Low-Cost Windows Tablets Bolster Sentry-Series Instruments

Since very early on, Convergence Instruments has designed instruments with a minimalist, even non-existent, built-in user interface. This approach provides a much lower cost instrument, or one with better performance at the same price-point. A full-featured user-interface is implemented through a connection to a personal computer, which provides a very rich graphical display and more intuitive controls than anything that can be built in the instrument itself.

For a long time the main criticism of this approach has been that the PC required for the user interface is often expensive, unwieldy, and that the whole system is much less practical than a simple handheld device, for many straightforward measuring tasks.

With the recent advent of compact Windows tablets at price-points around 250$, that criticism is beginning to erode. Using a Sentry-series instrument while connected to such a tablet, not only provides a real-time display and user-interface that is much richer and user-friendly than most built-in displays. But it also provides email and alarm features using the tablet’s WiFi connectivity, at no additional cost.