01 — Your lake's dashboard
The first screen: current conditions, weather on the lake, what changed since last week, and what needs a person to look at it.
The Portal
Every lake health & safety initiative, under one roof.
Your dashboard, your map, your data, your history, your neighbors — the Portal is where your lake actually lives. The app carries it to the shoreline.
What the Portal is
One lake. One place. Everything you've ever measured, and everything you do next.
The Portal is the web home for your lake — the dashboard your association opens before a meeting, the map you point at, the timeline that outlives the board. It's also the door to the Boathouse and the ledger of what your lake has bought from the Toolbox.
Your subscription tier determines how much of it you can reach.
Core functions
What you actually do in the Portal.
Not features for the sake of features — the jobs a lake community needs done, in the order you tend to need them.
02 — The lake map
Every sampling site, buoy, inlet, and cove pinned on your own lake. Tap a point to see what's been measured there and when.
03 — Lake Snapshot
Four domains — water quality & algae, invasive species, nearshore conditions, and lake vulnerability — read at a glance, never boiled down to one grade.
04 — Data & sources
Every reading with its source attached: your lab results, agency data, satellite passes, sensors, and decades of imported history.
05 — Analytics & trends
Trend lines by place and season, the Lake Health & Safety Index, Flora & Fauna tools, and exports in the formats agencies and grant reviewers accept.
06 — Record of past events
Blooms, fish kills, storm runoff, drawdowns, ice-out dates. Dated, documented, and still there when someone asks three years from now.
07 — Current & past programs
Treatments, monitoring programs, shoreline projects, funding history, permits, and alerts — what was done, when, by whom, and what the data did afterward.
08 — Field Images & Field Notes
Geotagged photos from the shoreline and a running thread where neighbors report what they're seeing and others weigh in.
09 — Your lake's neighbors
See who else on your shoreline subscribes, what tier they're on, and how much of the lake is covered so far.
10 — Toolbox activity & the Boathouse
What was recently bought from the Toolbox, by whom, for your lake — and one door into the Boathouse when you need an expert.
11 — Weather on the lake
Current conditions and recent trends for your lake's immediate area, so wind, temperature, and rainfall sit next to the data they influence.
12 — Parameter library
A timeline of key lake health & safety parameters — when each was observed, tested for, or calculated, what the source was, and what the value or observation actually was.
13 — Data sources repository
Old lab reports, studies, surveys, maps, and images in one searchable place, linked to the sites and dates they describe.
14 — Data Partners
A summary of who you collaborate with on data: local nonprofits, government, companies, universities, and state agencies tied to your lake's work.
15 — Location manager
Add, remove, activate, or inactivate sampling and monitoring locations around the lake so the map always matches the work being done.
16 — Analytics hub
The Lake Health & Safety Snapshot, Index, Trends, and Flora & Fauna analytics tools — each designed to answer a different kind of question.
17 — Lake Admin updates & alerts
Updates from your Lake Admin, plus funding, permit, alert, and project history. When an alert is required, it appears in the Portal and is pushed by email and text.
The lake map
See the whole lake, then see what it's telling you.
The map holds place: sites, coves, inlets, buoys, and the depth of the timeline at each one. Every sampling site and sensor is pinned to the spot it belongs to — tap a point for its full history.
See the Analytics hub
Analytics hub
Four tools that used to be the domain of expensive consultants.
The Snapshot, the Index, Trends, and Flora & Fauna. Work most lakes could only get by hiring it out — now within reach of your lake, on your subscription.
Lake Snapshot (the wheel)
Free tierFour domains, read together, never collapsed into one grade. Each segment carries a color for its condition — and grey where the data isn't there yet.
Trends
Direction and rate of change for any parameter, at any location, across any season — the long view that a single sample can never give you.
Flora & Fauna
eDNA summaries, species observations, and invasive sightings — what lives in and around your lake, and what's newly showing up.
Lake Health & Safety Index
Every tracked parameter in one table: latest observed value, units, direction of travel, and status — so you can see the whole timeline at once.
Why the wheel matters
It never hands you one score. It hands you color.
The Snapshot — informally, the wheel — is arguably the single most important thing Lake Pulse builds. It refuses to collapse a lake into a grade. Instead each segment gets a color that reflects the condition of that piece of the lake, with the indicators behind it visible.
Seeing lots of grey? That means there isn't enough data yet — not that the lake is fine, and not that it's failing. Grey is the honest answer, and it tells you exactly where to spend your next dollar.
Access
Members see the Snapshot. That's it.
On the free Member tier, the Lake Snapshot is the one analytics tool you can open — and we made it the one that matters most. The Index, Trends, and Flora & Fauna unlock with a paid subscription.
Compare subscriptions
Weather on the lake
Current conditions and recent trends for your lake's immediate area. Wind, temperature, rainfall, and ice-off sit next to the data they influence so you can connect what the sky did to what the water did.
Air & water temp
Daily and seasonal
Wind & direction
Mixing and drift
Rainfall
Runoff events
Ice-on / ice-off
Season length
Parameter library
A running timeline of key lake health & safety parameters. It doesn't judge your lake against someone else's idea of normal — it tells you when something was observed, tested for, or calculated, where the number came from, and what the value or observation actually was. That's how you learn what's been measured, and when.
