This is an FYI for anyone else with a Tempest weather station.
I installed my Tempest in April of 2022. As of a week ago, I started getting notification that the weather station was offline. I finally looked into it yesterday. Basically about 10 days ago, it stopped charging "normally" and started discharging more rapidly.
I popped it off the mount, cleaned the solar panels and put it back, and now it does this - charges to about 2.4V, then discharges and goes offline. Then it charges again the next morning.
I called Tempest support, and they agreed to replace the unit right away. I asked if this was just a battery issue and if the existing unit could be repaired, but they said that most often it was issue with the charging circuit,
Just noticed that @eibyer had reported something very similar a couple of years ago:
Hmm. I just checked mine and I'm seeing something similar. Since 2/29, the max voltage the battery charges to is 2.45V despite some fairly sunny weather. It's raining today and while the unit is still on-line, it looks like it went into power saving mode and stopped reporting voltage when the voltage dropped to 2.13V at 9:30PM last night.
Looking at the data, prior to 2/29 I was seeing peak values in the 2.7V -2.79V range. I installed mine in Sept of 2022.
Now you all have me curious about mine... Although I do not remember when I got mine. I have not seen any regular offline times though (and only a couple times where it would drop offline all winter but recover once we got some sun).
One would think since I wrote a driver for it I would pay closer attention... but despite all my weather-related drivers I am not much of a weather enthusiast.
Checking right now, my station is at 2.34 volts. Of course it was grey and raining all day long. Guess I will have to check the history of it at some point.
@aaiyar assigned all Tempest users a new homework. LOL
I had one unit replaced a few years ago for frequently dropping offline, but didn't have the curiosity to check on charging levels at that time.
The new one rarely drops offline but it reconnects on its own, as opposed to the one that got replaced and couldn't get it back. Would be interesting to see if there is a correlation.
Iām on my 4th replacement. Two for battery issues and two for sensor issues. Last one was out of warranty but they still replaced due to the many issues with the others.
I"ve been lucky, Have one of the kickstarter units and battery does the charge dance every day. The only time I went into power savings was in December 2023 where we had over 2 weeks of nothing but clouds:
I will say that my communications with them (limited as they have been) have always been handled quickly and positively. Very pleased with that part and (to be honest) their station in general. It has held up well for me.
I am on my 3rd replacement unit. All have failed because of the battery or charging. They all seem to last between 1 yr and 1 1/2 years. Not real happy. So, far they have replaced all of them for free but I have heard they are only offer a discount on replacement now.
I heard back from Tempest support this morning and they indicated a hardware issue was causing the problem. They simply asked for shipping address, phone number and proof of purchase and are shipping a no cost replacement.
My experience with their support has been excellent. I had some pre-sales questions, an API key request, mounting questions, and now a hardware issue. All communications were answered very quickly, courteously, and thoroughly with very little need for back and forth.
That said, there seems to be a fairly high failure rate for these units and while I appreciate the way they've handled the issue, I'm sure they're not going to keep providing no charge replacements forever. Hopefully, the replacement last longer than 18 months.
My replacement has been working well so far when it comes to charging. I did have some issues with losing connection which was rectified by creating a 2.4 WiFi SSID.
