Guardian Setup Guide & Resources

The Guardian is PMI's meter socket recorder, designed to drop into a standard 200A 2S residential meter base alongside the existing revenue meter. It measures RMS voltage and current, real/apparent/reactive power, power factor, demand, phase angle, and harmonics to the 51st — all in an all-weather, self-contained unit. It's built for utilities investigating residential PQ complaints, compliance monitoring, and capturing PQ events without disrupting customer service. See the spec sheet for full details.

When powering up, the Guardian flashes a red/orange LED. In idle mode (not recording), the green LED flashes twice in a repeating pattern (either 5 sec on / 1 sec off, or 2 sec on / 3 sec off). When recording, the green LED is on for 1 second / off for 5 seconds and repeats. A repeating red LED indicates a fault — call tech support if you see this.

The Guardian adds significant capabilities over the 2SX+: power factor, demand, phase angle, harmonics to the 51st, CBEMA/ITIC recording, enhanced waveform capture, email and text alerts through PQ Canvass, network time sync, and optional Wi-Fi or cell modem connectivity. Memory options scale from 16 MB up to 1 GB. The Guardian also has super capacitor ride-through so notifications continue during a power outage. See the white paper library for a full comparison.

The Guardian contains no batteries — instead it uses super capacitors for ride-through during a power loss. The recorder can operate without input voltage for up to 1 minute, which allows it to send alerts and messages through the outage. Once power is restored, the unit resumes normal operation automatically.