A closer look

The contents of the LT variant are not very complex. The USB stick looks like any other stick out there, and comes with a small green LED to show activity. The DT variant is much more interesting. The PCI card has a detachable antenna which looks just like the standard 2dbi WLAN antenna. There were two kinds of USB cables included. The user can connect the device via the USB port in the back of the PC or directly to the USB header on the mainboard. The back plate of the PCI card has a small cut, which allows the USB cable to be routed to the back of the case. SoundGraph also included a low profile PCI back plate, for SFF cases. All the parts on the card are high quality. The capacitors are firmly soldered to the board and are of the high grade kind.


The two remotes are completely identical. The remotes come covered by a thin plastic adhesive. The scratch you see in the picture did not make it through that protection. The remotes are quite small, and do feel a bit on the cheap side. They will certainly not survive a fall without getting a kink or scratch. The CDs and manuals are identical as well. So even if you buy the LT variant with the USB stick as a receiver, you will get a quick installation guide for the PCI card. The PCI card has 2 proprietary connectors, one to connect the USB and another called CN1. The installation guide has a note on the bottom of the page about this CN1 connector:

CN1 connector is reserved for future use. You don't need to connect any cable to this CN1 connector

Having reviewed the iMON VFD, I noticed that this CN1 connector is the exact same as the power connector for the VFD. My guess would be that there will be a new version of the VFD coming out in the future, which will make use of the 2.4GHz remote, instead of having an IR sensor build into the VFD. The display has an empty spot for a proprietary 4 pin connector, so the PCI card may connect directy to a future version of the VFD, while the display in turn is plugged into the USB connector. This way the entire setup does not need any external power source, as it is provided by the PCI bus and only one USB plug is needed to connect the remote/display combination. But remember this is just an educated guess.

Installation

iMON 2.4g LT

You may be asking why I posted this picture. I just wanted to illustrate what it takes to install the LT variant. Stick in the USB receiver into any free USB port install the software and that is it.

iMON 2.4g DT

Installing the PCI variant is a bit more complicated. SoundGraph has included an easy to follow illustrated quick guide. I inserted the PCI card, looped the power connector from the power button to the mainboard through the PCI card and connected the internal USB cable. Once the PCI card was inserted into the slot, the back bracket hat about 2-3mm play, so the dent in the mainboard you see, happened after I screwed it down tight. That does looks bent quite far and it is too. The card to the left of the iMON 2.4g PCI card is my Surecom WLAN card. The antennas look almost identical. I was wondering if the iMON receiver would interfere with my wireless connection at this point, but pairing the receiver with one or even two remotes did not result in any problems.

SoundGraph mentions a 30m open range for the remote controls. I went to the most distant corner of my apartment which was roughly about 9m away with one wall blocking the receiver. I did not have any problems at all. So I ran down one floor and tried the remote through the thick outside walls of my building and that is were the remote did not work any more. One has to wonder if it were possible to put a stronger antenna on the PCI receiver to extend the range, just like with WLAN.