New up and coming weather station, 'Weather Flow'

You are saying that any company that wants to introduce a new product to compete with other products on the market are doomed for failure?

Definitely not, all Im saying is that it is going to be difficult for them and they must make sure they have some sort of a unique feature that will make people consider it - be it price, functionality, design etc.

Unique Functionality Notes: Lightning detector, solar radiation sensor, UV sensor, VOC sensor, dust sensor, instant notice as soon as rain starts (not after 1mm of rain falls), inside display, more frequent weather updates. :slight_smile:

Thanks, guys, this is exactly the kind of discussion we’re looking to stimulate! We have a lot of brilliant weather experts working here, but your input is huge to this process!

@niko: Regarding use without a smartphone, you only need one for the initial configuration step. Once connected to your WiFi network, you can view the data on our web app, through Weather Underground, or within Weather Display. Borrow your friend’s phone or tablet for 2 minutes and you’re all set!

Regarding Netatmo, they’ve done a lot right. Most importantly, they’ve started to change the paradigm of what a weather station can be. Before Netatmo, weather station tech was stuck in the '80s. Netatmo have blazed a trail, taking the first step toward bringing the industry up to speed. But there’s plenty of room for competition. And without going into specifics… we think there’s plenty of room for improvement.

Jachym is partly right: we’d love to sell weather stations to the same group Netatmo targets: people who want weather data from their home without spending a ton of money and without the hassle of setting up and maintaining a traditional weather station. But we want to sell weather stations to a more discriminating customer as well, a group we think Netatmo has largely neglected: weather people like us and like you.

At WeatherFlow, we are weather people. Weather is all we do. Accurate data is crucial to us. In addition to adding some things you won’t find in Netatmo (outdoor air pressure, sunlight, lightning), we’ve also sourced the best sensors we can find within our price target. And make no mistake, thanks to cellphones and ubiquitous electronics in general, the quality of surface-mount sensor tech has gone WAY UP, while the price has come WAY DOWN, since Davis spec’d their sensor suite 25 years ago. We’ve looked at every existing sensor we can get our hands on and made selections based on extensive tests and evaluation.

And, because not all sensor tech has benefited from cellphone proliferation, we’ve spent two years developing the haptic rain and sonic wind sensors in SKY. We’ve gone through dozens of design iterations on the physical device and the electronics. And we’re putting tons of effort into the software - including our back-end enterprise (cloud) systems, the firmware embedded in the devices, as well as the user-facing apps. As weather people, we also have lots of experience with siting and meta-data collection - and we’re trying to infuse that expertise into the user experience. Our goal is something as good or better than the Davis Vantage Vue (speaking of competition!) in terms of hardware quality, but at a half the cost and at least five times the simplicity of installation and maintenance. Our goal is BETTER DATA.

And now we’re asking for critical feedback from you, before we go to production. We are inviting you to point out where we could we do better in our sensor selection or overall design. Thanks!

David

I think that as an upgrade or option you could have an outdoor “Air” sensor suite that would include an active radiation shield. This would allow for more flexible siting. At the least a daytime FARS powered by a solar panel since daytime is the most important time to have FARS. If sized right the solar panel could charge the batteries enough to allow for longer times before battery replacement.

looking forward to working with your guys on a backend cloud api (e.g REST type integration ?)

It would appear that they have a good background in building weather systems so there is hope this will carry over to the Weather Flow.

http://www.weatherflow.com

David, requiring a smart phone to do initial setup is a deal breaker for me. Due to my location very near the ocean I know my Davis Vue will not last forever. Not much chance of snow here, or lightning either, but I’m thinking no moving parts might hold up longer. My main problem is humidity sensors failing due to constantly high humidity, and of course anything metal being swallowed by the salt air. I’m not in the habit of paying up front so please let us know when you start shipping. Thanks.

Yeah, that was my thought too :slight_smile:

Like NorCal Dan I’m also concerned about how this will hold up in high humidity salty air.

As it is now I need to replace a part on my Davis Pro2 Plus about once a year due to the coastal air.

I think this looks very interesting. But since I live in Norway, where we have snow 4-5 months a year, it looks like this is not for me :frowning: First of all I need a weather station that is working in snow. And just as important, I need to measure precipitation all year, not only in summer. And since this station is not able to measure precipitation when it falls as snow, I can’t do that. Today I have a Davis VP2 with heated rain collector that works fine for measuring precipitation all year. If this was available as an option for Weather Flow, I would absolutely be interested.

