When I started down this path I found that most tank monitors check your twice, maybe 3 times a day and that’s fine if you just want a rough idea of how full it is. But with AquaVigil I wanted to take a different approach….a typical IT guy needs lots of data approach — so, it checks every 60 seconds. Sounds a bit obsessive? Maybe. But there’s a good reason for it.

When you only measure a couple of times a day, all you get is a snapshot. You can see how full the tank was then, and how full it is now — but nothing about what happened in between. Did the cows drink 200 litres before lunch? Did the pump run longer than it should have? Was there a sudden overnight drop that hints at a leak? With just two data points, you’ll never know.

By sampling every 60 seconds, AquaVigil turns that static picture into a live story. You can actually see inflows and outflows in real time, (eventually) displayed in litres per minute. It becomes clear how fast the tank fills during a downpour, or how much water the irrigation line really uses. Small patterns appear — the regular draw from a washing machine, or the short bursts from a pressure pump cycling. That kind of detail isn’t possible with slow-updating systems.

Frequent readings also make leak detection dramatically better. A pinhole leak might only drain a few litres an hour — completely invisible on a daily chart. But with minute-by-minute data, the slow, steady slope in the graph stands out like a sore thumb. The system doesn’t need to guess; it can see it.

There’s another benefit too: data smoothing. Environmental factors like air pressure and temperature can cause tiny variations in sensor readings. When you collect more samples, you can filter out the noise and keep the real signal. That means cleaner graphs, more accurate alerts, and fewer false alarms.

Yes checking every 60 seconds certainly does increase the power draw, buy hey, ive got a decent solar panel, and a totally over spec’ed battery, might as well use it! Saying that, AquaVigil doesn’t chew through power. Each sensor node still sleeps most of the time and only wakes up long enough to take a quick measurement and send it off.  Its sleeping more than the old farm dog and still somehow gets the job done.

In short, yea, its overkill, but I like overkill, and I like data. More data doesn’t just mean prettier charts; it means understanding how your water system actually behaves. Once you’ve seen your tank breathe and flow in real time, those old twice-a-day systems start to feel a lot like guessing.