Acu-rite weather station and other ideas

307 views
Skip to first unread message

Brandon Lester

unread,
Feb 25, 2015, 11:19:34 AM2/25/15
to rtl...@googlegroups.com
Hello. I have an AcuRite weather station. I have installed the software and it works great, but my particular weather station also sends barometric pressure. I am not sure how to decode this or what steps would be necessary to do accomplish this. I have not been able to get the -r option to work. When I run "rtl_433 -r" a segmentation fault occurs. What I am trying to do is read the data sent from the sensors, and then make some graphs of the data with plot.ly by using a python script. I have gotten the read data part done (except the barometric pressure). I was wondering if you would like to include my changes to the repository or if I should make my own also on github. What license is this distributed under?

Jens Jensen

unread,
Feb 26, 2015, 11:59:09 AM2/26/15
to rtl...@googlegroups.com
Which weather station model do you have? Is it VN1TX (i.e., 5-in-1) or something else (e.g., 3-in-1, etc).

I think the normal pattern here is to fork the repo, commit your changes to your repo, and then submit a pull request back to upstream repo (merbanan/rtl_433).

regarding license, while I didnt notice it stated in the readme or in a file called LICENSE, it seems like GPL from the "COPYING" file, but would defer to the author on that.

On another note, I have mostly complete arduino support (coupled with cheap 433 MHz ASK/OOK receiver module) here:

I'm trying to learn ESP8266 SDK - my next challenge is to implement decoding it with ESP8266 and RX module, and send WX data directly...

Benjamin Larsson

unread,
Feb 26, 2015, 6:02:48 PM2/26/15
to rtl...@googlegroups.com
On 02/25/2015 05:19 PM, Brandon Lester wrote:
>What license is this distributed under?

GPL, currently. And as we use the rtl-sdr libs directly I don't see a
way of changing that.

MvH
Benjamin Larsson

Brandon Lester

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 11:51:03 AM2/27/15
to rtl...@googlegroups.com
Specifically I was wondering why it didn't decode the barometric pressure. After lots of digging I have determined that the barometric pressure sensor isn't in the outdoor unit. Unfortunately it sits inside the receiver unit. I appreciate the help.

Jens Jensen

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 12:35:22 PM2/27/15
to Brandon Lester, rtl...@googlegroups.com
Yes. VN1TX is "5 in 1":
1. temp
2. wind speed
3. wind direction
4. humidity
5. rainfall

I also have the 1010 (indoor unit) with the VN1TX outdoor unit.

However, this outdoor unit is common across several different models of indoor units.
Some of the acurite indoor units have usb port on them which can do datalogging as well as output weather (which I think in some cases would have the temp/humidity/pressure of indoor unit).
This is a really great article on this:
http://www.desert-home.com/2014/11/acurite-weather-station-raspberry-pi.html

Word of caution, looks like folks should steer clear of acurite 2032 model, but there are a few others (1036?) that have usb that are ok.
I found some on firesale prices (possibly returns or shelf pulls from costco, etc) for about 64 bucks shipped ;)
Looks like there may be some defect where eeprom gets corrupted (maybe excessive writing) if used in a specific mode (the one that I really want).
Anyhow, it's another challenge.. Maybe i can dump the eeprom or figure out what happening...

Helge Weissig

unread,
Feb 27, 2015, 4:08:21 PM2/27/15
to rtl...@googlegroups.com
I have fixed the command line option specification in rtl_433.c and submitted a pull request (#104). A workaround would be to not have a space between the -R and the device number.

cheers,
h.


On Feb 25, 2015, at 8:19 AM, Brandon Lester <bran...@vt.edu> wrote:

Hello. I have an AcuRite weather station. I have installed the software and it works great, but my particular weather station also sends barometric pressure. I am not sure how to decode this or what steps would be necessary to do accomplish this. I have not been able to get the -r option to work. When I run "rtl_433 -r" a segmentation fault occurs. What I am trying to do is read the data sent from the sensors, and then make some graphs of the data with plot.ly by using a python script. I have gotten the read data part done (except the barometric pressure). I was wondering if you would like to include my changes to the repository or if I should make my own also on github. What license is this distributed under?

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "rtl_433" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rtl_433+u...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to rtl...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rtl_433.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rtl_433/ef82c347-b674-40e3-a89d-e9960fa0ac27%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages