So, yesterday I couldn´t fall asleep and I was wondering what would my dream station look like. And I came up with a few ideas…
So, the major concept would be modularity – i.e. there would not be a fixed set of sensors, console etc. The whole station would primarily consist of some sort of a unifying hub, to which various devices could be connected.
Let´s start with the sensors. There would be a whole range of different sensors and for some parameters even more types. So, for example there would be several rain gauges, from cheap plastic ones, to high-end expensive weight rain gauges. Likewise, there would be several types of temperature sensors, starting with some cheaper, plastic and not so well insulated one, to some very good durable and actively cooled sensor.
In other words, you would be able to buy those sensors that you are interested in and even later on change them, so if for example you could not afford the most expensive one, you could buy the cheaper one and then later on change (or add) just the more expensive one, rather than having to buy an entirely new station.
There would be many different sensors and the biggest advantage would be that they would all be connected to that one single hub, so the output would contain all these values as one single dataset, which could then further be processed in various ways.
I thought about the following sensors:
• temperature – air, soil
• humidity – air, soil moisture
• pressure
• wind speed/gust
• wind direction
• precipitation (optionally heated)
• snow depth
• lightning strikes
• emissions – CO2, NO2, O3, PM10 etc.
• solar radiation
• UV
• sunshine duration
• seismogram
• evapotranspiration
• webcam
Now as I said, you could basically combine them in any combination, or even have several at various locations. The great thing about it is the fact it would all be one dataset, even the webcam image could then be easily paired with the rest of the data.
For all those sensors it would be possible to either have them connected by a cable or wirelessly, and likewise, powered by either a battery or solar-powered.
Now that is the first part – the input. And now for the output.
That would more or less be the same concept. There would not be any console, you would be able to attach various modules to that hub, that could send the information using various communication channels.
So, for example there could be obviously a wi-fi module, which would immediately stream the data to your own server, to your NAS, to cloud services, weather networks etc. Then there could be for example a Bluetooth transmitter, which could stream it around your house and I can imagine there could for example be an app for your smartphone/tablet/monitor/TV and you could simply have a live view of your data, just like a console – put a cheap tablet somewhere in your house.
It would also be possible to attach a module for a memory card to the hub. So all data would be saved to the memory card and probably there could be two cards. One acting as a backup, so for example under normal conditions it would be saved to just one, but in case your internet connection was down, it would automatically start saving data to the other one too, so that you always have the data saved to at least two locations. Or you could use that to for example transfer data to your PC if it was not connected to it 24/7. You would simply take out the card and while you would be transferring it, it would be saving data to the other one and once the other one was back in place, it would copy whatever it recorded while the other card was disconnected.
Then there would be modules that could communicate via the MODBUS port, so you could connect it to various other devices in your house, create conditions and activate things like irrigation, lighting, heating, etc. This would include some sort of a universal API or XML protocol. The hub would be something similar to computers such as Raspberry Pi, so it could create these.
I know it is a lot, but remember – this is just my “dream”, not something I expect to see in the near future
But the best thing is you would be able to gradually invest more and more and get more and more features and have it all integrated and interconnected. Why invest in an expensive console when everyone already has a TV, monitor or a tablet at home. Why buying a completely new station just to get a better sensor that you could not afford or was not available before. Why having separately detectors, webcams and sensors all sending data at different times, via different channels etc.