I have the old-fashioned "spinning cones" anemometer. I had a younger guy who climbs ladders like I did at his age put it up in Sep or Oct, with a fresh lithium battery, and it went through our Maine winter, on a lake with a steady breeze, without any problems. Battery still appears to be fresh as a daisy.
I should also mention the range of these sensors and hub. We have several buildings on our property and the anemometer is mounted at the far end of the guest house while the little hub device is located inside the opposite end of a separate building, so they're perhaps 140' or so apart. The connection between the two has never faltered. I've also had no trouble with the outdoor temp/humidity sensor, which worked fine at -17F this winter. I did melt the housing of one of those when I put it on the top bench in the sauna, but it was about 200F (don't try that at home, kids). A replacement has worked fine at temps around 150F (put it on the rear support of the lower bench), although it maxes out at 140F for a reading. My friend has had the same experience in his sauna, although he hasn't melted one (yet). I also have a temp/humidity sensor in the basement of the guest house, inside a cedar closet, and it maintains a connection about 98% of the time in a place I feared would have no connection at all. The same is true for one I mounted inside the metal generator cabinet.
I don't have a display for my system as we just look at on our phone or an iPad. I looked at my Davis display only rarely, so I just didn't bother with it for the Ecowitt. I'm obviously a big fan. Hope it all works out as well for you.
I walked around the house again, coffee mug in hand, and had an idea.
It got windier overnight, and the flag on an 8' 2x6 (deer fence related) attached to the driveway gate pole was standing straight out.
That got me to thinking. It's more open out there, and there are no houses or hills to shade the wind. Some trees, yes, but they're unavoidable here. It's by the driveway, so accessible with snow-just have to watch where I aim the snowblower, lol.
I have nominal 24VAC out at the gate, so I guess I could tap into that if needed. A need for 5vdc to melt frost just to measure wind speed in the winter doesn't seem like a winner for me.
It's pretty far though. Zigbee and Z-wave and even Wifi, I believe, can reach the Hubitat hub, so if I put the Ecowitt hub near it, the signal should reach. Of course, radio interference might be a factor.
That's where I don't understand the role of the hub vs the display. It seems the hub can be plugged into a local lan (ethernet?) but also has wifi capability, kind of like the C8. The display seems to have wifi capability only. Would that be enough.
An out-of-the-box display would be nice for someone without mad programming skills such as I.
Winter is the time of year we get most of our 'weather'.
I use wifi only for my hub, and it isn't a problem at all. I just reserved the IP address in the router once it was assigned via DHCP, which I do for all wifi automation and media devices, and all is well. As for the anemometer location, anything close to the ground is going to have some interference from trees and such, but if you're OK with using wind speed for that location as your reference for the property, then it is what it is. Weather purists will frown on that, but they're not the ones trying to access your anemometer when it one day needs a battery, are they?
BTW, the only time I wish I had a heated anything is for the rain gauge, because of ice and snow. My old-fashioned "spinning comes" anemometer hasn't had a problem with cold, snow, or ice.
This is all good info. As I said, I'm leaning towards the spinning cones.
Your generator mention inspired me to take down a Hue motion sensor in the kitchen and put it in the generator cabinet. Not quite. Even though the cabinet is aluminum, the location, far from the hub and below the first floor with the concrete basement wall in the way, doesn't help.
Good range is something I'd look for in locating the weather station, given my current idea of where to put it.
If I ever put in a sauna it'd have to be wood-fired.
I wish that Ecowitt would have a thermocouple sensor for high temperatures such as a wood stove.
I do have a habit of looking at our Acurite indoor/outdoor temperature displays in the kitchen and bathroom.
Yeah, when I saw that usb cable hanging there in a Wittboy picture, and learned of its purpose, it turned me off. Of course, I'm sure one good hit with snow from the snowblower would knock send those cones spinning, for sure. I did a number on our spinning kinetic sculpture this past winter. It survived though.
@rlithgow1: Tempest was doing a beta a while back to find people to mount special sensors on their houses for lightning, you are not mistaken about it. But they can get a couple to cover a pretty wide region. The pulses are pretty easily detectable and just a few sensors can triangulate them for a pretty large area. I volunteered but never heard back unfortunately.
@FiveNines: As for one of the prior questions, there is/are community drivers that support the Ecowitt Gateway (I use the slightly older version, the GW1000). You can find them from the Community Driver list (Custom Device Drivers [Wiki] - #163 by yracine66). For example, my Ambient/Ecowitt driver is on there (since someone mentioned my Tempest driver before).
My experience for lightning detection has been that it is "OK". I have both an Ecowitt Lightning sensor AND the Tempest... We had some in the area yesterday apparently. The results were:
Ecowitt = Fri Apr 21 23:50:46 EDT 2023 & 12.0 miles distance
Tempest = Fri Apr 21 23:52:02 EDT 2023 & 8.7 miles distance
I missed it so I have no idea which was closer on time. But I do not have any array or anything I need to worry about lightning for so it has always been an "interesting" but extraneous thing for me.
tried the thermo with the ecowitt in the sauna.. no go .. our sauna getss to 250 ..
as for the wittboy.. not really necessary.. this one needs no heater.. and i have 3 of these at 3 different locations.. you can have more than one reporting to hubitat if you do creative port forwarding..
anyway.. one is at our cottage. that gets over 300 inches of snow and it is still working after all winter.. i would also get many wh31 sensors to provide multiple temp readings..
one of mine is now going on like 4 years and still working strong
From researching, apparently Ambient Weather and Ecowitt source their products from OEM Fine Offset. There is a certain amount interchangeability in their products.
I have nothing to base this on other than looks, but I'm pretty sure the Tempest is made by Ecowitt. There is one difference, I want to say Luminance or UV Radiation?? I have thought about getting the tempest, but I have really gone down the Ecowitt rabbit hole, so I really don't need or want the actual weather station being on a separate system (my actual weather station is a 7-year-old Accurite 5 in 1 that barely limps along). It is soon to be replaced, most likely with an Ecowitt, I just don't know if it will be a Wittboy or one of the other stations. Even without that piece I have found so many other ways to integrate Ecowitt into our home. I use it to monitor plant moisture levels (plants on top of cabinets as well as outdoor on the patio), ground temperature (comes in handy for knowing when to put down pre-emergent and fertilizer), monitor temp and humidity in various rooms and on the patio (I have 3 rooms left to switch over from my Sonof sensors), lightning strikes and rain, as well as indoor air quality. Before the end of the year I plan to
Replace the actual weather station itself.
Have temp/humidity sensors in all rooms in the house (I have 3 rooms left todo)
Add an Outdoor Air quality sensor
Add more soil moisture monitoring
Add a weather cam.
the nice thing about Ecowitt, all the various sensors are relatively inexpensive, so you can build out your system to your needs as your finances allow, so you don't have to lit to your spouse/ partner about how much you actually spent.
As for mounting, I have mine mounted on a 8' 3/4" conduit fastened to my back fence. As a matter of fact. I need to redo the arm holding my rain gauge on, as i figured out a better way to do it.
Per a thread in the Ecowiitt community, the Wittboy is compatible with this console. I suspect maybe some others as well. It looks like it is also compatible With any of the TFT and LCD displays based on this table
