The history of METER
Whether you've met us as Decagon Devices, UMS, or METER Group, we've always been the same at our core —a family of environmental scientists and engineers passionate about advancing technology by creating simple, precise scientific measurement instrumentation to benefit humanity.
METER IS IN THE INNOVATION BUSINESS
Our products focus on making it easier to understand water moving through the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. By providing a complete picture of all parameters that impact this journey, METER makes it possible for scientists and practitioners to identify their impact on the environment and develop a deeper understanding of what factors will drive progress and sustainability and shape the future of the world’s natural, agricultural, and urban sectors. Step through the timeline to see how METER has driven technological advancement of scientific environmental measurement instrumentation over time.
1983
DECAGON DEVICES, INC FOUNDED
Decagon was founded as a family company by Dr. Gaylon Campbell, a renowned soil scientist and Washington State University faculty member. The name represented both his 9 children and wife as well as their first product—a laboratory water potential instrument with a sample changer capable of holding 10 samples.
1985
DECAGON HIRED FIRST ENGINEER
Hiring the first engineer greatly expanded Decagon’s product development capabilities. This step married the knowledge of the research scientists with the expertise of an engineer to make more of the company’s product ideas come to life. The scientists understood lab and field challenges and the science behind measurement methods, while the engineer knew how to simplify those methods for users.
1987
WATER POTENTIAL SENSOR FOR FOOD INDUSTRY
This new instrument was ideal for measuring the water potential of food, leading to a more safe and consistent product and making it easier to package for shelf stability. This was a huge step for Decagon, as an entire division ultimately grew around the food science industry.
1992
RELEASED NEW VERSION OF TRU PSI
This laboratory water potential instrumentation made measurement collection even easier and faster.
1993
NEW INSTRUMENT TO MEASURE CANOPY LIGHT INTERCEPTION
The ACCUPAR, now known as the ACCUPAR LP-80, measures how much light is intercepted by a canopy to determine if the plant’s water loss was a result of evaporation or transpiration. By walking through a field or wooded area, users could quickly and non-destructively gather data about their canopy’s health.
1998
RELEASED A THERMAL PROPERTIES SENSOR
The precursor to today’s TEMPOS and VARIOS, the Thermolink allowed users to measure thermal properties of various materials. While useful beyond its relationship to water, the measurement of thermal properties fit nicely into Decagon’s portfolio of products.
GAYLON CAMPBELL PhD JOINS DECAGON FULL TIME
Gaylon retired from Washington State University and came to work full time at Decagon to focus full time on the invention and development of innovative scientific instrumentation.
2000
ECH2O PROBES FOR AGRICULTURE ARE INTRODUCED
The need to measure water content precisely in agriculture was growing as water conservation became more of a pressing global issue. Irrigation scheduling based on the available water in the soil was necessary. Decagon developed a new technology to make soil moisture sensors that were easy to use at a price point that made instrumenting entire fields affordable for growers. These products became the ECH2O line.
COLIN CAMPBELL, PhD JOINED DECAGON
Dr. Colin Campbell finished his Ph.D. at Texas A&M University in Soil Physics, with a research focus on field-scale measurements of CO2 and water vapor flux, and joined Decagon as a research scientist.
2001
METER’S FIRST DATA LOGGER
The ECH2O probe’s creation meant Decagon needed a data logger to collect all its measurements during in-situ deployment. The Em5 data logger and its software were our first steps in automated data collection in the field. These early devices collected measurement data from sensors, and users would later download that data for processing.
ADVANCEMENT IN LAB WATER POTENTIAL MEASUREMENTS
The WP4 was a huge technological advancement because it had the accuracy of the older psychrometer-based water potential sensors but was much easier to use. The WP4 also accommodated a larger sample than other methods, which benefits both soil and plant water potential measurements.
2002
RELEASED KD2 THERMAL SENSOR
The KD2 thermal properties sensor, designed for measuring thermal properties of materials on Earth, attracted the interest of JPL engineers working on NASA’s upcoming Phoenix Scout mission, which would need to measure similar properties of Martian regolith.
2003
MARS ROVER SENSOR DESIGN STARTED
Research scientist, Dr. Doug Cobos, joined the Decagon team and started the 4-year process of designing a thermal and electrical conductivity probe (TECP) for NASA’s Phoenix Scout mission.
