SmartFlux Core: Connecting Traditional Eddy Covariance Systems to LI-COR Cloud

How SmartFlux Core Changes Your Workflow

In a traditional LI-COReddy covariance system, SmartFlux 2 or 3 serves as the on-site computing component. It collects data from the tower's instruments, synchronizes incoming data, processes fluxes via an embedded EddyPro engine, and sends results to FluxSuite.

When you update the system's software to SmartFlux Core with a software download—no hardware or equipment changes required—you now connect the system directly to LI-COR Cloud instead of FluxSuite.

Get the process started by downloading SmartFlux Core here.

How Data Moves from the Tower to Your Team

Once your software is updated, your system can now follow one connected workflow from your site to LI-COR Cloud. Here's how it works:

Five Ways LI-COR Cloud Simplifies Your Workflow

With the SmartFlux Core upgrade, your team can now access processed flux data directly in LI-COR Cloud. This platform gives everyone one central place to monitor the system, interact with data, and share results. With LI-COR Cloud, you can now simplify your workflow in several key ways—saving your team time in the field and at the computer.

1. Monitor Your System from Anywhere

When your setup is hours away—or spread across a larger network—routine checks can take time. LI-COR Cloud grants authorized users remote access to system information and recent data, so they can see how a system is performing without relying on local access.

You can also set alerts for parameters that matter most. If a value moves outside a selected range, for example, you can receive timely alerts and take necessary action. While an alert does not replace routine maintenance or data review, it can help you decide when a system needs attention then act accordingly.

2. Move from Fluxes to Results Faster

Once data reaches LI-COR Cloud, advanced tools can help with quality assurance and quality control. Options for data analytics include:

• Data cleaning: Helps remove values that do not meet selected quality criteria
• Gap filling: Helps create a more continuous time series where appropriate
• Accumulation: Summarizes fluxes over days, seasons, years, or other periods
• Footprint analysis: Shows which part of the surrounding landscape contributed to a measured flux

What LI-COR Cloud data plan is right for your work? Explore your options.

3. Add Spatial Context to Flux Measurements

A flux time series tells you how measured exchanges are changing over time. Footprint tools add another layer by helping you understand the area that most likely contributed to the measurement during a given time period.

For sites with multiple land-cover types, management treatments, or sources and sinks, that context can be especially useful. Optional tools such as LI-COR Cloud × FluxMapper™ can provide more detailed spatial attribution, helping you relate measured fluxes to conditions across the surrounding landscape.

4. Move Data into Existing Workflows

Using LI-COR Cloud does not mean your data must stay on just that platform. Depending on your configuration and data plan, your team can download files, schedule transfers, or use an application programming interface to move data into an institutional repository, shared server, or other application.

5. Share Results Across Teams

Eddy covariance research rarely happens in isolation. A single system may be used by multiple researchers, institutions, or project stakeholders around the world. Your networks may even be managed by other organizations, and they need to collaborate regularly on findings.

LI-COR Cloud allows your team to share access and organize data from multiple sites in one environment. This means a collaborator can view the information you choose to share without needing to own the device themselves. This shared access can also be valuable outside your research group. For instance, you can grant project managers, environmental consultants, and other organizations certain access to results anytime, anywhere.

How to Transition from FluxSuite

FluxSuite is supported through June 2027, after which it will be retired. Upgrading to SmartFlux Core before then allows your team to set it up properly, test LI-COR Cloud, select the right data plan, and integrate it as a practical, familiar step in an existing workflow.

To transition to SmartFlux Core:

Upgrade your Traditional Eddy Covariance System

SmartFlux Core modernizes your team's data workflow around existing eddy covariance systems while preserving the measurement setup in the field. Get started today!