Impact alerts make use of the onboard accelerometer to measure the acceleration applied to your guitar. This measured force is a vector quantity that we calculate into a magnitude to let the user know how hard the impact was that they experienced. To trigger an impact alert, the user would need to experience an acceleration greater than the magnitude of 12gs. Because of this, a user will typically only receive an impact alert if their guitar is dropped, they will not receive alerts just by moving the guitar.

What is a g?

A g is the unit symbol for g-force. g-force is the measurement of the amount of force per unit mass, which is generally just an object’s acceleration. A g-force of 1g would be equal to earth’s gravity on a stationary object. For a user’s guitar, an impact would be calculated based on the vector sum of the guitar’s acceleration in all directions. What this means is if a user were to drop their guitar, hit their guitar on something, or if the guitar was in its case and the case was dropped, the user would receive an impact alert showing the amount of g-force their sensor sampled during the impact.

When do I need impacts

Impacts are especially important when traveling with your instrument, even if it is in its case. The impact system will detect and alert you if your instrument is ever dropped or mishandled.