Units in Status Messages

[tomsteer]

Hello All,

We are working on a product implementing the STS_OVERTEMP message. The standard describes this as having two data values:

Data value 1 : Sensor Number
Data value 2 : Temperature
Status ID Description : Sensor %d over temp at %d degrees C

My question is, our unit has temperature sensors that have an accuracy of one decimal point (so can read e.g. 50.5C). That is handled by the sensor description of the unit. So what variety of temperature should we use in the data values of the status message - should it be the value in degrees C (e.g. 50) , or should it be the value as it would come from the SENSOR_VALUE command (e.g. 505)?

-Tom

[sblair]

Tom,

Welcome! The data values for the status messages are specified as signed values but not floats. It could use the sensor definition messages to figure out the decimal point placement, but I'm pretty certain no one has implemented it that way. There was certainly no suggestion in the standard of that kind of implementation.

I would suggest the most reliable way of reporting it in the status message itself is going to be representing it as a whole integer. A user can always drill into the sensor reports directly to get more precision but the status messages were meant to have a generic message that could still give the user some useful information.

[tomsteer]

Thanks Scott! That makes sense, and is what we were thinking..