Topic: Looking to set up 3 weather stations

[nickk23]

Hi all,

The company I work for is looking to set up 3 weather stations across various properties we own. We want to be able to integrate them into a single webpage, making it easier for people at the company to view. I am unsure if we are ok with going cloud-based before the integration or keeping the data exclusively on our network before the integration. I have looked at Davis Vantage Pro2, Vantage Pro2 Plus, and Vantage Vue, with both the wired and wireless options for the Pro2 stations. I reached out to Tempest in regards to their TempestOne stations to see if this would be an option with their stations, and sent an email to METER to explore their options. I also started looking into Ambient Weather stations and ecowitt stations, but we would like as low maintenance as possible because of the locations we will be installing them.

We are not super concerned about cost, but I thought I would see what recommendations you would have as options.

I was planning on using a Google Site to display the data, as this can be restricted to people within our company. Hard-wired options will probably be better as we have login and password-protected Wi-Fi. We can likely make Wi-Fi options work though.

Sensor wise, we are mainly concerned with Temperature, Humidity, Wind Speed and Direction, Rain Fall and Rain Rate, Pressure, and at least one station with UV/Radiation monitoring. At least one station having a Lightning Sensor would be a plus, but not needed.

Thank you for your help!

[Wooks61]

Very Useful information can be found here:
https://meshka.eu/Ecowitt/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=start

[R.Sidetrack]

Note that all weather stations are going to need periodic maintenance, no matter what brand of hardware  you buy. At a minimum, someone will need to clean out the misc crap that accumulates in a rain gauge (leaves, bird crap, and anything else that falls out of the sky).

Ecowitt GW2000 and GW3000 gateways offer ethernet connections.

Personally, I suggest Ecowitt equipment. And I'd choose separate sensors (avoiding 7-in-1 type units), and include in the original budget purchase of spare components.  If a sensor has a problem, you have a spare component ready to swap in. Since you have 3 properties, buy 4 sets of equipment so you have one spare of everything.

Keep in mind most of the more "famous" brands are working hard to make you pay ongoing fees to access the data from the equipment you just paid for. You won't have that issue with Ecowitt.

[PaulMy]

Hi,

The company I work for is looking to set up 3 weather stations across various properties we own. We want to be able to integrate them into a single webpage, making it easier for people at the company to view. I am unsure if we are ok with going cloud-based before the integration or keeping the data exclusively on our network before the integration. I have looked at Davis Vantage Pro2, Vantage Pro2 Plus, and Vantage Vue, with both the wired and wireless options for the Pro2 stations.

That would certainly be one of the top of your consideration.

I was planning on using a Google Site to display the data, as this can be restricted to people within our company. Hard-wired options will probably be better as we have login and password-protected Wi-Fi. We can likely make Wi-Fi options work though.

For quite a while the Davis approach has been Weatherlink.com and both the original console and newer Weatherlink Live and Weatherlink Console can tie into Weatherlink.com.  But, in addition, Davis still has the Envoy console if running a program on a local PC is being considered for local data storage and customized uploads and website.

Sensor wise, we are mainly concerned with Temperature, Humidity, Wind Speed and Direction, Rain Fall and Rain Rate, Pressure, and at least one station with UV/Radiation monitoring. At least one station having a Lightning Sensor would be a plus, but not needed.

Davis' UV and Solar sensor is professional.  Davis does not have an optional lightning sensor.

Enjoy,
Paul

[Mattk]

Sounds like you have IT/network people who could integrate the data/web page etc? Hardwired, minimal maintenance, no maintenance rain gauge, Lightning, radiation, multiple/open communication interfaces/protocols then several of the Lufft WS-series/models meet those requirements 

[nickk23]

Ecowitt GW2000 and GW3000 gateways offer ethernet connections.

Personally, I suggest Ecowitt equipment. And I'd choose separate sensors (avoiding 7-in-1 type units), and include in the original budget purchase of spare components.  If a sensor has a problem, you have a spare component ready to swap in. Since you have 3 properties, buy 4 sets of equipment so you have one spare of everything.

How is your experience with Ecowitt's reliability though?  We want a system that shouldn't need too much intervention for day-to-day operations. Routine maintenance is understandable, but hopefully nothing too often.

Ecowitt GW2000 and GW3000 gateways offer ethernet connections.

Do these gateways allow for keeping the data internal though? I know it is just general weather data that we would have, but I have a feeling IT is going to want us to keep it internal.

Thank you!
Nick

[nickk23]

Hi Paul,

For quite a while the Davis approach has been Weatherlink.com and both the original console and newer Weatherlink Live and Weatherlink Console can tie into Weatherlink.com.  But, in addition, Davis still has the Envoy console if running a program on a local PC is being considered for local data storage and customized uploads and website.

This is one of the main reasons we are considering Davis. We are looking at using a station, whether the Vue or one of the Pro2s, connecting that to an Envoy, to a Data Logger, then to a Raspberry Pi if our IT department wants the data to stay internal. But I have not yet confirmed with them whether they want it to stay internal or not. We do have previous experience with Davis as well, which is kind of pushing us towards going with one of their systems.

Thank you for your insight!
Nick

[R.Sidetrack]

Do these gateways allow for keeping the data internal though?

Yes.  Both those gateways would have a local IP, and you do not have to send anything to the web to capture that data to a local Raspberry Pi. Once your data is on a Pi then you can do whatever your IT wants, including a VPN if that's what they want.

I have 2 complete Ecowitt GW1002 systems deployed about 800 ft apart, one for 4 years, and the other 3.5 years. I had the original rain gauge fail at roughly 2 years. Swapped in a replacement, and everything else has been fine. (That replacement was $45 [sold as 'used', probably just a returned unit] from Amazon at that time.) As far as I  recall they are all still using the Energizer Lithium batteries from the system setup. The replacement rain gauge did get its own new batteries.

If you are going to use a Pi, CumulusMX works well with collecting data "locally" from Ecowitt gateways, and even offers a version just for a Pi: https://cumuluswiki.org/a/Raspberry_Pi_Image

[Wooks61]

Hi Paul,

For quite a while the Davis approach has been Weatherlink.com and both the original console and newer Weatherlink Live and Weatherlink Console can tie into Weatherlink.com.  But, in addition, Davis still has the Envoy console if running a program on a local PC is being considered for local data storage and customized uploads and website.

This is one of the main reasons we are considering Davis. We are looking at using a station, whether the Vue or one of the Pro2s, connecting that to an Envoy, to a Data Logger, then to a Raspberry Pi if our IT department wants the data to stay internal. But I have not yet confirmed with them whether they want it to stay internal or not. We do have previous experience with Davis as well, which is kind of pushing us towards going with one of their systems.

Thank you for your insight!
Nick

If you`re using aRaspberry Pi. For collecting/Storing the data you could look at:

CumulusMX
https://cumuluswiki.org/a/Software

and /or

FOSHKplugin
https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=39625.0