This Gadget Can Tell What’s Wrong with Your Air C onditioner by Listening to It

[Erol]

If you?ve ever tried to diagnose a car problem just by listening to it run, you?ve got a sense of what a startup called Augury is doing. Only instead of having human ears pay attention, it?s analyzing vibrations and ultrasonic sounds to figure out what?s ailing bulky machines.

The company, based in New York and Haifa, Israel, uses an iPhone app, gadget, and sensor to record motors and pumps, and then compares the data to existing machine recordings to determine whether or not the one being analyzed is working properly, or what the issue is if it?s not.

[taxed and spent]

sounds like a bit of antisubmarine warfare technology repurposed.

[TimR]

There's nothing new here, industry has done vibration analysis for several decades, but if you don't have good data from when the machine was running well your new readings aren't useful.

Also, you need some basic data on dimensions and RPMs inside the machine to interpret a change in vibrations.

[Don Y]

Some ~30 years ago, a device was manufactured that could check the mechanical integrity of telephone poles by "thumping" them and "listening" to the resulting sound/echoes. This sounds like a big yawner: "So what?" -- until you consider the problem of deciding when (and if) an INSTALLED pole should be replaced!

[gfretwell]

Sounds like a good idea to me. FPL is in a very aggressive program of assessing and replacing poles here. I am not sure how they do the assessment.

[Don Y]

At the time, I thought it was the cleverest application of technology I'd ever heard of! Handheld gizmo that can tell you whether or not you need to expend thousands of dollars in parts and labor NOW or if it can be (safely) deferred.

[Micky]

Of course there's something new. It's done using an iphone and a little light-weight transmitter that you can take anywhere.

The url itself says "that the basic idea behind Augury isn?t unique.".

That's also new, because the company that makes the thing will be collecting the data and clients don't have to do more than send it in. They'll have the benefit of everyone's data, not just their own.

So you're saying it doesn't work? Boy, will they be disappointed.

[Tekkie®]

Don Y posted for all of us...

Just wait for the careless drivers and ice. Then the insurance co pays and the utility co doesn't. Ir took a major lawsuit for the utilities to trim the trees.