Topic: WEATHER STATION WITH CERTAIN FEATURES

[darticus]

Most weather stations do basically the same thing. Is there one that will also give me lightning and uv radiation also? Suggestions needed. Thanks  Ron

[Jáchym]

http://www.weatherspares.co.uk/ventus-w266-wireless-weather-station-with-lightning-detection--uv-sensor-197-p.asp

P.S. No need to shout here

[darticus]

http://www.weatherspares.co.uk/ventus-w266-wireless-weather-station-with-lightning-detection--uv-sensor-197-p.asp

P.S. No need to shout here

Thanks very much sounds like what I wanted. Hope they will ship to the USA. Have you ever used this one? Sounds good! thanks Ron

[CW2274]

Most weather stations do basically the same thing.

Very true. The huge difference is how well do they do it.

[Garth Bock]

Very nice. It will have to be sited so that changing batteries in the outdoor unit would be easy. Also I wonder how well the batteries would work in a US winter. Maybe this could be hacked to run on solar/super cap like a Davis. Would be nice to have some kind of data out. No mention of its update time and the 280 ft range is not that great. No mention of its frequency and would it be legal in the us ? Maybe its' radio data transmission could be decoded easier than the Davis. Just thinking outloud......

[vreihen]

Would be nice to have some kind of data out.

The above is the reason why this is a non-starter for most of us!

If the OP can wait a few months, this upcoming product may suit their needs:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/weatherflow-smart-weather-stations

It is running a few months behind schedule, because the creators do not want to release a product with flaws.  Looks promising though, and it does include UV and lightning detection along with remote access to the data.....

[Jáchym]

WeatherFlow looks promising, but...

No more clunky LCD displays here. Nope, this is modern world. All your data is available on our free iOS and Android apps. Plus, you can use popular services such as Weather Underground to view the conditions at your house from anywhere in the world.

Does this include eg. my own server? Or is this going to be just another closed-API like WL-IP?

And with regards to the lightning detector - yes that is cool and ideal to have it all in one set with the PWS, however, unless this is connected to some already existing popular lightning network such as Blitzortung (which it most likely will not be), it is not that useful. It will only give you an indication of a lightning in its operating radius, but wont tell you where it was, which is obviously also important. Even if they make their own network with stations of this type, it wont be very useful because for this to be accurate you need as many stations as possible and Blitzortung exists for quite some time already and hundreds of users participate in it.

[vreihen]

WeatherFlow looks promising, but...

No more clunky LCD displays here. Nope, this is modern world. All your data is available on our free iOS and Android apps. Plus, you can use popular services such as Weather Underground to view the conditions at your house from anywhere in the world.

Does this include eg. my own server? Or is this going to be just another closed-API like WL-IP?

They are claiming that they will provide an API to access the device locally, since home automation users are insisting on it.  Because these units need to shutdown the radios between broadcasts/updates to save battery power, they may not be directly accessible for polling...except for catching the radio broadcasts via BLE or Wi-Fi.  Although not mentioned in their campaign in detail, they are looking at putting a local hub in the house that listens to broadcasts from the units and is accessible by web/API.

I am in the campaign to get one when they're available, and believe me making it work with MeteoBridge is number one on my list.....

[CW2274]

WeatherFlow looks promising, but...

No more clunky LCD displays here. Nope, this is modern world. All your data is available on our free iOS and Android apps. Plus, you can use popular services such as Weather Underground to view the conditions at your house from anywhere in the world.

Does this include eg. my own server? Or is this going to be just another closed-API like WL-IP?

I am in the campaign to get one when they're available, and believe me making it work with MeteoBridge is number one on my list.....

You do realize that the low humidity you show today (15%) for your station wouldn't even display properly because the low end resolution for this "weather station" is only 20% and a dew point of 32F? That eliminates the weather extremes for about what, half the planet?

[Garth Bock]

No more clunky LCD displays here. Nope, this is modern world. All your data is available on our free iOS and Android apps. Plus, you can use popular services such as Weather Underground to view the conditions at your house from anywhere in the world.

So I have to whip out my cellphone to read my weather ? Or I have to buy a cheap Android tablet that has to be plugged in all the time to keep it charged to display conditions ?

No thanks....I like my "clunky" Davis LCD display that runs about 6 months or more on batteries.

[erikmm]

No thanks....I like my "clunky" Davis LCD display that runs about 6 months or more on batteries.

Thats were we are different in here, my Davis display is hidden away, since me and my wife thinks it looks something from the early 60'es and we have an iPad hanging instead with hidden cabling.

[johnd]

Or is this going to be just another closed-API like WL-IP?

In what way is WLIP a closed API? It's fully public AFAIK, but does depend on exactly what you're trying to do - eg wl.com isn't designed as a staging post for real-time data. Which bits of it are you having trouble accessing?

