Weather station

[vette-kid]

Does anyone here use weather stations? We frequently get storms in the area and can have a downpour on one side of the street and dry on the other. Id like a weather station to track the amount of rain I'm getting (as well as temp, wind, etc). I'm a pilot, so by nature a bit of a weather enthusiast as well. Since I am in a borderline zone, I think it would also be helpful to have a temp probe I can place a few inches into the ground and track soil temp during the winter (So I know if my banana corms are in danger).

What do you use? I was looking at the accurate systems and hoping for something below $200.

 

[Greenhorn]

I have a couple I use. I have one in the green house and another outside. I too am a weather enthusiast, but overall the weather is pretty boring here.

I have an Accurite that will record your daily highs and lows and you can export to excel. Not much rain here so I don't pay much attention to the rain gauge portion. Wind either. I bought it at the swap meet for $20. I also have a couple of the smaller ones.

I do use both of them to understand general conditions. With the outside gauge... if it says X +/- 5 I know it's a doors and vents open day for the greenhouse. If it says Y +/- 5 then it's it's a doors and vents open, fan on in the green house.

I use one inside the greenhouse to understand the daily highs and lows as they important to seed germination. In summer I also look at it to see how much the misting bursts cool the shade house.

I have thought about posting to web thing or using the app to check with the Accurite but in reality I'm too busy with the gardening to get to deep into it.

I've also looked at the more $$$ ones from other brands and thought about being a reporting weather station, but again, gardening takes up most of the time and we have mild, predictable weather here.

I find the Accurites a good product and I did once use their customer service and they were responsive and helpful.

Temp probes, moisture probes, humidity sensors.... I would love to get involved with all of that as it relates to greenhouse growing, but my green house size is not to that scale. Still might give it a try as time and money presents itself, I need to try and next step. I want one of those big console for all the functions and you can control it via software

Let me know if you have any specific questions.

 

[vette-kid]

I'm guessing you don't worry too much about freezing in your zone! we are just north enough that it is a threat, but rarely actually happens. What accurate do you have, does it have a display or do you have to download it to the computer? I'm considering the color or HD displays, but they get pricey and push my $200 budget. I guess my biggest question would be how accurate they really are? Is the wind, temp and lightening strike detector really worth much? Our weather can be pretty wild, so it would definitely be useful to have my own station, but only if its accurate enough to rely on.

Im looking at this and adding a soil temp detector. 20% off for fathers day right now, that would put me about $180, just under 200 if I add an indoor temp sensor too.

https://www.acurite.com/hd-display-with-5-in-1-weather-station-and-lightning-detector.html

 

[Greenhorn]

I think I'm like you frost wise, rarely a threat, but it does happen a few times a year here on average, so has to be a consideration. I lost a bunch of mature Pumerias a couple years ago as they got hit with a little frost and I didn't follow up correctly.

I'll see exactly what I have later when I get home.

Oh, battery consumption is high unfortunately with mine that do more than the basics. Multiple 3 to 5 batteries in both sending unit and receiving unit. What do they have solar powered, or maybe thin about going with rechargeable. With rechargeable you will need a lot, some in the units and some charged and ready. Your link says 2 year battery life for that unit, maybe things have changed?

 

[vette-kid]

Ok, so I went worth the AcuRite 5 in 1 with HD display and lightening sensor. I found it on ebay wroth a broken wind vane and cups for $70. New cups were 5$ and my yard is too classed in for the direction to be accurate anyway. I also bought a soil temp monitor and smart hub for it. So far so good. Im not crazy about their software, the display will only allow you to connect 2 sensors, which is no where in the literature or online, and the app isn't compatible with the lightening sensor and limits the data you can see. Overall I find that pretty annoying that I can't access all the data available. But, it seems pretty accurate and the basics are pretty easy to do. This will probably be a temporary intro into the hobby for me and I'll step up to something more capable in the future. AcuRitr seems to have the most options at s reasonable cost, but performance is spotty. In already fighting connection issues and I'm only about a third of the advertised distance away.

For mounting I used 12 feet of iron pipe and used a post driver to drive it about 4 feet in ground, so the sensor is about 8 feet up. That may get blocked a little by my bananas, but it's a clear as I can get in my yard without putting it on the roof.