Ordered this morning 

Some of the review I've seen have questioned the Rain Sensor accuracy, has anyone compared their results to any council/metservice/niwa stations?

DjShadow:

 

Some of the review I've seen have questioned the Rain Sensor accuracy, has anyone compared their results to any council/metservice/niwa stations?

 

The main reason I got my Tempest was I was questioning how well my local rainfall related to what the bigger services measured.

The rain fall reported by my station correlated well with my plastic rain gauge. What margin of error do people consider (un)acceptable?

Been having a poke around on the Tempest website. Looks as if there is no display for inside the house to see the current conditions. Is that correct? Don't really want to have open an app or grab a phone or tablet to see what's going on.

Another question, when you use the app is the data you see routed via their servers or does it come directly from your weather station? 

DjShadow:

 

Some of the review I've seen have questioned the Rain Sensor accuracy, has anyone compared their results to any council/metservice/niwa stations?

My dad has compared it with a manual rain gauge (where you physically have to measure) and can confirm at-least with his unit it is accurate enough.

It needs to be on a stable mount from experience - if the weather station can "sway" or gets excessive vibrations then the rain measurements won't be accurate. This is the problem with the majority of installs out there I think and I only found out by experience this happens.

Technofreak:

 

Another question, when you use the app is the data you see routed via their servers or does it come directly from your weather station? 

The simple solution to this is to grab a cheap / old tablet to run the app and put it somewhere visible - the app does have always-on mode. But along with this the app is also fetching data straight from Weatherflow, not directly from your weather station. This means it is more accurate, but also internet dependent.

If you want to fetch straight from your station then setting up WeeWx is the best thing you can do. I'm still yet to go that path as I have not needed to however.

michaelmurfy:

 

Technofreak:

 

Another question, when you use the app is the data you see routed via their servers or does it come directly from your weather station? 

 

The simple solution to this is to grab a cheap / old tablet to run the app and put it somewhere visible - the app does have always-on mode. But along with this the app is also fetching data straight from Weatherflow, not directly from your weather station. This means it is more accurate, but also internet dependent.

 

If you want to fetch straight from your station then setting up WeeWx is the best thing you can do. I'm still yet to go that path as I have not needed to however.

 

I'd thought about the cheap tablet option, that may work but then I struggle to see how the data is more accurate by going via Weatherflow? I'd rather see my own data directly. 

Technofreak:

 

I'd thought about the cheap tablet option, that may work but then I struggle to see how the data is more accurate by going via Weatherflow? I'd rather see my own data directly. 

 

You will see your own data, just it will be served from their servers.

Cheers - N

Talkiet:

 

Technofreak:

 

I'd thought about the cheap tablet option, that may work but then I struggle to see how the data is more accurate by going via Weatherflow? I'd rather see my own data directly. 

 

 

You will see your own data, just it will be served from their servers.

 

Cheers - N

 

I'm a bit confused.

Why the need for the data to go via their servers in order for me to see it?

How does that make it more accurate?

Am I missing something?

One other question, can the data be fed into the likes of Wunderground.

It's a web service, if that's a deal breaker for you then you can capture the UDP packets using 3rd party software and dump everything into a time series DB I guess.

I have the capability of doing that, but their webservice is always going to be better so I am using it. The data is no more or less accurate than if you parse it yourself except that they do add local forecasts as well, so it's enriched in that sense.

Cheers  N

Talkiet:

 

It's a web service, if that's a deal breaker for you then you can capture the UDP packets using 3rd party software and dump everything into a time series DB I guess.

 

I have the capability of doing that, but their webservice is always going to be better so I am using it. The data is no more or less accurate than if you parse it yourself except that they do add local forecasts as well, so it's enriched in that sense.

 

Cheers  N

 

Thanks for the reply. 

You say it's a web service.  How do you go about calibrating the air pressure sensor for your elevation? Is that done on the server or on the unit. If you were to capture the packets as you suggest is the air pressure data corrected for your elevation?

I'm really only interested in what's happening rather than getting input from a forecast point of view so any enrichment you mention isn't of any value to me.

P.S. Done some more digging on their website, I see Wunderground is supported. 

I have calibrated it through their app. Sounds like it's the wrong product for you.

Cheers - N

Talkiet:

I have calibrated it through their app. Sounds like it's the wrong product for you.

Cheers - N