SEVERAL WATER ACTIVITY INSTRUMENTS FOR FOOD SCIENCE RELEASED
The Aquasorp was the precursor of the VAPOR SORPTION ANALYZER (VSA), which was used by both food scientists and soil scientists to measure the behavior of water throughout a medium. Pawkit was an ultra-small, portable water activity sensor specifically for use in food science.
FIRST SOIL WATER POTENTIAL FIELD INSTRUMENT
While Decagon was an industry leader in measuring water potential in the lab for decades, the MPS-1 was our first in-ground matric water potential sensor.
2005
NEXT GENERATION OF DATA LOGGERS
The Em50 data logger made it possible to capture a new level of accurate data. Like the Em5, this data logger came in a robust form factor that was still affordable for scientists and farmers. Within the next few years additional versions were released with radio and cellular communications.
2006
NEW TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPED FOR CLEARER SOIL MOISTURE MEASUREMENT
The EC-5, a redesign of previous water content sensors, was one of the largest advancements in water content technology. Through research and development, Decagon was able to identify 70 MHz as the ideal capacitance frequency to avoid confounding factors in the soil that made measurement less accurate. These factors included previous sensors’ sensitivity to salts and clays. This is the frequency that all current METER sensors use.
2008
DECAGON LANDS ON MARS
On May 25th, 2008, NASA’s Phoenix Scout Lander reached Mars on a mission to search for water. On board was a custom-designed thermal and electrical conductivity probe (TECP), designed by Decagon’s team of research scientists.
FIRST HIGH-RESOLUTION AUTOMATED SOIL MOISTURE RELEASE CURVE INSTRUMENT
The HYPROP was designed to work with the WP4, which measures the dry range of the soil moisture release curve. HYPROP completes the curve by characterizing the wet end. The HYPROP produced more data points (over 100 data points in the 0 to -100 kPa range) than any other method, giving users an unrivaled level of detail.
2009
NEW SOIL MOISTURE SENSOR WITH “BULLETPROOF” COATING
The ECH2O-5TE was our first sensor to feature an epoxy overmold, which made sensors much more durable. This durability improved the longevity of the sensors, allowing them to be deployed for years at a time.
GROUNDBREAKING TECHNOLOGY TO MEASURE STOMATAL CONDUCTANCE
The SC-1 Leaf Porometer used a first-principles, steady-state technique pioneered in medical research for burn victims and premature infants. It had no pumps or fans and cut the price point for research-quality stomatal conductance measurements by more than half.
2010
FIRST SENSOR TO MEASURE WATER CONTENT, EC, AND TEMPERATURE
The ECH2O-5TE was a further iteration of previous ECH2O sensors. Small screws within the sensor allowed the measurement of both electrical conductivity and temperature with one affordable device. Before the 5TE, researchers’ options for measuring water content, EC, and temperature were limited to purchasing an expensive sensor capable of measuring all three parameters or co-locating multiple sensors.
2011
RELEASED DataTrac SOFTWARE
DataTrac was a full-featured data analysis system specifically designed to help farmers and others in the agricultural industry.
IMPROVEMENTS TO LAB WATER POTENTIAL MEASUREMENT
The WP4C was an improvement on the WP4, integrating temperature control and offering better measurement resolution and precision. Those two additions allowed the WP4C to make measurements further into the wet range of water potentials, and finally bridge the gap between vapor-based measurements and tensiometers, allowing researchers to construct full-range moisture characteristic curves.
2012
FIRST STEEL NEEDLE WATER CONTENT SENSORS
The GS1 and GS3 water content sensors—precursors to the TEROS 10, TEROS 11, and TEROS 12 sensors—combined steel needles and an epoxy shell, making the sensors easier to produce and durable enough to stand up to the environments our sensors are used in.
2015
CREATED A SCALABLE WATER POTENTIAL SENSOR CALIBRATION PROCESS
Decagon developed a scalable process to accurately calibrate solid matrix water potential sensors, resulting in the best maintenance-free water potential sensors on the market: the TEROS 21 and TEROS 22.
OUR FIRST SELF-CHARGING DATA LOGGER
The Em50G was released with solar panels attached, eliminating the need for a large battery pack. This change made it possible to get sensors and data loggers into remote locations or environments that make it difficult to change batteries regularly.