- PhysicalSecchi depth 2.7 m · observed Jul 12 · volunteer reading
- ChemicalTotal phosphorus 18 µg/L · tested Jun 28 · certified lab
- BiologicalChlorophyll-a 9.4 µg/L · tested Jun 28 · certified lab
- HydrologicalFlushing rate 1.8×/yr · calculated Apr 2025 · study import
- WatershedForested cover 61% · calculated 2024 · land-cover dataset
- AccessLaunch inspections 142 · logged 2025 · association log
Every entry carries its date, its method, and its source. Gaps show up as gaps.
Data sources
A repository for every timeline your lake already has.
Old lab reports, studies, surveys, maps, and images in one searchable place, linked to the sites and dates they describe. When a new reading comes in, it sits beside the history that explains it.
- Lab reports & studies
- Surveys & historical maps
- Photos & field documents
Data Partners
Who you collaborate with, in one view.
A summary of the organizations contributing to or drawing on your lake's data — local nonprofits, municipal and county government, farms and companies, universities, and state agencies — with their role and current projects.
- Local nonprofits & watershed groups
- Local, county, and state government
- Farms, companies, universities, and research groups
Location manager
Manage every sampling and monitoring location.
Add, remove, activate, or inactivate sampling and monitoring locations around the lake. The map always matches the work being done, and the data always knows where it came from.
Add & remove sites
Activate or inactivate
Deep holeThe inletThe landingBack coveLake Admin & alerts
Updates, history, and alerts that reach people where they are.
Updates from your Lake Admin — funding history, permit history, alerts history, and project history — live in the Portal. When an alert is required, it is clearly displayed and pushed out by email and text.
Funding history
Grants, assessments, and project budgets tracked over time.
Permit history
Drawdowns, treatments, and shoreline permits in one timeline.
Alerts history
Past advisories and how they were communicated to the lake community.
Project history
Monitoring programs, treatments, and restoration work from start to follow-up.
When an alert is required, people know
If your Lake Admin marks an alert as required, it appears prominently in the Portal and is pushed to subscribers by email and text — so the right people see it whether they're at their desk or on the dock.
Field Images & Field Notes
The stuff you see from the dock is data too.
A photo with a time and a place on it is evidence. A neighbor's note that the north cove went green on a Tuesday is evidence. Both land in the same timeline as your lab results.
Field Images
Fish kill, three observed along 40 ft of shoreline.
Surface algae mat drifting along the shoreline.
Every image is geotagged, dated, and attached to the site it came from — so next July you can put the two side by side.
Field Notes
Thread · North shore discoloration
Dana W. · Tue 7:12 AM
Basic subscriber · North Cove
Green streaking along the north shore this morning, worse than last week. Water looks like paint where the wind pushes it into the corner.
Ray T. · Tue 8:40 AM
Plus subscriber · The Landing
Same at the landing. Secchi read 1.4 m — was 2.2 m on the 3rd. Logged it and added two photos.
Caroline P. · Tue 9:05 AM
Lake Admin
Thanks both. Pulling a chlorophyll-a and a toxin screen from the Toolbox today and flagging the event in the timeline. Keep photos coming with a timestamp.
David K. · Tue 11:22 AM
Lake Pulse Boathouse
Given the wind direction and your July temperatures, sample the windward corner, not the deep hole — that's where the result will actually mean something.
Members read. Basic subscribers post and comment. Plus, Lake Admin, and PRO subscribers can pull the Boathouse into the thread.
The Portal and the app
Same timeline. Two places to stand.
Almost everything in the Portal is in the app too. The difference is posture: the app is for the moment you notice something; the Portal is for the evening you sit down and make sense of it.
The app is the field
Photos, notes, and readings go in where you're standing — dock, boat, or inlet — with location and time attached automatically.
The Portal is the desk
The bigger screen is where trends, maps, exports, and program history get reviewed before a board meeting.
One timeline, both directions
Anything captured in the app appears in the Portal, and anything organized in the Portal shows up in the app. No syncing to remember.
Access
Your subscription tier decides how far into the Portal you go.
Everyone on the lake can see something. What you can post, export, manage, and ask for depends on your level. Compare subscriptions.
Member (free)
Read-only. See your lake's dashboard, map, and public conditions.
Basic
Post Field Images, comment, and contribute to Field Notes.
Plus
Full data sources, analytics, exports, Toolbox result sync, and the Boathouse.
Lake Admin & PRO
Everything above, plus program management, historic imports, sharing controls, and lake-wide administration.
The Boathouse opens from here
Ask a limnologist about what you're looking at without leaving the screen you're looking at it on. A benefit of Plus, Lake Admin, and PRO subscriptions.
Visit the BoathouseSee what your lake just bought
Recent Toolbox orders for your lake — what was purchased, by whom, and when the results are due back — so two neighbors don't buy the same test twice.
Browse the ToolboxData lives here
Upload it, reach it, manage it, share it — all from the Portal.
Lab results, field readings, sensor feeds, satellite passes, and forty years of paper timelines land in the same place, organized by site and season, and leave in whatever format a board, an agency, or a grant reviewer asks for.
Upload
Lab sheets, spreadsheets, photos, sensor feeds, and decades of history.
Access
Every reading, with its source and site attached, in one timeline.
Manage
Cleaned, standardized, and sorted by place and season — not by folder.
Share
Exports and sharing controls for boards, agencies, and grant reviewers.
