readoutswhen

Readoutswhen is a term used in data acquisition and software design to describe a mechanism for conditional readouts in sensors and telemetry systems. It denotes a trigger-based approach where readouts are produced only when a specified condition evaluates to true, rather than at fixed time intervals. The phrase blends readouts with when to signal event-driven emission.

Conceptually, a readoutswhen system comprises a sensor interface, a condition evaluator, a readout generator, and a sink such as a log, database, or network endpoint. The condition evaluator continuously checks sensor data against one or more predicates. When a predicate evaluates to true, the readout generator captures the current state and forwards it to the sink. Some implementations support hysteresis, debouncing, or time-based guards to prevent rapid flapping and duplicate records.

Configuration and syntax are typically expressive enough to support simple and complex criteria. Conditions can be as straightforward as thresholds (temperature > 100) or as elaborate as multi-criteria expressions that reference moving averages, rate of change, or anomaly scores. Readouts may be augmented with metadata such as timestamp, sensor ID, and confidence level. In practice, systems may also allow chaining of conditions, temporal windows, and optional repeat suppression.

Applications include industrial automation, environmental and lab monitoring, automotive telemetry, and any domain where data volume must be managed without sacrificing critical event information. Compared with periodic sampling, readoutswhen reduces data throughput and storage needs while maintaining relevant signal events; compared with basic threshold logging, it enables richer, multi-criteria triggering.

Limitations include the risk of missing events if thresholds and predicates are not well tuned, potential latency from condition evaluation, and the need for careful handling of out-of-order or missing data. See also: event-driven architecture, conditional logging, thresholding.