Topic: Barani: too good to be true...

[gvdb1111]

I serve on the board of the Belgian Meteo Club. Belgium, a small country in Europe with Brussels as its capital. Total area only 30,000 km2
Our network counts 98 Barani Meteohelix stations since its creation in 2020, more than 20 MeteoWind Iot stations and 85 MeteoRain rain gauges. In short, for Barani we were a good customer: lots of revenue and good advertising because all stations were publicly accessible (also on their allMeteo website).
After 3 years of using Barani, we can present the following figures:
- of the 98 stations, 55 have been defective: 80% of the problems are problems related to the measuring sensor, wires breaking off from the solar panel due to corrosion and the solar panel itself breaking down
- of the 20 wind stations, 6 have malfunctioned: software crashing, very fast freeze-up and cups breaking off
- of the rain gauges almost every one measures too little with some specimens up to 40% deviation.
Barani's customer service is limited to replacing the defective items, unfortunately the replacements also continue to show the same problems. In other words, solving the problem is not happening.
Most problems have started to occur after 12 to 18 months, but as the lifespan increases the problems increase even faster. So for our network a real disaster....
After reporting on the club's website that we no longer wanted to offer these devices because of what we consider to be questionable/bad quality, the manufacturer Barani closed the door completely.
Emails from us with the CEO Jan Barani simply admit that the problems are "challenging" in our Belgian climate. However, we only have a maritime climate, nothing extreme....
They also try to make us believe that we are apparently the only ones experiencing the problems mentioned above. With 98 weather stations operational (or better: were operational) we can - in our opinion - paint a representative picture of the Barani quality.
Much is promised, but unfortunately few of those promises are translated into reality.
The only product that works well is the Meteoshield. However, when electronics or software are involved, things go wrong.
Barani advertises on their website: "14 years of research, 12 years of field experience", but they forgot to add: ".... and still a failure rate exceeding 50%...". When one has 12 years of field experience and still 50% failure rate, there is something thoroughly wrong with the design and/or engineers developing these products.
For us: never again Barani, it was a real waste of money.
More info: https://meteo-be.net/en/measuring-equipment

[mauro63]

I serve on the board of the Belgian Meteo Club. Belgium, a small country in Europe with Brussels as its capital. Total area only 30,000 km2
Our network counts 98 Barani Meteohelix stations since its creation in 2020, more than 20 MeteoWind Iot stations and 85 MeteoRain rain gauges. In short, for Barani we were a good customer: lots of revenue and good advertising because all stations were publicly accessible (also on their allMeteo website).
After 3 years of using Barani, we can present the following figures:
- of the 98 stations, 55 have been defective: 80% of the problems are problems related to the measuring sensor, wires breaking off from the solar panel due to corrosion and the solar panel itself breaking down
- of the 20 wind stations, 6 have malfunctioned: software crashing, very fast freeze-up and cups breaking off
- of the rain gauges almost every one measures too little with some specimens up to 40% deviation.
Barani's customer service is limited to replacing the defective items, unfortunately the replacements also continue to show the same problems. In other words, solving the problem is not happening.
Most problems have started to occur after 12 to 18 months, but as the lifespan increases the problems increase even faster. So for our network a real disaster....
After reporting on the club's website that we no longer wanted to offer these devices because of what we consider to be questionable/bad quality, the manufacturer Barani closed the door completely.
Emails from us with the CEO Jan Barani simply admit that the problems are "challenging" in our Belgian climate. However, we only have a maritime climate, nothing extreme....
They also try to make us believe that we are apparently the only ones experiencing the problems mentioned above. With 98 weather stations operational (or better: were operational) we can - in our opinion - paint a representative picture of the Barani quality.
Much is promised, but unfortunately few of those promises are translated into reality.
The only product that works well is the Meteoshield. However, when electronics or software are involved, things go wrong.
Barani advertises on their website: "14 years of research, 12 years of field experience", but they forgot to add: ".... and still a failure rate exceeding 50%...". When one has 12 years of field experience and still 50% failure rate, there is something thoroughly wrong with the design and/or engineers developing these products.
For us: never again Barani, it was a real waste of money.
More info: https://meteo-be.net/en/measuring-equipment

I'm surprised, both I and many other users in my country have been using Meteohelix, Metwowind, Meteorain and Pro for several years without having had any technical problems other than slight and brief interruptions in data transmission due to software

Thanks anyway for your valuable input and sorry for my bad English

M.

