A Robust, Inexpensive Solution for Alarm Monitoring of Freezers, Incubators, and Other Biobanks Equipment Based on Readily Available, Easy-to-Deploy Home Alarm Equipment.

Abstract

Equipment monitoring (e.g., freezers, incubators) plays a vital role in specimen storage infrastructure. Monitoring solutions are often associated with a significant initial expense and short-term operational lifespan due to expensive contracts or suppliers going out of business. Numerous incidents of "monitored" lab equipment failing without notice have been reported. This has led to the loss of irreplaceable research material and severely impacted careers. In pursuit of a universally accessible solution, we deployed and now have over 15 years of continuous experience using residential alarm systems for laboratory monitoring. In this communication, it is presented how home alarm systems, designed for robust, fail-safe monitoring, can be used to augment commercially available solutions. Provided are high-level descriptions of how to deploy these solutions for equipment monitoring and how to expand their use into other monitoring tasks.