Then I will describe the basic principles behind the sensors and how to deploy them to gather the most relevant and representative information. This article is not a buyer's guide but rather a description of the technology, intended to help the reader choose the right equipment for her particular purpose. Where I mention names, they are of instruments I know, not necessarily the best. There are some immediate advantages to electronic data gathering over the clockwork variety. The more advanced instruments can report a catastrophe as it unfolds instead of smugly recording the event as a jagged mountain top on the weekly chart, waiting patiently to be gathered in on its third circuit past the pen.
Some data loggers can also actively intervene to close down or start equipment.
The data can be handled in a much more informative, and persuasive, way. It is easy to chain together data files to give a compact view of the year's weather. It is easy to insert in reports just the relevant portions of the data stream. Data loggers are small and mechanically robust, with no preferred orientation, so that they can be enclosed with art in transit with negligible risk that they will break, or break loose. The disadvantages Servicing the black box is more abstract than changing the paper and winding the clock on the thermohygrograph.