling, currently 30%, below which ZONE will give you reliable moisture data. 

Data history for any particular dry can be downloaded using the download icon directly next to the Data History section title. Hovering over the plot will bring up a tooltip displaying the temperature, humidity, and moisture point that the cursor is closest to.

Figure 3. Example data history plot with tooltip that displays time, average temperature, average humidity, and average moisture. 

To focus on a specific section of the data, simply click on the points within the range of interest. This allows you to zoom in and get a closer look at the details.

Use the Reset Plot button above the plot to reset the zoom view. 

Alerting 🚨

Structure

ZONE runs continuous analytics on the data collected from ZONE sensors to monitor deployment state and dry room conditions. Alerts are issued when the data meets certain criteria that are set via the dry configuration. After an alert is issued, it will be stored under the Event History section of the dry that it occurred in.  

Figure 4. A Critical temperature alert as it appears in the Event History section of a dry

A ZONE alert has the following components

1. Level: A one word descriptor for the severity of the alert. 
   
   1. Critical: These alerts call for immediate intervention for a dry.
      Examples of these are all sensors or gateways having lost connection, adverse environmental conditions, or a moisture target being reached.
   2. Warning: These alerts call for increased attention for a dry. 
      Examples of these are partial deployment failures during an ongoing dry. 
   3. Info: These alerts are informational, debug level alerts. 
      Examples include individual sensors or gateways losing network connection. 
2. Type: Descriptor for the type of alerts.
   1.  Temperature: Alerts regarding temperature conditions.
   2. Humidity: Alerts regarding humidity conditions.
   3. Moisture: Alerts regarding moisture conditions.
   4. Offline: Alerts regarding lost network connection of either sensors or gateways. 
3. Timestamp: The time the alert was issued. 
4. Details: A couple sentences regarding the nature of the alert.

Figure 5. A critical temperature alert as it is appears in an email.

Configuration

The alert configuration for a dry is visible below the name of the dry. In Demo Dry 2, the alert configuration is

1. Ideal Moisture: 16%
2. Acceptable Temperature Range: 45°F-70°F
3. Acceptable Humidity Range: 45%-70%

Figure 6. A sample dry alert configuration highlighted in yellow.

Temperature

If the average temperature falls outside the acceptable range for 2 consecutive data points, an alert is triggered by the analytics. After the first alert has been issued, the analytics will re-issue the alert for every 3 consecutive points that fall outside the acceptable range. This ensures that ZONE prevents an excessive number of alerts from filling up inboxes, while still effectively communicating the ongoing presence of adverse conditions.

In addition to pushing an alert to email, ZONE saves the alert as an event under the Event History section.  

Figure 7. Temperature Bounds. On 2/4/23 at 1:04 PM, a high temperature condition was detected.

In Demo Dry 2 on 2/4/23 at 1:04 PM a high temperature condition was detected. The analytics triggered a critical high temperature alert that was sent via email. The alert was then logged under the Event History section of the dry.

Figure 8. The critical temperature alert as it appears in the Event History section of Demo Dry 2

Humidity

Humidity alerting has identical functionality to the temperature alerting. 

Figure 9. Humidity Bounds. On 2/2/23 at 11:48 PM, a high humidity condition was detected.

In Demo Dry 2 on 2/2/23 at 11:48 PM a high humidity condition was detected. ZONE analytics triggered a critical high humidity alert that was sent via email and logged to the Event History. 

Moisture

Unlike temperature and humidity, ZONE sends moisture alerts after the moisture has hit a target value called the ideal moisture in the dry configuration. 

Figure 4. Ideal Moisture. On 2/9/23 at 8:18 PM, ZONE detected that the target moisture had been achieved. 

In Demo Dry 2 on 2/9/23 at 8:18 AM, ZONE detected that the target moisture of 16% had been achieved. An alert was sent to the cultivator, who stopped the dry shortly afterwards. 

Deployment

ZONE will issue different levels of alerts in response to sensor and gateways losing network connection.

When gateways lose network connection, it affects the data of multiple sensors. As a result, gateways losing network connection are given a high alert level.

Gateway online/offline state may be monitored at anytime under the Settings tab and the Gateways Section.

Figure 10. An example gateway section of the ZONE Dashboard Settings tab, showing one gateway (ID: 7276ff0044071255) as online and the other gateway (ID: 7276ff004407125b) as offline.

Alerts regarding sensors losing network connection increase in severity with the number of sensors that are already offline. For example, if 9 out of 12 sensors in a sensor pack are already offline and a 10th sensor loses network connection, ZONE will issue the offline alert at a critical level. However, if only 1 out of 12 sensors are offline and a 2nd loses network connection, then the alert will be issued at an Info level. 

Figure 11. An example assigned sensors section.

Sensor online/offline state may be monitored at any time through the Assigned Sensors section on the dry page.

Learn More 📚

Read more about the ZONE dashboard and sensors on our knowledge base or our website.   

Happy Drying 🍃