1. A method for determining the acceptability of a variety of host products having labels with different types of environmental monitors, the different types of environmental monitors having different types of features, each of the labels having one or more types of environmental monitor and one or more authentication elements or identification elements, the method comprising: (a) capturing an image with an image capture and communication device of a product label for a host product, the product label comprising one or more environmental monitors, the product label also comprising one or more authentication elements or one or more identification elements; (b) determining by the image capture and communication device a type for each of the one or more environmental monitors on the product label, wherein determining the type for at least one of the environmental monitors further includes determining whether the environmental monitor contains a color reference area; (c) based on the respective determined types of each of the one or more environmental monitors on the product label, analyzing image features of the one or more environmental monitors, the different types of environmental monitors having different image features which are analyzed using different image analysis techniques selected based on the respective type and features of the environmental monitor, wherein analyzing image features of the one or more environmental monitors includes, conditioned on the environmental monitor containing a color reference area, comparing an active area of the environmental monitor with the color reference area, and conditioned on the environmental monitor not containing a color reference area, analyzing the image of the environmental monitor to measure the active area without comparing it to a color reference area, (d) obtaining environmental monitoring data from each of the one or more environmental monitors on the product label using the respective image analysis techniques for the environmental monitors; (e) transmitting by the image capture and communication device to a host server the environmental monitoring data from the one or more environmental monitors and data based on the one or more authentication elements or one or more identification elements; (f) receiving by the image capture and communication device from the host server an acceptability report based on the environmental monitoring data and the data based on the one or more authentication elements or one or more identification elements; and (g) outputting by the image capture and communication device the acceptability report.