[baranij]

Hello Luc and Geert,
I am very sad to see you go to all these lengths to badmouth BARANI products so that you can promote your "MeteoWise, the new weather station developed by BMCB." To keep things neutral, please be clear with the community that your BMCB club is split into users who want to continue using BARANI weather station products (bmcb.club) and others who want to try your MeteoWise weather station (meteo-be.net). 

In my email to you both, I stated that I am very much OK with you making your own weather station. Please reread my email. In fact, I am very happy that you will have hardware that exactly meets your needs. As I made clear when we started cooperation with BMCB, you had a very substantial price discount that we granted you for this cooperation; you had early releases of our products and a promise to replace any hardware as necessary in this very close cooperation. We kept our promise.

In conclusion, I would like to thank you for your cooperation and wish you all the best in your endeavors. We will continue to work with the rest of the BMCB members, who actively want to keep our cooperation going.

Cheers,
Jan Barani
(CEO of BARANI DESIGN Technologies)

[gvdb1111]

Jan,
- The station we have now developed is NO commercial product. It has been developed as replacement for the continuously failing stations in our BMCB network and is sold against cost, that's it. If you have read my email, this was already mentioned. It is no advertising to sell "as many as possible", we only want to keep up our network.
- Yes, I will be 'very clear': the club is split: one group of 3 persons (and some friends of them) and the rest no longer believing in your products, mainly the Meteohelix. Weather stations ratio of the two groups is 1:7. Draw your own conclusion... I wish you all the best with the cooperation.
- Regarding early releases: the Meteohelix stations we bought in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 are all having the same diseases and failure rate. You can no longer say a product sold in 2023 is an "early release".
- The numbers I have mentioned are the real numbers. I can provide a full listing of all the devices that have failed. We are already end of March and this month you can add few more having reached premature end of life. Maybe good to know: these are the number of devices that failed; some of them have failed multiple times.
- You mentioned in one of your emails that the products should have a lifetime of 10+ years but we are now 2024... only 3-4 years after the first installed devices and more than 50% is/was down. Please explain possible customers how you will anticipate these defects.
- High accuracy, high precision, "set and forget" are nice words on your website and in advertising, but if the device is not working and there's no data sent, what is the meaning of 'high accuracy and high precision' ?
- Badmouth Barani products? No, just saying how it is... If you do not agree, please tell me what's wrong.
- By the way: in my last email I was asking what to do with the failing devices from our members (not mine)? After weeks, no answer at all. Customer service?

 

[Jasper3012]

I serve on the board of the Belgian Meteo Club. Belgium, a small country in Europe with Brussels as its capital. Total area only 30,000 km2
Our network counts 98 Barani Meteohelix stations since its creation in 2020, more than 20 MeteoWind Iot stations and 85 MeteoRain rain gauges. In short, for Barani we were a good customer: lots of revenue and good advertising because all stations were publicly accessible (also on their allMeteo website).
After 3 years of using Barani, we can present the following figures:
- of the 98 stations, 55 have been defective: 80% of the problems are problems related to the measuring sensor, wires breaking off from the solar panel due to corrosion and the solar panel itself breaking down
- of the 20 wind stations, 6 have malfunctioned: software crashing, very fast freeze-up and cups breaking off
- of the rain gauges almost every one measures too little with some specimens up to 40% deviation.
Barani's customer service is limited to replacing the defective items, unfortunately the replacements also continue to show the same problems. In other words, solving the problem is not happening.
Most problems have started to occur after 12 to 18 months, but as the lifespan increases the problems increase even faster. So for our network a real disaster....
After reporting on the club's website that we no longer wanted to offer these devices because of what we consider to be questionable/bad quality, the manufacturer Barani closed the door completely.
Emails from us with the CEO Jan Barani simply admit that the problems are "challenging" in our Belgian climate. However, we only have a maritime climate, nothing extreme....
They also try to make us believe that we are apparently the only ones experiencing the problems mentioned above. With 98 weather stations operational (or better: were operational) we can - in our opinion - paint a representative picture of the Barani quality.
Much is promised, but unfortunately few of those promises are translated into reality.
The only product that works well is the Meteoshield. However, when electronics or software are involved, things go wrong.
Barani advertises on their website: "14 years of research, 12 years of field experience", but they forgot to add: ".... and still a failure rate exceeding 50%...". When one has 12 years of field experience and still 50% failure rate, there is something thoroughly wrong with the design and/or engineers developing these products.
For us: never again Barani, it was a real waste of money.
More info: https://meteo-be.net/en/measuring-equipment

I'm surprised, both I and many other users in my country have been using Meteohelix, Metwowind, Meteorain and Pro for several years without having had any technical problems other than slight and brief interruptions in data transmission due to software

Thanks anyway for your valuable input and sorry for my bad English

M.

