I received my Tempest this week and tried to get it up and running yesterday, being very excited to FINALLY have a weather station. However, I’m having some issues. I sent a support request yesterday, which I wish I could take back, as the more I thought about it, it seems to be all on my end with environmental problems.
Basically, my house has aluminum siding, which kills the wifi for outside (right?). With my phone outside, there are places were the wifi signal is OK, because there isn’t any siding in the way. But out where Tempest is, only 50 feet away, nearly nothing.
I only need the Tempest to have a good signal to the hub, correct? In router inside the house can be wherever, I presume. I also tried, unsuccessfully, to find whether aluminum window screens are blocking the wifi. If they do, then that further reduces the options of getting a good signal.
Good placement for the Tempest are limited, and the best place, that isn’t on a roof, is amid an island of landscaping 50 feet from the house. However, from that spot, there are only two windows that face the island. One window is in a bathroom with no nearby electrical outlet. The other window is surrounded by outlets, but has the aforementioned aluminum screen.
The link between Tempest and hub is not wifi, it’s a radio link at 915 mhz… already have that clearly in mind. The hub links to the internet via your wifi network.
You were able to get your station setup if I see correctly but right now your hub shows offline.
As long the hub is offline, … not much I can see to help.
OK, an update. I brought the Tempest back inside and powered the hub again. I also removed the window screen for the heck of it, and propped the hub next to the window so there is a direct line of sight.
I reconnected the Tempest via the app, and it showed a reading. I walked it back to the pole and reinstalled it. There has been no further communication to the hub/app.
note that if the light on the hub turn blue, it communicates via bluetooth with your phone. The app might get readings through bluetooth, but as soon as you have your hub properly connected through wifi it will use wifi.
Sounds like a faulty hub or tempest radio wise. Problem we can’t diagnostic more nor help on forum
Hopefully support will come back quickly to you and will change whatever they can diagnostic
sorry and please be patient, as you read, support is still swamped (several people are in training since last week and hopefully they will be able to start quickly help out the backlog)
I would get it working inside first and look at your RSSI values. To find them open the App or use a web page while you are logged in and you will see on the far right ‘settings’. If you dont see it that is because you are not logged in. (Being logged in to the forums in my Chrome browser also logs you in for the web page for your station)
Find your status by: Settings - Stations -select your station - status.
Alternatively find your status by entering your stationID at the #### here and use the link: https://tempestwx.com/settings/station/####/status
Here you can read RSSI for your signal strength.
The station RSSI is your wifi strength (2.4GHz).
The Tempest RSSI is the low frequency signal (915 Mhz? depends on region of the World) from Tempest to Hub.
The Lower frequency of 915MHz travels through obstacles and longer distances than higher frequencies 2.4GHz.
A RSSI of -1 is perfect and a RSSI of -90 is almost as bad as you can go before loosing connection by about -100. RSSI of -70 is fairly normal.
cheers Ian
The Tempest is back inside, and recording the static environment near my computer. It is standing less than 1 meter from the hub. RSSI has been reading between -50 and -74. Based on your description, that kinda sucks. Right?
open a ticket if not yet done, only problem is we can’t trace if the hub or the Tempest is having a faulty antenna or radio chip … but they will solve it for sure with you
Just to offer more help while you wait for support to solve it. Remember there are two RSSI values. One for the hub to the wifi and one for the tempest to the hub. And voltage of the hub might also influence the RSSI but I have not tested that myself so I just offer the advise as something to consider.
cheers Ian
The new kit arrived today, and I set it up. It seems to be working out on the pole. RSSI values are -18 for hub and -70 for Tempest. When they were a couple of feet apart inside during setup, both were at about -20.
