Need weather station advice

[Tomgru]

Thinking of adding a simple weather station to my HS4 setup, as my brass analog unit is failing.

Really only want local temp outside, but wind might be nice as well. Could also add water temp (live on small lake) later.

Ambient looks nice, but so many choices (on amazon).

Ecowitt has more starter like packages, but not sure of extensibility.

amazon support would be nice, but could likely get that through HS possibly as well.

Would love any thoughts? Can I keep this under $100 to start and have some future proofing later?

Thanks.

EDIT: I should add that the last thing i need is another display device in my home. I have so many tablets already... would love to buy something that didn't come with yet another display.

[Michael McSharry]

If your real need is temperature measurement then you have many choices that are not “weather stations”. A significant consideration is the distance from the sensor to where the sensor measurement will be received and how the sensor will be powered. I use many DS18B20 temperature sensors including submerged in a pond. If you are into running wire then the spec is 100 meters for this device. I have transitioned to shorter wire lengths and used WiFi to bridge the longer distances.

If you have neighbors with weather stations they may be RF devices and you can get the data with a receiver. The rtl-SDR receiver is around $20 and decoding of all the popular weather stations is done with rtl_433.

[alexbk66]

Thinking of adding a simple weather station to my HS4 setup, as my brass analog unit is failing. Really only want local temp outside, but wind might be nice as well. EDIT: I should add that the last thing i need is another display device in my home. I have so many tablets already... would love to buy something that didn't come with yet another display.

I think the obvious choice would be Ecowitt https://forums.homeseer.com/forum/hs...icial-protocol

It's modular - so to begin with you can get the gateway GW1000 (with internal temperatre and humidity) and external temperature/humidity sensor WH32. Both very cheap.

And it supports local protocol (communicate directly with the PWS, not cloud server) but also supports multiple cloud servers.

There are also AmbientWeather devices (by the same manufacturer Fine Offset) but they do need display for communication.
https://forums.homeseer.com/forum/hs...tocol-no-cloud

[EDIT]

Ecowitt also have probe temperature sensor which I guess you can use for water temperature https://www.ecowitt.com/shop/goodsDetail/94

Also I work directly with the manufacturer (Ecowitt and Fine Offset) - so in case of any issues should be easy to fix.

[Michael McSharry]

I picked up an Ecowitt WH53 Temperature sensor for $8 from Amazon. It takes a AA battery and it is designed for outdoor use, but cannot be submerged in water for something like pond temperature. It showed up immediately on the SDR interface with rtl_433.

When buying Ecowitt sensors one needs to pay attention to the transmission frequency as 433, 868 and 915 MHz are all available depending upon the country of use. SDR can receive any of these, but one interface cannot sweep frequencies while decoding so multiple interfaces are needed if you have a variety of transmit frequencies. At $20 each it it not a big cost impact if you have a variety of transmitter frequencies for different sensors.

[alexbk66]

I picked up an Ecowitt WH53 Temperature sensor for $8 from Amazon. It takes a AA battery and it is designed for outdoor use, but cannot be submerged in water for something like pond temperature.

The water temperature sensor model is WN34 - I couldn't find it on Ecowitt website, I will contact them.

And Michael, just a reminder - the thread is about AKWeather plugin, not RFCOM. AKWeather supports Ecowitt devices directly.

[alexbk66]

The water temperature sensor model is WN34 - I couldn't find it on Ecowitt website, I will contact them.

Reply from FOSHK:

HI, Alex We will release these products soon. Please check it later.

[dmiller]

Two weather homeseer integrations I've found surprisingly useful so far are current rain rate and soil moisture in dry areas under trees.

Rain rate tells me if I want to walk the dog now or wait.

So I think for Tom the piecemeal approach of ecowitt should be attractive. The entry dollars are low, but the system is still significantly expandable. I didn't want a full weather station, but I'm adding more sensors than I expected. I also didn't want another display device, so the $35 GW1000 was perfect.

The ecowitt piecemeal approach also allows optimal placement of sensors on the majority of properties that don't have an open grass area available.

[alexbk66]

I also like Ecowitt local WiFi interface (actually two different interfaces) - and it doesn't require any additional hardware for that.

AmbientWeather (also manufactured by Fine Offset) also support one of the local interfaces - but requires the display for that.