I want to display (important) data from various temp & humidity sensors (like WH31 and WH31P) on a standalone displayAND at the same time use data into HE for various purposes. In fact, my sensors are half indoors and used to monitor electronic room/devices (like a NAS) and change room temperature (through fan/caseta) accordingly, and half outdoors. Precise accuracy is not mandatory.
I have for now a standalone display (ambient weather - not wifi - WS-07 with 8 non compatible sensors) AND sonoff temp/humidity sensors... I want to aggregate this with an ecowitt or ambient weather system (wifi), and this could be the solution.
I don't need wunderground or extra stuff (rain sensors, etc) but a gateway with a standalone display (not an app).
What will be your choice ? Ecowitt (GW-1000 with an extra display, if that solution exists) or ambient weather unit (display and gateway) ?
I need a lot of sensors (8 WH31 or alike), more important than extra features.
WS-2902C seems not the right unit, WS-3000-X8 + gateway (Ambient Weather OBSERVERIP ?), etc Should be HE compatible of course.
ECOWITT GW1004 + extra sensors and display (or an all-in-one combo unit) ?
Other unit/combo ?
I found that @snell was involved in that (drivers, etc), but community help/advice will be highly appreciated.
FWIW, I have an AmbientWeather WS-2000 and have the data published locally to the hub using only the "base"--no gateway needed anymore if you have recent enough firmware, though this isn't super well documented. I wrote my own driver, but it's possible an existing community driver could also handle the data.
If I had to do it again, I'd also consider the EcoWitt--pretty similar devices from what I know, but generally cheaper and also compatible with AmbientWeather sensors (but not the other way around: AmbientWeather only won't work with them). However, the AmbientWeather was a gift and I'm pretty happy with that. I don't use the AmbientWeather app much, as IMHO the visualizations are hard to use, but it's one option. I don't do much with the data in Hubitat either; I've started to like the way a minimally customized Lovelace dashboard in Home Assistant displays the data (but shocker: their integration is cloud). But you have lots of options!
The Ecowitt GW1000 has worked well for getting data into my Hubitat. It gets all the data my Ambient station itself provides (a WS-2902A) as well as additional sensors I purchased for the Ecowitt itself. It has been reliable (as far as I can tell) and works well. The USB power means I can have it on a USB battery pack as it's own little UPS.
It provides data in almost exactly the same format as the Ambient which is why my driver can handle both the Ambient Cloud API and the Ecowitt Local. Plus there are other drivers out there for the Ecowitt.
BUT... The display matters to you. The Ecowitt would need one added (unless you got it as part of the rest of your system). I do not really want the displays anymore. I rarely look at them and if I really wanted to know directly (versus having certain data handled by Rules) I would just check a dashboard.
Yes. Because my wife likes to see external temperatures (outside, the garden, etc) on a nice display and I know she won't use any app/dashboard for this (shame on her), the standalone display is the key to provide data to both of us and keep the WAF high
Even for me, sometimes it's easier to stare at a display out of the corner of my eye rather than launch a dashboard.
Thinking of this, I'll maybe begin with the Ecowitt Gateway and some sensors and see what happend with my precious... She's using a dashboard for managing the thermostat, I can probably show her some improvements.
From what I have read on the EcoWitt site, most of the displays appear to offer the similar options for sending data like the Gateway, so if you are interested in a display at all, it may provide both capabilities for you, albeit more expensive than the gateway and a redundant feature given HE having dashboard capabilities.
I've got a gateway and 7-in-1 PWS outside my place and the devices, their dashboard and the HE drivers I have recently taken over have worked flawlessly (not claiming any credit for the drivers success BTW), I'm very happy.
An alternative to a strict weather display would be to buy a tablet and configure it to always show a Hubitat dashboard that primarily shows the weather. Put it on a table stand or wall and you MIGHT get the best of both worlds (and another thing to play with).
I don't use the AmbientWeather app much, as IMHO the visualizations are hard to use, but it's one option. I don't do much with the data in Hubitat either; I've started to like the way a minimally customized Lovelace dashboard in Home Assistant displays the data (but shocker: their integration is cloud). But you have lots of options!
