Upgrading your Sensatronics Senturion firmware ! Updated


As the new rack mountable Sensatronics Senturion climate monitoring device beds in new functionality and fixes to existing options are being issued. I suspect the next year will see a raft of additional features and to that end new firmwares will appear. So how do you go about the upgrade procedure ?

Well as you may know the Sensatronics EM range is not field upgradeable but the Senturion is in the sense you can download and update the unit via the Web. That feature may extend in the future to allow in the field download / upgrades for those with devices without a web connection but for the moment this is the only method I’ve seen.

So first you need to login to your Senturion through a web browser (looking at the front panel of the Senturion will remind you of the current IP address its on)

then click on the Support tab

Next – at the right hand of the screen at top click on the box entitled FW Update

When the next screen is displayed it will show the current FW level – in my case 1.02 and the version that you can upgrade to in this case 1.04.

Click on the button underneath that information marked FW UPDATE and wait around 60 seconds. Don’t power off or try anything else with the Senturion during this time.

Finally when the screen refresh on your web browser – check the version listed in the bottom left hand corner of the screen to ensure it was successful.

    The full list of changes is here by permission

Firmware Version 1.04 Change Log (updated)

Feature (New Probes Supported): The following new probe types are now supported by the Senturion:

Sensatronics Power Presence Probes (

    Authors note – PLEASE NOTE this being worked on and are being released in the US – not in the EU at present

)
Smoke*
Motion*
Door Open/Close
Switch (Normally Open or Normally Closed)

Important: Sensatronics does not manufacture the smoke and motion detectors. These are brand name DC-based sensors (GE motion detectors and System Sensor smoke detectors) that produce a relay output signal that is compatible with the Senturion. While Sensatronics only stocks these particular sensors, other smoke and motion detectors that produce a relay output should work with the Senturion, but should be tested for compatibility. Ask a Sensatronics Technical or Sales representative if in doubt as to whether or not your particular smoke or motion sensor is supported. Datasheets for these devices can be found on the Sensatronics website.

Feature (Alert Schedules): With the addition of alert schedules, it is now possible to define a time period during which a probe is active. For example, suppose you were to set the Senturion internal light sensor with an Alert Schedule called “Night” that you’ve configured with a start time of 7 PM and an end time of 7 AM. Now let’s suppose you’ve set the low threshold to 0 and the high threshold to 50 lux and at 11:30 PM the light level sensor had been reading 5 since 7 PM but has just jumped up to 150. This would trigger the Alert List and the appropriate people will be notified of the event. If this were to happen after 7 AM and before 7 PM then the alert wouldn’t trigger.

Feature (SNMP Heartbeat Traps): The Senturion can now be configured to periodically (user defined time frequency) send a “heartbeat” trap to multiple trap listeners. This has some advantages over just sending an SNMP trap when there’s a problem.

Advantage #1: Getting a consistent heartbeat of environmental data allows the trap listening program to store the data locally so that you can later analyze the data.
Advantage #2: Having a consistent and regular “heartbeat” gives you more confidence know that the unit is up and running, and that network connectivity is uninterrupted. If the trap listener doesn’t get the heartbeat trap then appropriate corrective action can be taken immediately to get the system back up and running before a catastrophic event occurs…such as your data center temperature quickly climbing to equipment-damaging temperatures.

Feature (Send SNMP Trap on Alert): The Senturion can now send an SNMP trap to multiple SNMP trap listeners when there’s an alert. Since the Senturion uses Alert Lists, there’s great flexibility in who gets notified, by what means the notification happens, and how often they are to be notified.

Feature (2nd Email on User Account): Customers often want to send alerts to both an email account and their cell phone. The 2nd email option for each user allows for sending SMS messages to cell phones or pagers.

Feature #3111 (Rollup # of Alerts in SNMP OID): It is now possible to query the Senturion via SNMP and get a “rolled up” count of the number of probes in an alert state. This makes it convenient for a management station to execute a simple query and get a quick indication of whether or not everything is fine.

Enhancement #4804 (Bad User Message After Changing Network Settings): A proper user message now appears after making changes to the network via the web interface (after clicking the [Save] button).

Enhancement #2389 (Unit Resets Often): Prior to 1.04 the Senturion would reset often to save changes. This proved to be very annoying and it would sometimes appear to a user that the unit wasn’t operating properly. This has been significantly enhanced.

Enhancement #2433 (Light Sensor Probe Alert List Set to None): The Alert List for the Light Sensor Probe defaults to “None” (only on new units, upgrading the firmware will not change your current behaviour.) In the previous default condition this probe starts sending alerts right away when any of the thresholds are crossed. Now that Schedules are implemented, customers can choose the appropriate Alert List and set the appropriate schedule.

Enhancement #2408 (Double Entry of Password): On the User Account section, the password needs to be entered twice and they both must match in order for any updates to the password to take place. This is a safety precaution so that the user doesn’t inadvertently mistype the password.

Bug Fix #4785 (Alert List Changes Reflected in Log): When a user makes a change to an Alert List, those changes are now reflected appropriately in the Log. Prior to this fix, that log entry didn’t indicate which Alert List was actually modified.

Bug Fix #3110 (Scrolling Through Historical Data): When scrolling through historical data the date/time stamp wasn’t updating properly. This has been fixed.

Bug Fix #4731 (Extra Column in Users Screen): This extra column has been fixed; it contains additional information which is now properly displayed.

Bug Fix #4805 (Extra data in Emailed Alert): Removed an extra period in the alert message that would go out via email.

Bug Fix #4117 (No Option for Buzzer): On the bottom two alerts for an Alert List (in the drop-down combo box) there was no option for “Buzzer On”. All alerts on the Alert List now have this option.

Bug Fix 5127 (Log displays Wrong Data When Deleting External Probes): When deleting external probes, the log displayed the incorrect probe ID. This has been fixed.