"'Ben Luria' via weewx-user" <[email protected]> writes:
> apologies if this topic came up before or in case I am off-topic here. I'm > toying with SDR and home automation on a Raspberry Pi and would like to add > weather data via WeeWX and a weather station. Is there any particular brand > / model I should go for or maybe avoid? Am looking for something solar > powered optimally, but that is not a must. You put "open" in quotes, which means that I don't know what you mean by that word :-) There are a few things you could mean: 1) well-understood interfaces and existing drivers so that you can get at the weather data and use it, and not have problems due to closed interfaces 2) open protocol, or perhaps reverse-engineered protocols, for the sensor suite (outside part) to talk to the console (inside, that you look at, and that usually is interfaced to a computer), so that you can sniff it with an SDR instead of using the console receiver. 3) being able to get at the weather data locally, without the device talking to some cloud service (not under your control, subject to the company stopping it, and likely run with proprietary software) 3A) separately from transport via cloud, can the local station produce observations by itself, or does it need a (perhaps implemented with proprietary software) cloud service to do that? 4) firmware/software for the weather station equipment being open source 5) an open hardware design for the station, even if it uses proprietary chips 6) full-on open, meaning open licenses for all silicon in the station, including CPUs and sensors, which leads you to RISC-V and for temp/humidity I'm really not sure what. You mentioned home automation, so I would recommend you check out the mqtt extension, which is I think what most use to bridge weewx data into an automation system (such as Home Assistant, which is the natural choice for weewx fans, being open source and python). https://github.com/weewx/weewx/wiki/mqtt For 1, there are lots of choices, and basically you should look at what weewx supports. For 2, I am not really aware of anything open, except for build-your-own kinds of stations. But maybe weatherflow is UDP over IP and counts here. The Davis VP2 protocol has been reverse engineered and there is rtldavis. However, the Davis datalogger/interface in the console has the really nice property that when your computer goes down, it keeps storing data, and then when you straighten out your computer from the botched upgrade, or you get power back, weewx reads the data and your historical record is 100% fine, as if you never went down. So I don't really want to get my data with an SDR on a unix computer, even though I'd like to try that, because I really like it that I haven't lost data the probably 6 times I've had an issue in about 2.5 years. For 3, Davis is fine, and some acurite setups have local USB. Various other systems have "interceptor" drivers that snoop the data going to the cloud, and I have the impression that sometimes people fetch their own data back from the cloud because that's all they can do. For 3a, note Vince's comments about weatherflow and rain. (I think weatherflow is really interesting and don't mean to knock them. I just find the notion that you don't know how much rain you got without the internet quite curious. On the other hand sometimes with Davis it rains and you conclude from the readings that you have a bird's nest, wasp's nest or pine needles in your rain collector or blocking the tipping bucket from tipping.) For 4, and even more so for 5, I'm not aware of any contenders, other than build-your-own with arduino and e.g. i2c sensors. But this is very interesting and may qualify: https://www.tinkerforge.com/en/doc/Kits/WeatherStation/WeatherStation.html https://www.tinkerforge.com/en/shop/bricklets/sensors.html However, I don't see rain and wind. For 6, my impresssion is that I will be viewed as crazy just for bringing it up. That leaves you with all the other considerations, which is that Davis is expensive but otherwise viewed favorably by most, and that various cheap stations are cheap and tend to fail. And weatherflow seems to turn everyone who plays with one into a fan, which is a very positive comment. There are surely DIY/maker projects out there to do rain gauges and maybe wind. Temp is fairly easy, but you need to build a radiation shield. So I'd say this is for "my hobby is building a weather station from parts" vs "I want to get weather data into my home assistant setup and I don't want anything too egregious". -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "weewx-user" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/rmisgfy14on.fsf%40s1.lexort.com.
