Humiditrak - Humidity/Temp/Shock monitor with Bluetooth and Smartphone App

I've talked before (often) about humidity and how it affects your bass; and I will always advocate humidifying the room rather than just the bass, if possible... it's safer, usually easier, and better for the bass (and for you, too!) But tools to monitor humidity and temperature can be kludgy, inaccurate, or just easy to forget.

Now, if you're a tech nerd like me, you'll soon agree: this is a cool device! This tiny unit from our friends at Planet Waves (a division of D'Addario) is a useful little bit of tech that measures and records humidity and temperature at its location, and transmits its reports to your smartphone via Bluetooth (and a free App for iPhone or Android) via push notifications -- so you can keep continued tabs on your bass. Since monitoring humidity and temperature are quite important to the health of your upright bass, it seemed like a no-brainer.

You can easily put one in your practice room, or your bass case, or hanging from the quiver on your bass. Whenever you're in range, you can then get an update, with detailed reports on humidity, temperature, and impact* with hourly, daily, and monthly data monitoring.

Humiditrak is the world's first 24/7 instrument monitoring system. Particularly if your room humidity varies often, this affordable, attractive little unit will allow you to keep a watchful eye on relative humidity and temperature, and proactively protect your valuable instrument from damage. The in-depth app for your Android or Apple Smartphone provides detailed history of logged humidity and temperature (see top screen to the left).

And you can even get multiple Humiditrak units, and see them all in one handy, free app. Look at the current status of multiple units on a single screen (see middle screen to the left.) Or, of course, get separate detailed reports for each instrument, or each room you have instruments in.

* Wait, there's more?

One final feature I haven't really mentioned yet - a shock sensor. If you travel with your bass (or other instrument) and someone else is handling it, you can activate its shock sensor during its trip. If your instrument sustains a serious impact, or drop, it will be recorded and sent as a push notification (see bottom screen at left) - and when the airline or baggage people claim innocence, you'll have a detailed log of the abuse that your instrument sustained. Many of us may not use that particular feature, but for those who will, it's a real bonus!

A single "watch" battery (included) is required for the unit to work. With the shock sensor turned off, you should get quite a long life from the unit, and the battery is easily replaceable.