Hanna Portable Water Quality Meters

A pocket tester has the sensor built into the body as one sealed unit and is designed for quick spot checks. A portable meter has a separate electrode on a cable, so the sensor can be replaced when it ages and chosen to suit the sample, the cable gives you reach into tanks, boreholes and dams, and the instrument logs readings with time and date rather than simply displaying them. Choose a tester for speed and price. Choose a portable meter when readings have to be documented, when you need a specialist electrode, or when the sensor has to reach water you cannot bring to it.

Months to a couple of years, depending entirely on how it is used and stored. Clean water and careful storage at the long end, dirty or hot samples and dry storage at the short end. An electrode is a consumable rather than a permanent part of the instrument, and the clearest sign it is finished is a calibration that will not hold after a proper clean. Budget for replacement the way you would budget for filters.

For most users, yes, and there is a measurement argument for it beyond convenience. Taking pH, conductivity and dissolved oxygen with three instruments means three readings at three slightly different moments and slightly different depths, which is a problem in water that is stratified or changing. One probe reads them together at the same point and time. The trade-off is that a fault takes out all your parameters at once rather than one, so sites with critical monitoring often keep a single parameter backup.

If the meter leaves a bench, yes. Most portable meters are destroyed by water ingress rather than by wearing out, and it usually happens in a moment of carelessness near a tank rather than through sustained abuse. A waterproof rating also means the instrument can be rinsed clean, which matters in food, aquaculture and wastewater work where the alternative is a meter that is never properly cleaned.

pH tells you how acidic or alkaline the water is. ORP, oxidation reduction potential, tells you how strongly oxidising or reducing it is, measured in millivolts. For disinfection the distinction matters a great deal: chlorine concentration tells you how much disinfectant is present, while ORP tells you how effectively it is actually working, and the two can diverge sharply as pH changes. This is why automated pool and water treatment controllers dose on ORP rather than on a chlorine reading.

Yes, and these are what customers reorder rather than the instruments. We stock replacement pH electrodes, dissolved oxygen membranes and electrolyte, conductivity probes, buffers and storage solution for the Hanna portable range. Part numbers in this range are easy to get wrong because similar looking electrodes differ in junction type and body material, so tell us the meter model and the sample you are measuring and we will specify the right one.