Arable Mobile 4.5.0 Release Notes

Arable Mobile 4.5.0 Release Notes Doc Number: ARA2022-00002 Rev A Date: July 27, 2022

Release Overview

The Arable Mobile 4.5.0 release is introducing a first version of a new Spray Timing Window feature on top of the new site-based framework. This feature will help determine when it is appropriate to spray and not based on current conditions and near-term weather forecast. Recommendations are shown in a simple countdown timer for when the window will open/close next. 

Several other enhancements have also been made both in terms of data accuracy and data consistency.

We hope you will enjoy this new release. We always welcome your feedback through Customer Success (support@arable.com) or via your account manager. 

Change Log

New Features

• When you open Arable Mobile as a Sites user, you will see a new option in the drop-down called Spray Window. This new feature helps you determine the most optimal times to spray. On the map, every site is represented by a color-coded indicator that signals when you are inside the spray timing window (green), or outside the window (red). Within the indicator, you will see a countdown timer representing the time until the window opens (red indicator) or closes (green indicator) within the 24-hour forecast period. If no window can be determined, then you will see a black icon with “--” inside. The spray window is determined by validating rainfall, wind, and optionally temperature and relative humidity. You can view the default values in your “Settings” page, where you can also set your own custom parameters.
• In the Arable Mobile Weather List, you can now edit Sites by left-swiping a site row. Once in the edit mode, you can select if a device is to be included, excluded, or assigned to the site and adjust the site boundaries after unlocking the map.
• It is also worth highlighting the Notes feature that was first introduced in Arable Mobile 4.4.0 but now has a more solidified place in the app. The Notes feature allows you to quickly and easily store any observations in the details page at each of your Mark locations. All Notes are instantly synced with key weather and plant data as well, so everyone on your team can easily follow along - whether they’re back at the office, or scouting a field in another hemisphere. To take a note from the Mark app, simply swipe left on the Mark location page and begin typing. Notes are presented in a feed for everyone that has access to the deployment to see on either Arable Web or Mobile. It is currently possible to share the Notes with non-Arable users via email.
• All the lists in the Arable Mobile (including Devices and Crop Growth lists) now have a Search capability so that you can more easily retrieve the information for a single device/site.
• We have also extended the mapping capability with the option to see and select street view in addition to satellite view. This will help you locate and identify all your fields quickly during planning and initial deployment.
• For the Rainfall Model, we added several new input parameters such as humidity and sunlight to bolster the reliability of system reports.
• For the Temperature Model, we extended our measurement range from -20°C to 60°C and increased the overall accuracy of the model.
• On the platform side, about 30 libraries were updated in the Arable Mobile 4.5.0 release to latest ReactNative 0.66 versions increasing the stability and supportability of the app.

Defect Fixes

• A number of data consistency issues have been addressed in the Arable Mobile 4.5.0. Particular focus was given to precipitation aggregations, evapotranspiration, time zone handling, and significant figures to be displayed.
• The display of the GDD values on the Arable Mobile map page did not change based on selection of Temperature Unit settings. Now when you select Fahrenheit in the Settings, the GDD calculations will be based on the GDD(F) formula.

Known Issues

• When you are considering moving to the new sites-framework, then the entire organization should transition at the same time. The reason for this is that deployment naming is different with the site-view than with the location view, and could cause confusion if some have transitioned and others have not. An automated naming for new Arable Mark deployments will occur as soon as one of the device owners has Sites enabled. The location name will then be device ID + deployment time stamp.
• In order to completely validate a connected anemometer, both the analog port (wind direction) and the pulse port (wind speed) need to be selected. We have seen a number of customers missing this and as such miss out on wind direction data. We intend to resolve this by linking both settings in a future release. For now it is important to be aware of these two steps and to add the degree offset from true north for your anemometer arm.
• For customers that are trying out our new Water feature on site-view, the GEMS pressure switch needs to be selected on the analog port in order to capture irrigation runtime data from the drip irrigation line. This means that there will be no wind direction provided in the user interface even if you have an anemometer connected. However, you can still validate and see wind speed data from the Bridge pulse port.
• If the Mark anemometer is not detecting any wind, then this is shown in the user interface as “--” wind in the Map and List. In the Spray Timing details page such hours are falling back to remote sensed wind. We will improve this in a future release and show “0” wind speed instead.
• If the local anemometer wind data is missing due to a Mark 2 device’s failure to report in, there is no automatic gap-fill of this data with remote-sensed wind in the current release for daily values, as it is done for hourly values. This will be reviewed for an upcoming release together with an overall gap-fill strategy for daily data including not only wind but also temperature.
• The max/min temperature readings on the Weather list, Daily tab show observed data only for today, while the individual location details screens for Heat Spikes and Frost Events take into account both observed and forecasted hours for the current day.
• When the user changes the settings data from Arable Web or on a different phone, they will need to go back to the Settings screen in Arable Mobile to get the measurement units updated on the Map screen and elsewhere.
• The remote-sensed temperature data can show a difference between hourly and daily max/min temperature, as they are measured slightly differently. For the remote-sensed enhanced forecast, the hourly values represent the projected temperature at that forecast time (usually top of the hour). However, the max/min temps often occur within the hour and the daily forecast products capture that. There is currently no short-term solution for this discrepancy.
• The local Mark max/min temperature for the hour is taken as the max/min of all 5-min interval readings during that hour. Meanwhile, the current temperature is the average for the last hour, creating a discrepancy between the two values during weather alerts. We are investigating whether relying on a 5-min interval for Tmin/Tmax is vulnerable to noise, and if so, will change this algorithm.
• Terms & Conditions are e-mailed in English, regardless of what language is registered. A link to alternative languages is provided in the email.
• The alerts in the My Alerts log are shown in English even if another language is selected in Arable Mobile.
• Push notifications are presented based on the language configured on the phone and not the language set in Arable Mobile. 
• When clicking on a notification, the app will navigate to either the Heat Spikes or Frost Events screens, but won’t open the hourly records to point out the current-hour row.Mo