Phathom
Real-time Turbidity and Total Suspended Solids sensors that are accurate, reliable, rugged, and easy to use. Phathom multibeam sensors are low-power and have good connectivity, enabling continuous protection of the environment at the optimal cost to business. Phathom’s multi-beam turbidity sensors provide unrivalled accuracy that single-beam sensors simply can’t supply. Phathoms generate multiple light beams that are synthesized into a ratio-metric algorithm that, once calibrated, precisely calculates turbidity or total suspended solids and self-compensates for common sources of measurement error.
Company details
Find locations served, office locations and our distributors
- Business Type:
- Manufacturer
- Industry Type:
- Water Monitoring and Testing
- Market Focus:
- Globally (various continents)
About Us
Designed and manufactured in New Zealand - a land of water
Allow us to introduce ourselves as the people at the helm of Phathom:
Geoff Letcher (Director) and Emma Ford (Sales Manager). We’ve spent a lifetime in and around the water, sailing, fishing, and surfing. You could almost say it’s our home away from home. That’s a common story for many New Zealanders—with 425,000 kilometres of rivers and streams, over 15,000 kilometres of coastline, and 775 lakes covering 1.3 percent of our land area, New Zealand is a land of water, as beautiful and challenging as you’ll find anywhere. So like a lot of people, we were deeply concerned when we heard media reports of sediment damage in some of New Zealand’s magnificent aquatic environments. Sediment can scour fish gills, disrupt migration patterns, and smother shellfish beds, taking a terrible toll on natural habitats. We started thinking about how we could use the innovative technology we already owned to help protect our water.
Innovation is in our DNA
New Zealand has a long history of innovation and technology development, and Phathom’s ratio-metric multi-beam technology is part of this proud tradition.
This technology was first developed in the 1990s to measure TSS and turbidity for the dairy industry, and it was so successful that a new company, Quadbeam Technologies, was formed. Geoff took over the company in 2009, and from these beginnings in dairy, sensors were developed for the needs of other food and beverage industries and for the mining industry.
Proven over 20 years, used by the best
Over more than 20 years, the sensors have kept on keeping on, standing up to the pressure of water hammer in industrial applications and the harsh abrasion of the mines, and Quadbeam kept innovating, developing and improving them. The sensors are now used by many of the world’s leading dairy and mining companies, like Fonterra, Danone, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), Lactalis, Rio Tinto, and BHP.
Applying our innovation to water
As more reports of sediment damage came in, we decided to act, and we developed the ratio-metric multi-beam technology for water monitoring too. The result is the Phathom range of sensors, designed to help protect the environment at the optimal cost to businesses.
Our team’s grown over the years, and our commitment hasn’t changed: harnessing the power of innovation to be a force for good, in New Zealand and around the world.
Water
Our love of the water resonates with the perspective of New Zealand’s indigenous Maori people. We invited respected Maori kaumatua (elder), Dr Haare Williams of Ngai Tuhoe and Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki, to explain this view of water and its interconnection with all living things.
“Wai Ora, living waters without contaminants, is water containing the ‘living spirit’ that restores and sustains life. The Maori perspective is different but relevant in today’s endless uncertainties. Water is viewed through a Maori prism as ‘The spiritual substance of Papatuanuku [earth, land, soil, placenta, birth, rebirth].’ Wai Ora is the purest form with the propensity to create and nurture life, to counter evil and therefore sustain wellbeing.
Whakapapa [genealogy] connects Maori to all things created which includes features like mountains, rivers and trees. Whakapapa is a unifying philosophy in all Maori tribal history. It accounts for all things in the universe from the beginning of time. We learn that the ancestral landscape has a continuous, natural and spiritual connection with features like water catchment, forests, bush, marshlands, as well to physical formations of valleys, estuaries, and sites like kainga, waahi mahinga kai, parekura, ara, paparahi, waahi tapu, [habitations, gardens, pathways, sacred places] and with people who live on the land (ahi kaa). This is the cultural landscape.
Kaitiakitanga is the law of reciprocity which means that a user of a resource like a fishing ground is simultaneously a ‘guardian’ to protect the resource. Maui, a cultural hero, demonstrated the distaste for greed, waste and gluttony. Tikanga, tapu and noa [protocols] ensure the protection of all things of value, a balanced use of natural resources where users are obligated to think and listen to the heartbeat of Papatuanuku, Moana [the sea] and Ngahere [the forest]. Listening might just be the new language of hope, wellness and peace.”
At Phathom, we aspire to be guardians of the natural world, and to partner with others by creating tools to promote the balanced use of natural resources.
Listening to nature’s voice
Water sustains and nurtures life on earth. A passion for water lies deep in New Zealand’s culture, originating with the indigenous Maori people who are the first inhabitants and protectors of this land.
Dr Haare Williams, a respected kaumatua (Maori elder) explains, “Kaitiakitanga is the law of reciprocity which means that a user of a resource like a fishing ground is simultaneously a guardian to protect the resource.” Phathom sensors help achieve a balanced use of natural resources and, by listening to nature, help ensure the well-being of all.
Adaptive management is the future of water well-being
Imagine being able to adapt to water events in real-time, instead of finding out after they’ve happened. Phathom sensors are bringing that future to life. Accurate, reliable, tough, and cost-effective, Phathom sensors can be networked to give you more control than ever before.
Other solutions are costly and inaccurate
Grab sampling involves costs and delays
Grab sampling costs time and money with multiple site visits. Manual sampling provides delayed, point-in-time information. Because no-one can sample at the exact same place and depth each time, it’s inaccurate too.
Single-beam sensors aren’t always accurate
Single-beam sensors can’t compensate for measurement errors introduced by ageing components and they need constant cleaning. That means they’re not always accurate, so you can’t rely on them. Because they have to run mechanical wipers, they’re power-hungry too.
Phathom's multi-beam sensors provide continuous, accurate measurements you can rely on and self-compensate for common sources of measurement error
With Phathom, monitoring an entire network is easy and cost-effective
Phathom’s combination of price and durability makes them incredibly cost-effective. Phathom sensors are low-power so they can be deployed remotely. Because they focus your resources by telling you when you actually have a problem, you can afford to link multiple sensors into a network, giving you unparalleled insight into the health of your water.
Other solutions are costly and inaccurate
Grab samples require costly and time-consuming site visits, and they only give you point-in-time information. Single-beam turbidity sensors aren’t always accurate so you can’t rely on them, and they’re expensive. If you need to monitor, you need to do it right. You need a better solution.
Protecting the environment at the optimal cost to businesses
We designed Phathom sensors to be low-power with good connectivity, so they can be used everywhere that nature is and they’ll tell you when you need to intervene and when you don’t. With Phathom’s help, you can use your time and resources wisely and get the right result for nature at the optimal cost to your business.