Tips for Locating Sherlock
Sherlock is extremely flexible and portable, and he can be put on-duty in any number of locations depending upon your particular home monitoring objectives. The only general requirements are that he be located indoors, have access to a live AC power outlet, and be geographically located within the Verizon Wireless national wireless network footprint.
Beyond those general requirements, we do have a few suggestions to consider when picking the best place to locate Sherlock in your home.
1. Getting the most accurate readings
2. Keeping a strong cellular connection
3. Picking the best room
4. All power outlets aren't created equal
5. Pictures from home
1. Getting the most accurate readings
He will deliver the best, most accurate and consistent data when he’s placed on a smooth, flat surface (such as a table or countertop) to allow air to freely enter the sensor chamber located on the underside of his base. Also, to get the most accurate temperature and humidity readings you should avoid locating him near furnace or air conditioning vents or other sources of heat (computers, cable boxes, etc.) and out of direct sunlight.
2. Keeping a strong cellular connection
Since Sherlock has his own built-in connection to Verizon’s cellular data network, he needs to be in an area where he has good wireless signal strength. While his advanced antenna design will generally connect better than most cell phones, signal strength still varies from location to location and even room to room within a house. To help you find the places with the strongest signals in your home, Sherlock comes equipped with simple indicator light located on the right rear of his base. Try different locations by plugging him in, turning him on and observing the color of the light. A consistently green light means the best level of connectivity and the most reliable delivery of HouseSetter services, amber indicates a less strong signal, and red means he’s unlikely to be able to connect. Since many factors influence the strength of cellular signals, and they can change over time, picking a location with the best connectivity (green if at all possible) needs to be a priority in selecting Sherlock’s location.
3. Picking the best room
You know your home better than anyone else. Your home’s design (single or multiple story), construction, age, heating and cooling system operation, insulation effectiveness, geographic location, and many other factors all combine to create a unique set of monitoring challenges and requirements. In general, temperatures will be highest on the upper levels of multi-story homes, and humidity will vary but will be highest in basements and certain specific rooms (i.e., kitchens, bathrooms and laundry rooms). Since Sherlock can only sense the conditions in his immediate area, once you’ve confirmed cellular connectivity, care should be taken in choosing the room that best represents the specific conditions in your home that you’re most interested in monitoring.
4. All power outlets aren’t created equal
Sherlock senses power outages by constantly monitoring the status of the outlet that he’s plugged in to. While in most cases a power outage will impact all outlets, individual circuits within your home are separately protected by fuses or circuit breakers and in some cases can lose power while the rest of the property is fine. It’s important to remember that Sherlock will only know that his outlet has lost power and will report it as an outage whether if affects the entire house or just his outlet. To minimize the risk of a false home outage alert you should avoid plugging Sherlock into a separately fused power strip, surge protector or an outlet protected with a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter (GFCI). Each of these has the potential to interrupt Sherlock’s power even when the home isn’t experiencing an outage, and also prevent him from returning to a normal monitoring condition without a manual reset of that outlet (which may be inconvenient or impossible in a remotely located unoccupied home).
5. Pictures from home
Sherlock is equipped with a digital camera designed to use available light to remotely deliver a static image from your home. His camera lens is located on the front of his collar and can be “aimed” by facing Sherlock in the direction of the picture you’re looking for. After positioning him to capture that picture we suggest that you confirm you’re getting what you want before you leave your property by triggering an OnDemand Report and reviewing the results. You can then view the image in the email and easily make any adjustments before leaving him on duty.