[Jáchym]

Wl-IP is an opened thing? AFAIK it can only send data to WU (at a fixed, relatively long interval) and WL.com.
So please tell me then how do I send data to my own server using WL-IP. I want for example the current conditions sent to my server in whatever format every 1 minute. Just like Meteobridge can do it. Or trigger an http request with the data, or replace some tags, but I dont want to use wl.com because only limited information is sent there (eg. the current gust is not there).

There is this:
http://www.davisnet.com/product/weatherlink-network-annual-subscription/

Which is IMHO an ugly looking site with very limited information. Now, dont get me wrong, I do think Davis has the best HW by far, but this in particular is definitely something they should work on. For such high fee that is paid on an annual basis I would expect something much better. And I repeat, please tell me how I can send data elsewhere, other than WU or this because WU is only updated every 10 minutes and I want data every minute - why would people buy a station that is capable of measuring in up to 2s intervals and then have their data on their websites every 10 minutes if using WU or use the WL.com, which as I said, only has some info.

[johnd]

OK, several questions there, but let me offer a couple of broad comments (which you very possibly know already, but I can't tell for sure):

You need to pull data either direct from the WLIP logger or from the wl.com service on AWS. Pulling involves requesting the binary data packets and then decoding them. (Exceptions are the push services that are available from wl.com to WU/GLOBE/CWOP or email alerts, but they're not the primary way of getting detailed data out of wl.com.)

If you talk direct to the logger then both real-time LOOP packets and archive data packets are available. But LOOP packets are not available from wl.com, only archive packets - as above wl.com is not really intended as a real-time data source. (That said, current conditions (which is, at most, per-minute data data and different from LOOP) data is available as XML, though this isn't publicised by Davis. But there's a rule of thumb that you shouldn't hit the wlcom server for data more than once an hour continuously.)

I don't know exactly what you mean by 'eg. the current gust is not there'. To repeat, LOOP data is not available from wl.com so yes, agreed, there is no continuous stream of 2.5sec wind data. But eg highest gust in last 10 mins is always there on the summary page (subject IIRC to console F/W revision) and of course in the archive data the high gust in each interval is always there as a specific field.

The wl.com data presentations seem to divide opinion. Personally I think they (ie the two current conditions and summary pages) still do a reasonable job of presenting the key snapshot weather data in an easily digested form. So many third-party online presentation try (IMO of course) to cram much too much information on to a single screen making it far from easy for the eye to quickly pick out the key values.

But there have long been rumours of an update to the wl.com presentations, but whether we're talking 3 months or 12 months yet I've no way of knowing.

Overall, there may well be limitations to the data that's available direct from the logger and also from wl.com but no software platform is going to be all things to all men and I can't think of any way in which this means that the WL API is 'closed'.

[vreihen]

You do realize that the low humidity you show today (15%) for your station wouldn't even display properly because the low end resolution for this "weather station" is only 20% and a dew point of 32F? That eliminates the weather extremes for about what, half the planet?

I don't see the 32 Fahrenheit dew point limit posted on their website, but I'll trust your judgment that they provided sensor details somewhere.  I wouldn't trust the humidity log by my station at the extreme ends of the scale.

Obviously, the sound based rain gauge is not going to be too useful in measuring snow melt in the northern climates.  I am mainly interested in the ultrasonic anemometer, and am just buying this as a secondary station for now until I see how it works.  Just mentioning it as an option, since it meets the OP's requirements.....

[Jáchym]

Hi John,
by closed I meant you can only send data to wl.com and WU. I am not talking about decoding binary packages directly from the station.

To give you a specific example:
Users of Meteotemplate have problems when they have WL-IP, because how do you want to get your data to your own website.... either from WU (at 10min intervals, which cannot be changed in Wl-IP) or from wl.com, which as you said yourself, should not be done too often and even if it was, it would still not offer the ideal interval of updates and all the data that I would need.

In comparison - Meteobridge can send data to your own server, to any network, at interval you select (as low as 5s) etc. Thats what I call an "open device".

[darticus]

I did order the Ventus W266 as this should be fine. My last unit was a Texas weather and cost 3500.00 dollars but I think this Ventus will be fine. I will use this the same as the Texas. Basically look out the window and check the weather. Should be fun! Thanks Ron

[Jáchym]

3500 dollars?!

[92merc]

http://www.weatherspares.co.uk/ventus-w266-wireless-weather-station-with-lightning-detection--uv-sensor-197-p.asp

$115 British pounds.  So after the drop in the value of the pound, that's about $5 US dollars.  Plus SH of course. 

[darticus]

http://www.weatherspares.co.uk/ventus-w266-wireless-weather-station-with-lightning-detection--uv-sensor-197-p.asp

$115 British pounds.  So after the drop in the value of the pound, that's about $5 US dollars.  Plus SH of course. 

Its 156 dollars plus 21 dollars shipping to the USA. I have 3 others and none have the same readings. If I look out the window I get the best accurate weather, but its fun to have the stations! With the 3500 unit it recorded the record 16 inch rainfall we had in 8 hours. Eventually the 3500 dollar one needed new sensors at big expense. That was it!