Software & Data

Lolly software

Lolly is a software designed specifically for our TOMST® dataloggers. It enables downloading and evaluating collected data from all datalogger variations. With Lolly software you can easily check and update the TMS and TMD firmware, configure different Time Modes for data collection in the field, customise chart parameters, and export measured data points for consequent analysis.

Download: Lolly software Download
Current Lolly version: 1.52

The software is continuously updated and improved, so please check for the latest updates before downloading data or heading into the field.

How to update Lolly
In the Lolly software, navigate to the Options window and select “Check for update”. The software will automatically update itself and download the latest firmware for the TMD adapter and datalogger. Once the datalogger is connected to the adapter, the new firmware will be transferred to the datalogger automatically.

Time Modes (data collection intervals)


By default, all dataloggers are set to Basic mode, which collects data at 15-minute intervals. You can change this interval to any of the options listed below through the Options window in Lolly by selecting ‘Change mode to’. To modify the interval, ensure the datalogger is connected to the Lolly software using the TMD adapter.

Basic Mode
Measurements are recorded every 15 minutes.

Meteo Mode
Measurements are captured every 10 minutes.

Smart Mode
Measurements are recorded at 10th, 15th, 20th, 30th, 40th, 45th, 50th and 60th minute in every hour.

Intensive Mode
Measurements are recorded every 5 minutes.

Experiment Mode
Measurements are recorded every 1 minute.
Do not use this mode for long-term data collection! Prolonged use of this mode may lead to memory overflow.

Hour Mode
Measurements are recorded every 1 hour.

Data


To download data, attach your device to the TMD adapter, ensuring it is properly plugged in. Once the download is complete, the data will be displayed in a new window as a graph and will also be saved to the dedicated folder in CSV text format, typically located at C:\Program Files\Lolly\DATA.

Only the data file labelled with the datalogger’s serial number (e.g. data_95329651_2024_09_04_0) will be relevant to you. Any other files generated (such as command files) are for diagnostics only and do not contain the collected data.

Each measurement is recorded in a separate row in the following format:

5;2024.08.13 09:45;4;25,875;25,625;25,375;495;202;0;

Time zone parameter
All measurements are recorded in UTC. A time zone parameter is included to indicate the local time difference. This parameter shows the number of additional quarter-hour increments. For example, a time zone parameter of 4 indicates UTC +4 quarter hours, which equals UTC +1 hour.

Shake
A default value of 202 (TMS), 204 (Thermologgers), or 206 (Dendrometers). This parameter was developed for a previous generation of sensors and is no longer relevant.

errFlag
Should be 0. If =1 the device couldn’t convert time from the PCF chip.

Soil Moisture Calibration


DISCLAIMER: This function contains pre-set soil types. If you are looking to obtain more precise values, we would recommend calculating your own calibration curve based on a soil sample. For more details, please refer to our >>Calibration guide<<.

All TMS dataloggers collect raw soil moisture values (~500-3600) that must then be converted into volumetric soil moisture (0-100% vol.). This is enabled by the Calibration function in Lolly.

  1. First, from the dropdown menu select the appropriate soil type. Note that the Default setting is recommended. See below for instructions on how to insert your own soil composition.
  2. Once you have selected the soil type, click ‘Calibrate’ and the data displayed in column Hu (raw moisture signal ~500-3600) will be converted into volumetric soil moisture (0-100% vol.) in column vol/%s.
  3. You can then select ‘Export’ to generate a file of converted data or ‘Calibrate directory’ to convert all the data files (in CSV format) from a folder of your choosing.

Shift zero value
This function will align the vol/%s values if negative values are present.

Show Local time
This function will enable you to view the conversion to local time.

Custom soil moisture composition

While you cannot yet customize the soil composition directly within Lolly, you can make these changes using the calib.txt file.

  1. Navigate to C:\Program Files\Lolly and open the calib.txt file.
  2. To customize your setting, insert a line in the following format:

    id;name;par_a;par_b;par_c;dens_q;perc_clay;perc_silt;perc_salt;zero

    id number your setting
    name name your setting
    par_a parabola A
    par_b parabola B
    par_c parabola C
    dens_q density
    perc_clay percentage of clay
    perc_silt percentage of silt
    perc_sand percentage of sand
    zero default value of 0
  3. When you save changes, your custom setting will appear in the dropdown menu of the Calibration window.

myClim R package

We would also recommend using the myClim R package for the soil moisture conversion or data analysis in general. It was designed specifically for microclimate data processing by Matěj Man et al. ‘The myClim package supports a complete workflow for microclimate data handling, including reading raw logger data files, their preprocessing and cleaning, time-series’ aggregation, calculation of ecologically relevant microclimatic variables, data export and storage’ (Man et al., 2023).

The stable version of myClim is available on >>CRAN<< .
The development version is available on >>GitHub<< .

You can also watch a short video introduction >>here<< .