How to Use Weather in Home Automations: Tempest Weather System Review

this is the Tempest weather system a personal weather station for your home but I'm not using it to check the weather 2 years ago I had a couple frustrations the first was that my irrigation system would routinely water my lawn while it was raining this was bad for the environment and for my budget the second was that the outdoor lights on my home turned on and off using a smart home automation but they weren't actually turning on when I needed the light as disconnected as these two issues may seem I found the solution for both in the same place the Tempest weather system in this video I'm going to review the Tempest weather system that I purchased with my own money and I've been using for 2 years I'll show you how it works what I like and what I dislike and how I'm using it to address those two frustrations let's do this [Music] let's be honest getting the weather forecast has never been easier my iPhone has a built-in weather app with a treasure Trove of weather information I didn't need more weather forecast data what I needed was data about what was happening on my property in real time my iPhone weather app could not give this to me so I went looking at personal weather stations now I had five requirements for choosing a weather station first it had to have a rain sensor which I would use to automate my irrigation system second it also needed a brightness sensor which I would use to automate my outdoor lights third I wanted it to be fully Wireless no plugging in power cords or charging batteries fourth I was looking for a simple DIY install no professional installer needed and fifth it had to be compatible with raiko smart watering devices my irrigation system and home assistant my smart home hub the intersection of all these requirements LED me to The Tempest weather system let's take a closer look at this device first off it's amazingly compact at about 8 in tall by 4 in wide starting at the top it has a light sensor for detecting the ambient light level and UV index also at the top is a hap to grain sensor which uses vibration to tell you when it's raining outside for how long the intensity and the accumulation moving down it has a Sonic wind sensor that measures the wind speed and direction every 3 seconds along with pressure temperature and humid humity sensors it also has a built-in lightning sensor for detecting the number of lightning strikes at a distance up to 40 km it's completely wireless with a solar panel for powering the device and it connects to your home's Wi-Fi it also mounts quickly and easily to a pole or fence and it integrates directly with raiku and home assistant I can use an IOS app or widget to see real-time weather and the forecast installation was super simple I just screwed it to the top of a wooden fence post probably took me about 3 minutes since there are no moving Parts there isn't much to break so this thing should last a long time no moving Parts is rare for a full featured weather station like this I have the included Wi-Fi Hub some 50 ft away behind a cabinet and it connects just fine to The Tempest the app for viewing weather data is good not great I don't love the interface and I can get more granular forecast data with the stock iOS weather app I do like the ability to view weather history which has come in handy more than once since the rain sensor is haptic it measures the intensity and frequency of drops hitting the top and uses a calculation to determine the actual rainfall it seems to have an accuracy of plus or minus 10% the haptic sensor is smart enough to ignore things like a bird or a squirrel jumping on top and it can send you a push notification when it started raining you can also get real time alerts when a lightning strike is detected but I turn that off as it was too frequent and not that helpful to me my biggest complaint about the Tempest is the wind sensor which seems less reliable even on days with a wind advisory warning and gusts over 50 mph that I can feel in my yard The Tempest rarely reports wind speeds over 5 m an hour I recognize positioning can have a lot to do with wind readings though I have mind at the suggested height of 6 to 8 ft off the ground and in a relatively open area so what what am I doing with this thing let's go back to the two frustrations that I shared at the beginning first I wanted my irrigation system to stop watering my lawn during or immediately before and after a rainstorm I'm using the raiko smart watering system which I like but its built-in intelligence to avoid watering around rain was unreliable because it didn't know the actual real-time conditions in my yard by connecting Tempest to the raiko app my irrigation system now uses actual rainfall data at my home to determine when to avoid turning on the sprinklers this helps save me money on my water bill and is better for water conservation it also is one less thing for me to think about so I can spend my time on other things second I wanted my outdoor lights to turn on when it was getting dark previously I had my outdoor lights turn on at Sunset however Sunset doesn't always correlate with when it's getting dark outside a late afternoon summer storm can make it get really dark really fast by connecting Tempest to home assistant my smart home hub I now use the ambient light sensor on the weather station to know when it's dark outside and can use that to trigger my outdoor lights to turn on of course those are just two examples but pairing Tempest with home assistant would allow you to create any type of home automation based on weather conditions a notification to bring bring in the deck cushions if it's raining and alert to bring the kids inside when lightning is detected you could also integrate Tempest with Amazon's voice assistant and if this then that applets if that's something that you use should you get a tempest weather system I think if you're trying to solve for the same frustrations that I mentioned especially by connecting it to a Smart irrigation system you'll be happy with this if you're someone who just can't get data then you may also enjoy the weather history tracking if you're just looking to track the temperature or humidity at your home this is probably Overkill I paid $329 for this device so it wasn't cheap but it does open a whole new spectrum of home motivation possibilities and for that I've enjoyed it let me know in the comments if you have any questions or what your experience has been with Tempest and let me know how you're using a personal weather station in your smart home automations if you're interested in energy saving smart home automations then you'll want to check out the video here hit the like button if you found this helpful and subscribe to the channel for tech reviews and tutorials that help you become more productive thanks for watching and I'll catch you in the next one

Channel: Michael Leen

Views: 4,161

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Id: rBe5BNRNxRw

Length: 7min 19sec (439 seconds)

Published: Sun May 26 2024