Hi Mauro. I'm no expert like @gvdb1111 but we've had conversations about this, it seems that a lot of the failures are caused by water. The issue with the sensor head is caused by water getting into the sensor head (correct me if I'm wrong @gvdb1111), due to the coating being insufficient. The wiring of the solar panel breaking apart due to corrosion is also from water leaking into the space between the panel and the shield. So therefore, it seems normal that in Italy, which has a dry Mediterranean climate, there will be less of these issues, as it's not as humid and damp compared to Belgium. It's definitely not just a "Belgian issue" though, I know of multiple failures with MeteoHelixes in England aswell, which has a similar climate to Belgium.

[Jasper3012]

In terms of my own experience, it's mixed, to say the least... On one hand, I think the MeteoShield Pro is an excellent product and deserves praise. I've also always had great customer service, so no complaints there at all. On the other hand, I've had my fair share of failures aswell: 1 sensor head has had to be replaced, the solar panel wires on one of the two MH's I own has broken down (due to corrosion) and the MeteoWind Compact I bought a few months ago is showing some very weird behaviour. I think Barani is a good company, it's just that there's seemingly a lack of progress in fixing the issues, it's been a number of years since the failures first started popping up and they're still occurring now. I wish Barani all the best, anyway.

[mauro63]

I serve on the board of the Belgian Meteo Club. Belgium, a small country in Europe with Brussels as its capital. Total area only 30,000 km2
Our network counts 98 Barani Meteohelix stations since its creation in 2020, more than 20 MeteoWind Iot stations and 85 MeteoRain rain gauges. In short, for Barani we were a good customer: lots of revenue and good advertising because all stations were publicly accessible (also on their allMeteo website).
After 3 years of using Barani, we can present the following figures:
- of the 98 stations, 55 have been defective: 80% of the problems are problems related to the measuring sensor, wires breaking off from the solar panel due to corrosion and the solar panel itself breaking down
- of the 20 wind stations, 6 have malfunctioned: software crashing, very fast freeze-up and cups breaking off
- of the rain gauges almost every one measures too little with some specimens up to 40% deviation.
Barani's customer service is limited to replacing the defective items, unfortunately the replacements also continue to show the same problems. In other words, solving the problem is not happening.
Most problems have started to occur after 12 to 18 months, but as the lifespan increases the problems increase even faster. So for our network a real disaster....
After reporting on the club's website that we no longer wanted to offer these devices because of what we consider to be questionable/bad quality, the manufacturer Barani closed the door completely.
Emails from us with the CEO Jan Barani simply admit that the problems are "challenging" in our Belgian climate. However, we only have a maritime climate, nothing extreme....
They also try to make us believe that we are apparently the only ones experiencing the problems mentioned above. With 98 weather stations operational (or better: were operational) we can - in our opinion - paint a representative picture of the Barani quality.
Much is promised, but unfortunately few of those promises are translated into reality.
The only product that works well is the Meteoshield. However, when electronics or software are involved, things go wrong.
Barani advertises on their website: "14 years of research, 12 years of field experience", but they forgot to add: ".... and still a failure rate exceeding 50%...". When one has 12 years of field experience and still 50% failure rate, there is something thoroughly wrong with the design and/or engineers developing these products.
For us: never again Barani, it was a real waste of money.
More info: https://meteo-be.net/en/measuring-equipment

I'm surprised, both I and many other users in my country have been using Meteohelix, Metwowind, Meteorain and Pro for several years without having had any technical problems other than slight and brief interruptions in data transmission due to software

Thanks anyway for your valuable input and sorry for my bad English

M.