Will your system have a capability similar to Data Logger found with the Davis weather stations? Very handy if you do not leave your computr running 24/7.

FYI - Looks like it can be shipped to more places now.

Well now, it seems that weather happens all over the globe.....who knew? To celebrate, we've just opened up shipping to all countries in the EU, plus Australia and New Zealand. See our 'Damn Good Deal' perk for your international shipping pleasure and please tell all your foreign friends afar! - the WeatherFlow team

Yes, international shipping! Thanks for the continued input and feedback! Here are some more answers:

Regarding a radiation shield, we do not currently plan to design one specifically for AIR, because our goal is to keep it simple. We also figure most home users should have a decent shady spot. We are going to make it abundantly clear that AIR must be placed in the shade, away from sources of heat, in order to provide accurate air temperature and RH readings.

Of course, AIR should fit nicely in most off-the-shelf radiation shields from Davis or Ambient or elsewhere - either passive or FARS. We are testing a few here. And while AIR & SKY are specifically designed for HOME use, we do plan to offer more robust devices at a later date, which will include an integrated radiation shield as well as other features suitable to more remote or harsh locations (like GPS, cellular and/or satellite comms, large batteries and solar power).

Regarding the need for an smartphone, iPhone, iPad or tablet… If you don’t happen to have a Millennial around who can loan you his or hers for a few minutes, there is another other option! Just wait for our DISPLAY unit to launch (probably December). DISPLAY will act as a high quality dedicated local display, and it will also act as a HUB, collecting data either from the Internet or directly to the stations. You will be able to use DISPLAY to configure your stations - no smart phone required!

Regarding performance in humidity, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how well our stations hold up. We have a patent-pending sensor chamber that exposes the Temp, Pressure and Humidity sensors to the air without compromising the device’s weather-proofness. In fact, we’re aiming for IP67 rated, meaning they can be fully submerged in water safely to 1m. Of course, the humidity sensor will read 100% for a while if you dunk it under water. But the station will continue to function and the RH sensor will work fine again after it dries out.

Regarding the snow question - to be clear, these stations will definitely work in snow. They don’t have a way to measure the snow, it’s true, and if the gap fills with snow the wind reading will be wrong, but everything else will still work! If you need snow measurements, though, our stations are not for you.

Regarding data logging, you won’t need to leave your computer running 24/7 because our stations do not need a computer! They connect directly to the Internet through your WiFi network or via your smartphone/tablet. Also, in the event your Internet connection goes down, each station will be able to store between 15000 (SKY) and 20000 (AIR) individual observations directly on the device. So, depending on your sampling schedule (which is configurable: 1m, 5m, 15m, 60m, etc), you’ll be able to store somewhere between 45 days and 24 months of data on the station itself, conservatively. Again - that’s only if you lose your Internet connection.

Thanks again for the feedback - keep it coming!

David

same here, more than happy to add compatibiiity to my template, I already have NetAtmo, I think it is still the only template that has that.

One more thing, I always wished there was a station that would also have optional air quality sensors. I did find some, but they are always just separate sensors, sold only for that purpose and not possible to connect to any PWS. It would be really nice if some PWS could have that too and so report the data along with all the other ones in one data package. I was thinking about things like CO2, aerosols, NO2 etc. For example, for me, I live in a big city, lot of electrical railroads here and electric cables, so lightning detector is useless due to interference. On the other hand, air quality and emissions is something I would be very interested in.

Something like this, but built into a station, or compatible with one:
http://airqualityegg.com/

Weather Flow will do VOCs, CO2 and dust (particulate I would guess).

For me it’s not about measuring snow, but measuring precipitation. And precipitation needs to be measured all year, also when it snowing. Otherwise the statistics will be completely wrong!

But I get your message: This station is not for me and the hundreds millions of people who live in part of the world where it’s snowing at least one day of the year.

Living on 60

Also not taking in consideration, the more competion often causes lower prices (not always I know), more development to be ahead competitors and not at least I think it has a future along with Netamo.

I even think we are going to look more of these products in the future, and hopefully Davis may have to lower there prises some day.

And if it has IFTTT we properly also will see more Home Automation users will look that way…
Correction, Ahhhhh, just seen is HAS IFTTT :grin:

Erik M M

I agree here…

About the display futured in the fall 2016, it has to be more versatile, since a cheap tablet, a free kiosk app and your are going with Wunder Ground as shoved on the homepage.

Maybe more like a “move around blocks where you want, showing what you want and when, with history as you want it”
Yes, I know, just an idea…