Hello! I’m eyeballing an Ecowitt weather station and would like your suggestions as to what to do with it. Are there automations you do with it? Just displaying a weather dashboard? Mostly using it for the inside temp/humidity sensors?
Please help me justify buying it to myself!
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Hey there, I have an Ecowitt system. I use it to tell me when to close the curtains based on sunlight, use it to tell me when to open or close the windows, and I also have some of their soil moisture sensors in my garden to tell me when to water. I plan on expanding that last one to an automatic irrigation system!
The one catch is that you’ll want to lock it down on Ecowitt’s site, otherwise other people can see your sensors.
I’d like to hear more about those moisture sensors if you’d be willing to share
How many do you have? (If multiple) do you space them out around your yard? Do you find it to be accurate enough? Do you have experience with other systems to compare it to?
Sorry for the 20 questions. I’ve lived in a condo my entire adult life but I’m buying a house soon and lawncare scares me lol
Sure! I have three, in different spots in different gardens. I do find them to be pretty darn accurate, especially if you calibrate them like the instructions say. I don’t have anything to compare them to, but their data makes pretty graphs in home assistant and their backend.
Honestly moisture sensors would be nice to have later, but you don’t need to start with that. A smart irrigation timer from companies like Rachio will be just fine for the begining. It adjust the watering schedule based on current weather conditions so you don’t have to make manual changes from season to season.
Collecting and comparing environmental data was the whole reason I started homeassistant. I mostly use indoor sensors and compare with national weather service for outdoor, but I like seeing the data. Graphs of indoor/outdoor, next to https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES16/ABI/SECTOR/se/GEOCOLOR/600x600.jpg (which updates every 5 minutes) I live in the US Southeast, and the indoor/outdoor comparison, especially dewpoint, lets me know when it’s ok to open windows overnight. i.e.: the overnight temperature usually drops below the A/C set point, but if that’s going to draw in a bunch of humid air, it may feel more comfortable to keep the warmer, drier air. Actual, local outdoor conditions would be even better, because we do get localized summer showers that really raise the humidity in very small areas, and the NWS data comes from an airport 5 miles away.
I’d love to have some motorized windows, or even blinds, for automation. Absent that, there’s nothing super obvious to me to trigger off environmental data.
I was just about to set up a weather station, but then I discovered PWS Monitor app. Opening the app I found there is six weather stations in a two mile radius of my house. Now I just monitor without having to go with the expense. And with that said, If you do get one leave it OPEN so your neighbors can see it through app like these.
I can see in the app that there’s a weather station nearby. Does this mean I can get its data into HA?
Select the nearby station then click “+Save Station”, after that the data from the station should show.
