Anyone using a Netatmo weather station?

[xmetman]

I just wondered if any of our subscribers were using a Netatmo weather automatic station and how they rated it?

I've only just come across it and it seems a bit of a cheaper alternative to the Davis Vantage Pro.

[xmetman]

I did find a quick review of the device here.

I like the idea of an ultrasonic anemometer - but how do they get it to work on batteries?

[Brian Wakem]

I've never had one but I know from previous discussions they are well known for over-reading temp in strong sunshine.

[Freddie]

I've heard of them.  The saving you would make on the relatively low price needs to be invested in a decent radiation shield.  They are renowned for "temperatures too high" but I don't think that is the result of the sensors being dodgy, but the lack of shielding from direct solar radiation.  Also, you would have trouble getting your data into software of your choice as it is all uploaded to Netatmo servers where extraction is completely controlled by Netatmo.

If I had to choose, I wouldn't choose Netatmo.

--
Freddie
Dorrington
Shropshire
115m AMSL
http://www.hosiene.co.uk/weather/
Stats for the month so far: https://www.hosiene.co.uk/weather/statistics/latest.xlsx

[Julian Mayes]

I bought the temp and rain sensors and had mixed experiences. I've gave up with the whole kit and lost interest, but that's only because the temp sensor stopped transmitting - just after a year's use so out of guarantee!   

It is a really smart idea. The network appears to be enormous - there were two other users within 500m of my house. 

While it worked it was great - I liked sitting at work and watching not only the outside temperature vary but also the indoor unit registering when my central heating kicked in late afternoon. Frankly I found my kitchen's temperatures fascinating when not at home. Seeing rain arrive and comparing with the radar imagery was neat too. 

I did not like the graphs - odd aspect ratios but they could appear on any device and provide a fantastic archive. A MeteoGroup colleague is a great fan of the whole kit. 

Outside sensor comes with a small screen but it's just the usual situation - it needs to be placed carefully and not in full sun in the middle of a sheltered garden. Any poor reputation is more due to ignorance on the part of purchasers, I'd say (the instructions are brief - on the network map, daytime temps do vary wildly but it's mostly down to siting). 

The rain sensor worked well - small and light so needs to be pegged down somehow. . 

I should have sought a repair to the temp sensor - but I guess that would have entailed posting it back to Germany or where-ever it was. Laziness got the better of me. 

With your IT aptitude and interest, Bruce, I think you'd find the system interesting. 

Julian  

[George in Edinburgh]

First came across Netatmo five years or so ago. At the time Weatherunderground and Netatmo had just become the best of buddies with WU welcoming Netatmo data. It was quickly realised that Netatmo units seriously over-read temperatures under sunny conditions. The first I knew of this was when WU quality control (that may be a thing of the past) downgraded my site. I realised that a local Netatmo station had started up and was skewing local data with the over reading temperature sensor. Lots of other complaints (mainly from US) such that WU eventually stopped accepting Netatmo data. Netatmo responded by setting up their map-as shown above.

Some further reading

https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?PHPSESSID=4b47db285f3fdb98a0712c77647c0f3f&action=search2

George in gusty Swanston, Edinburgh

www.swanstonweather.co.uk

[Brian Wakem]

On Saturday, 14 September 2019 13:46:57 UTC+1, Julian Mayes wrote:

.. but also the indoor unit registering when my central heating kicked in late afternoon. Frankly I found my kitchen's temperatures fascinating when not at home. 

I'm a bit of an indoor temp geek too.  Slightly embarrassed to say I have 7 indoor sensors.

 

 -- 

Brian Wakem

Lower Bourne, Farnham, Surrey

http://www.brianwakem.co.uk/weather

Live obs @ 14:57:55 : 21.3C, DP 8.6C, RH 44%, 0.0 mm

[xmetman]

I hope I don't sound like another Will Hand but I must be toughening up because the temperature in my office cum bedroom is only 18.0°C at the moment! We have lit our wood burning stove down stairs though.

Thanks for all the replies it sounds like the Vantage Pro is still the number one choice unless I win the 150 million in Tuesday nights Euromillions. 

[Julian Mayes]

Brian wrote:   Slightly embarrassed to say I have 7 indoor sensors.   

 I am in awe!     Are these sensors that feed into your Davis?   One day I'll get around to buying one.  

When I get my dream garden I'll hanker after a series of soil temp sensors.  I do have a garage sensor - though that's in relation to frost protection in winter. 

Julian   

[Brian Wakem]

Well they feed into the same database as my Davis data.  My set-up is pretty unique because a) I'm a geek and b) I used to be a programmer / DBA / sysadmin / developer.

My Davis console is connected via USB to a Raspberry Pi.  On the Pi is some software that I wrote (which I call myvp2) which collects the data each minute from the console and logs it into a MySQL database running locally on the Pi and remotely on my webserver (The local copy is in case of interruption to my broadband, upon re-connection it will all sync up).

The 7 temp sensors are these: https://www.thermosensedirect.com/acatalog/hdt-wifi-t_temperature_data_logging_sensor.html

These log straight to something called EasyLogCloud (ELC).  Part of myvp2 connects to ELC each minute to collect the sensor readings and logs those to the same MySQL databases as the Davis data.

So now I have a database of per-minute data for every sensor on the Davis VP2 and my indoor sensors with currently 3.2 million rows.

Then I run apache/mod_perl on my webserver (CentOS) to serve the data on my website and I have written a charting wrapper around CanvasJS (a Javascript charting library) so I can just throw any list of sensors and time-frames at it and it'll just graph it.

The only thing missing is I would like to be able to measure the depth of the water in the stream running through my garden but I haven't found a simple (low energy and wireless) way of doing that yet (You can bounce a laser off the surface but that require mains power which I don't have in the vicinity).

-- 

Brian Wakem

Lower Bourne, Farnham, Surrey

http://www.brianwakem.co.uk/weather

Live obs @ 20:45:29 : 12.2C, DP 9.9C, RH 86%, 0.0 mm

[Dave C]

I imagine that smart people like Brian and others among you would be able to make good use of it but as far as I know they are really set up for using with mobile apps and smart things rather than a PC database. 

If anybody wants to change to save money alone whilst maintaining the regime of 1 minute data I have never found anything better than the Watson/Fine Offset/Maplin ones. Mine has been running for ten years and with the fantastic Cumulus software I can't really see what it can't do that a Davis can. Obviously it is not as sturdy but with spares for sensors and other parts being less than £10 usually it is easy to keep running. Wireless and USB are good for PC connectivity and in terms of accuracy, with the usual caveats of good temperature screening and location. it is extremely good, especially as fine tuning of calibration for offset or percentage inaccuracy across the range is simple. I suppose it does have the tag of a cheap and Chinese hobbyist machine as opposed to semi-pro but those of us that have them find them very good.