31–40 of 48 posts
I threw a CD drive motor on a stick with plastic spoons and an ADC. Been logging data every second for a couple years. I think I'm near 20 million rows of unused data now.
Looks like you can skip the logger and get a cheap rtlsdr to log data wirelessly (using e.g. https://github.com/bemasher/rtldavis ). A cheaper still route would be to grab the outdoor sensors for a weather station supported by rtl_433 (or receive signals from a neighbor!) If you don't mind a DIY approach you can use ESPHome to quickly integrate some low cost sensor modules (e.g. BME280s).
Love all the details here! For me, I skipped the crazy expensive Davis hardware and have built a network around the EcoWitt GW1100 station. It collects data at 900mhz from other EcoWitt sensors and sends it over a wifi network to WeeWX. In my case WeeWX is running in a FreeBSD jail, but it could be on any 24-7 powered computer on your network. WeeWX is one of those hackers projects that I just love. It's not pretty,…
btw EcoWitt makes the hardware for AmbientWeather (and a few others) so their parts are interchangeable
According to many threads at wxforum.net, Ecowitt displays (and hubs like the GW1100/GW2000) will pick up Ambient Weather sensors but AW displays won't pick up Ecowitt sensors (AW did some kind of firmware tweak in addition to slapping their logo on the front).
Also, Ambient Weather apparently also started selling rebadged sensors from someone besides Ecowitt.
I'm using a Yocto Meteo v2 for that, it's expensive but it's very good hardware and software: https://www.yoctopuce.com/EN/products/usb-environmental-sens...
I use those for indoor monitoring of a few places, would be curious to know what sort of case allows it to survive outside.
I know a few rural folk that would love to dabble in this sort of thing.
Anyway, to collect weather data from Davis station, I highly recommend https://www.smartbedded.com/wiki/index.php/Meteostick
It is very simple to use and works really well - it is also supported by WeeWX through an out-of-tree driver, but is easy to setup. It also allows you to keep your console in your living room while you collect data in your basement.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What changed last year that made you sick of it?
Not OP, but price and availability. Before about a year or two ago, it was a cheap-and-cheerful way to put some smarts into any project. Now it's impossible to get at twice the price, and the alternatives aren't quite there yet in terms of software support. I still like reading about the projects you can do with it though. I find it inspiring for my own side things (even though fewer of them involve the RPi itself --…