Fluke 289 Multimeter With Software And Wireless Connectivity Kit

I purchased the Fluke 289 kit primarily for data logging over 24 hours. I have been able to achieve my goal, but not easily. 1st the instructions in the manual for logging data are incorrect, but I was able to see where the error was and I found the correct way to start logging the data. Next, I was hoping the Bluetooth adapter would allow for data transfer from a mobile devices, but it doesn't. I seems it is for watching the meter or sharing the meter readings at a distance with others. Next, I hooked up the data transfer cable to my PC (there is no software for the Mac as far as I can tell). This resulted in a UART driver to load on my PC. Since my laptop has no CD/DVD drive (and many laptops/notebooks eliminated them many years ago) I could not load the file transfer software that came with the meter on a DVD. So I visited the web site and discovered that I could not download the software from there either. Fluke, do you really think your file transfer software is so desirable that you can't just post a download link for your customers for fear someone will steal it? Anyway, after striking out here, I called customer support and that worked very well. The agent sent me a link to a shared file on the Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage service and I was able to download it. Pausing here for a moment. This process feels like it was developed in the 1990s and hasn't changed in 30 years. I am a retired IT guy and even I found it to be unreasonably cumbersome. I can't imagine how painful this must be for a regular person with average PC skills. Next I ran the application and I figured out how to both transfer the data to the application on my PC and how to export it to a CSV file. The latter is what I really wanted all along, so I can manipulate the data myself in Excel. When I imported the data from the CSV file to Excel, I realized that the meter readings included the units in the same cell as the numeric value of the reading. This is a pain for analyzing the data. Try adding “10 V AC” and “20 V AC”. Nope. So I had to format these cells as text and then extract the numeric value from the text and place it in a new column as a number. Standard database practices dictate that fields not be overloaded. One field should be used for each value or attribute. Given the evolution of capabilities in a simple mobile phone, light switch or coffee maker over the past 10 years, I think the data transfer capabilities of this meter are pretty archaic and overly complicated for the intended user. I still like the meter, but the documentation needs to be corrected and this data transfer process needs a fresh development effort. This should all be done over Bluetooth or wifi these days. Or even use something like digital cameras do ... where the device looks like a USB disk drive to the computer and the files can be easily copied. I guess I'd still recommend the meter because I trust the Fluke brand in terms of accuracy and overall capabilities, but if someone wanted to log data and analyze it on a regular basis, I'd likely shop a round to see if anyone does this in a more modern and user friendly manner.