Getting and Running the Application



Windows Software

 IOLab_win32_1.70.1530.zip

Extract the iOLab... folder from the ZIP file. Enter the folder and double-click on the iOLab.exe application. Requires Windows 7 or higher. (This video will show you how to download and run the Windows application.)

There are no known problems running with Windows Defender, but other AV (anti-virus) software may need to be configured to let the IOLab application run. See your AV software documentation for instructions.



Mac Software

 IOLab_macosx_1.70.1530.zip

Extract the application from the ZIP file and double-click on it. (The first time you do this you may have to Ctrl-click on the application and choose Open to get past security). Requires OSX 10.9 or higher. (This video will show you how to download and run the Mac application.)



Python Development (for experts)

Latest PyOLab Release

This is a Python library that enables primitive stand-alone communication with iOLab. It is NOT designed to replace the highly capable application you can download for Windows and Mac at the above links, but rather to enable interested people to play with the guts of the iOLab system at a programming level. To get involved with further development of this fun python resource, check out the PyOLab GitHub repository. When you have questions or comments please send me an email at mats.selen@gmail.com.

Selected Release Notes


  • 1.70.1530 (Feb/6/2019):
    Shuts remote off after 5 minutes of inactivity (adjustable). Bug-fix for PDF export on Mac.
  • 1.65.1505 (Jan/17/2019):
    Minor bug fix (Windows only - see Changelog).
  • 1.68.1498 (Oct/10/2018):
    Lesson player now includes PDFtk Toolkit to avoid separate installation (Windows only). Other minor tweaks.
  • 1.66.1493 (Sept/13/2018):
    No driver installation required if using (Windows 8 or 10).     See ChangeLog for more info.


Quick Start Guide


  1. Plug in the dongle and turn on the iOLab device.
  2. Start the application as described above (slightly different for Mac & PC).
  3. Select the sensors you want to read out from the list on the left - the system readout will be optimized for the selected sensors and charts to display the data from the selected sensors will created.
  4. Click on the Record button to start data acquisition, and click on the Stop button to stop.
  5. The Data Smoothing button selects how many points are included in the smoothing average.

iOLab device


Calibrating Your Sensors


It is important to calibrate your devices force probe and accelerometer. Click the reset button twice, then select the sensor to calibrate from the tools menu:


Restoring & Saving Your Data



Each time data is acquired it is automatically saved to the Documents/iOLab-WorkFiles/rawdata folder on your local computer. You can restore any previous acquisition by clicking on the file icon and selecting the data you want.


You can export the data from any chart to a CSV (Excel) file by clicking on the export icon. The data is saved to the Documents/iOLab-WorkFiles/export folder on your local computer.




Navigating Your Plots



When the "graph" icon is selected (the default), the mouse is used to select regions for analysis. Left-click and dragging will select a region the region (shaded blue) for which averages are displayed. Left-clicking without dragging will move the FFT region (shaded gray) when FFT analysis is enabled.



When the "magnifying glass" icon is selected, the mouse is used to select a rectangular region for zooming. Double clicking on the plot in this mode will reset the zoom to the initial default values. Zooming in on one of the plots sets the time axis for all of the plots to be set to the same region as the plot being zoomed on, keeping the time axis the same on all plots.



When the "compass" icon is selected the mouse is used to pan left & right & up & down on a plot. Moving one plot horizontally causes all of the plots to be moved horizontally, keeping the time axis the same on all plots.



Device Firmware & Expert Documentation


To find out more about iOLab firmware click here. To access expert documentation click here.

Please email if you have questions: helpme@iolab.science

iOLab® is a registered trademark of Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishing Group, LLC d/b/a Macmillan Learning.