RELEASED THE WORLD’S FIRST AUTOMATED FIELD SATURATED HYDRAULIC CONDUCTIVITY INSTRUMENT
The SATURO was a breakthrough in hydrology instrumentation: it automated a measurement process that previously required literal truckloads of water and careful, continuous tending. The USDA National Resources Conservation Services (NRCS) Soil Survey Team and the Soil Health Institute have both adopted the SATURO as the standard method of measuring saturated hydraulic conductivity and the Soil Health Institute considers it a tier 1 indicator for soil health assessments because of its accuracy and ease of use.
2016
RELEASED FIRST ALL-IN-ONE WEATHER STATION
The first-generation ATMOS 41 was a revolutionary all-in-one weather station that allowed researchers to obtain research-grade atmospheric measurements. The ATMOS 41 measures 12 parameters and connects to the ZL6 data logger to upload its data to ZENTRA Cloud.
DECAGON GOES TO THE WHITE HOUSE
Decagon research scientist, Dr. Colin Campbell, was invited to visit the White House as part of the National Soil Moisture Network workshop.
2017
TWO PARALLEL COMPANIES BECOME ONE
UMS, GmbH and Decagon Devices, Inc. worked in parallel for decades, both working toward the mission of making research-grade environmental measurement easier, accurate, and affordable. Deciding that we could achieve this mission better together, UMS and Decagon Devices became one and formed METER Group.
A NEW AUTOMATED SOIL PARTICLE SIZE ANALYZER
The traditional methods of soil particle size analysis were either a painstaking manual processes or automated processes that were cost-prohibitive. The creation of the PARIO provided an affordable, automated process.
MEMBER OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR SOIL SCIENCE
From 2017 to 2022, Dr. Colin Campbell served as a member of the United States National Committee for Soil Science in association with the National Academy of Sciences Engineering and Medicine.
2018
ZENTRA CLOUD IS CREATED
ZENTRA Cloud, our much-loved cloud-based data collection and visualization software, was released in 2018. Using this software, METER data loggers upload data via cellular or Wi-Fi connection to a cloud-based storage system. From ZENTRA Cloud, researchers can easily configure their logger, retrieve data, perform analyses and built-in computations, and see automatically graphed measurements remotely.
RELEASED TEROS 12 WATER CONTENT SENSORS
The TEROS 12 sensors measure volumetric water content (VWC), electrical conductivity, and temperature using three stainless steel probes. A robust epoxy body makes it capable of surviving in the field up to 10+ years. This next-generation VWC sensor measures at even higher accuracies than its predecessors, making it easier to gather research-grade soil moisture data.
2019
ZL6 DATA LOGGERS INTRODUCED
The ZL6 data logger combined all the features of our many EM50 data logger options into one full-featured data logger. This robust data logger has a weatherproof case and built-in solar panels to free it from bulky external batteries. Since its release, the ZL6’s telemetry options have expanded to include cellular and Wi-Fi capabilities, providing many methods to upload data to ZENTRA Cloud.
2022
A NEW LAB INSTRUMENT FOR AUTOMATED THERMAL DRYOUT CURVES
The VARIOS combines the thermal conductivity technology within METER’s TEMPOS and a balance to make it possible to automatically generate thermal dryout curves.
2023
OUR FIRST WIRELESS WEATHER STATION
With the ATMOS 41W we took everything we had learned about all-in-one weather stations since the release of the ATMOS 41 in 2014, added additional features, and created a truly wireless experience. The ATMOS 41W does not need an external data logger or power system, thanks to its onboard solar panels and telemetry that communicates directly with ZENTRA Cloud. The ATMOS 41W offers many of the same measurements as the ATMOS 41—adding precipitation electrical conductivity (EC) and a tipping spoon as a secondary precipitation measurement to increase accuracy.
METER’S FIRST SOIL MOISTURE PROFILE PROBE
While soil moisture profile probes have been in use for many years, METER chose not to create one unless it could be accurate and durable with a large measurement volume and easy to both install and remove. This combination was not possible until the invention of the TEROS 54. The probe easily fits into a 2 cm borehole using a hammering tool, and it can be safely removed with a specially designed removal tool. The probe measures both water content and temperature at 4 depths while only using 1 port of a data logger, enabling more measurements with less equipment.