Hi Mauro. I'm no expert like @gvdb1111 but we've had conversations about this, it seems that a lot of the failures are caused by water. The issue with the sensor head is caused by water getting into the sensor head (correct me if I'm wrong @gvdb1111), due to the coating being insufficient. The wiring of the solar panel breaking apart due to corrosion is also from water leaking into the space between the panel and the shield. So therefore, it seems normal that in Italy, which has a dry Mediterranean climate, there will be less of these issues, as it's not as humid and damp compared to Belgium. It's definitely not just a "Belgian issue" though, I know of multiple failures with MeteoHelixes in England aswell, which has a similar climate to Belgium.

Hello and thanks to you too,
you are certainly right, my opinion was only regarding the installations, I have followed most of them, in our country and, as you say, the type of climate could have a heavy influence on reliability.
It is certain that, at times, it is easier to manage extreme climates, I am speaking in terms of temperature and wind, than high levels of humidity, perhaps prolonged over time and accompanied by a high saline component.

Excuse me for my poor English

M.

[Jasper3012]

I serve on the board of the Belgian Meteo Club. Belgium, a small country in Europe with Brussels as its capital. Total area only 30,000 km2
Our network counts 98 Barani Meteohelix stations since its creation in 2020, more than 20 MeteoWind Iot stations and 85 MeteoRain rain gauges. In short, for Barani we were a good customer: lots of revenue and good advertising because all stations were publicly accessible (also on their allMeteo website).
After 3 years of using Barani, we can present the following figures:
- of the 98 stations, 55 have been defective: 80% of the problems are problems related to the measuring sensor, wires breaking off from the solar panel due to corrosion and the solar panel itself breaking down
- of the 20 wind stations, 6 have malfunctioned: software crashing, very fast freeze-up and cups breaking off
- of the rain gauges almost every one measures too little with some specimens up to 40% deviation.
Barani's customer service is limited to replacing the defective items, unfortunately the replacements also continue to show the same problems. In other words, solving the problem is not happening.
Most problems have started to occur after 12 to 18 months, but as the lifespan increases the problems increase even faster. So for our network a real disaster....
After reporting on the club's website that we no longer wanted to offer these devices because of what we consider to be questionable/bad quality, the manufacturer Barani closed the door completely.
Emails from us with the CEO Jan Barani simply admit that the problems are "challenging" in our Belgian climate. However, we only have a maritime climate, nothing extreme....
They also try to make us believe that we are apparently the only ones experiencing the problems mentioned above. With 98 weather stations operational (or better: were operational) we can - in our opinion - paint a representative picture of the Barani quality.
Much is promised, but unfortunately few of those promises are translated into reality.
The only product that works well is the Meteoshield. However, when electronics or software are involved, things go wrong.
Barani advertises on their website: "14 years of research, 12 years of field experience", but they forgot to add: ".... and still a failure rate exceeding 50%...". When one has 12 years of field experience and still 50% failure rate, there is something thoroughly wrong with the design and/or engineers developing these products.
For us: never again Barani, it was a real waste of money.
More info: https://meteo-be.net/en/measuring-equipment

I'm surprised, both I and many other users in my country have been using Meteohelix, Metwowind, Meteorain and Pro for several years without having had any technical problems other than slight and brief interruptions in data transmission due to software

Thanks anyway for your valuable input and sorry for my bad English

M.

Hi Mauro. I'm no expert like @gvdb1111 but we've had conversations about this, it seems that a lot of the failures are caused by water. The issue with the sensor head is caused by water getting into the sensor head (correct me if I'm wrong @gvdb1111), due to the coating being insufficient. The wiring of the solar panel breaking apart due to corrosion is also from water leaking into the space between the panel and the shield. So therefore, it seems normal that in Italy, which has a dry Mediterranean climate, there will be less of these issues, as it's not as humid and damp compared to Belgium. It's definitely not just a "Belgian issue" though, I know of multiple failures with MeteoHelixes in England aswell, which has a similar climate to Belgium.

Hello and thanks to you too,
you are certainly right, my opinion was only regarding the installations, I have followed most of them, in our country and, as you say, the type of climate could have a heavy influence on reliability.
It is certain that, at times, it is easier to manage extreme climates, I am speaking in terms of temperature and wind, than high levels of humidity, perhaps prolonged over time and accompanied by a high saline component.

Excuse me for my poor English

M.

That could be true, but you'd expect a company like Barani to be able to learn from its experiences and adjust their design accordingly. So far, this hasn't happened.