Updated Tempest apps are rolling out for iOS, Android and the Web today.
iOS: 4.10 (470) Android: 4.36 (123)
More Data at the top of the Main View
The “More Current Conditions” section at the bottom of the Main View has always been a great way to see more data from your station. In this release, we are moving a few of those key values up to the Top Box on the Main View. In addition to the wind and UV values, now you can quickly see the humidity, pressure and pressure trend right when you open the app. If it is raining or there is recent lightning in your area, you will also see those data points in the Top Box as well.
Rapid Wind Updates
Rapid Wind (wind speed & direction values reported every three seconds) is making its way to the Top Box of the Main View! In addition, the rapid wind display on the Card View has received an update to match the new rapid wind visualization on the Main View.
Additional bug fixes and minor performance enhancements are also included in this build.
This might be a broader topic then just the latest app enhancement but I’ll post here. When a value such as wind is displayed with no decimal places such as the latest enhancement, should there be a rounding up? If 2.0 -> 2.4 is the wind value, should 2 be displayed while if 2.5 > 2.9 is the wind value that 3 be displayed with rounding up? Or maybe if under 10 (2 digits of value), that it show 1 decimal point and after hitting 10 it no longer show decimal points so 5.7 would show that vs the current 5?
The above would be applied to a few values that are displayed but just wondering what the Tempest team and others thought.
Edit: Looks like the value displayed is Average wind vs the specific value and the bar is showing the specific value along with the direction arrow. The Average wind is rounding up. When I was first watching it, the current and average were similar enough that I didn’t realize it was showing the average and I wasn’t seeing it rounding up the current value.
This is a great improvement, thank you! Can I make one suggestion to add to the Top Box?
The addition of maximum and minimum temperature for the day would be very useful, possibly just to the right of or below the large current temperature figure.
Yes the forecast high and low appears in the box below, with sunrise and sunset. Now that the Top Box is populated with actual station data, max/min in there would be a real bonus.
I’m not a big fan of this little meter thing. And I agree with the others, I would put the recorded high/lows in the upper main box and just have the forecasted highs/lows with the forecast section.
Dark mode aka OLED black please?
This would be great for us night owls that get blinded by a bright display!
Is it possible to add a max (wind) value as well? I’d presume the anemometer is sampling faster than 3 seconds, just the post interval is every 3 seconds?
No, just every 3 seconds. Not much point to sample more often and the energy requirements would go up. That is why wind sample interval is increased in the lower power modes of the Tempest and the SKY can be set to sample only every 15 seconds.
max wind speed is even interesting when sampling “just” every 3 seconds. It it shown in the grid view and named Gusting. It is the one minute max wind.
Ah the immutable laws of energy reserve. The Wh (capacity) if its battery is very limited.
I run 10Hz (10 samples/sec) and it posts every 1 minute to the webserver. Nice thing is the max values don’t miss much in storms @10 meters AGL.
Do you have a way to mount a Tempest or SKY in the same relative location to see how much difference there really is? Is that 10Hz device an ultrasonic anemometer or does it have something which spins? If it spins then you are missing out on the real values due to inertia and a slight amount of friction. Remember this is a device aimed at the home market in the $300 range. Energy storage is only one issue, the other is replenishing that energy. There are always trade-offs with any device. If you want 10Hz sampling then the Tempest is not what you should be looking at.
It’s ultrasonic, skyward firing.
My tempest is pretty much showing zero wind and so are the other three cup anemometers but this unit still shows wind, the threshold is 0.01 m/sec.
The issue with (the autonomous) device is its radio is based on 2G GSM. In the USA TMobile is the only carrier and it was supposed to go dark on Jan 1 2021. Perhaps they extended that due to large amount of IOT devices out there, I don’t know.
It is also VERY sensitive to precip and the current config doesn’t have the capacity to use mitigations, particularly resistive heaters so it does ice up and goes haywire.
I do like this (Tempest) system and for the price I feel it’s competitive, but it also has its quirks and limits.
They were mounted on the same plane but far enough way to prevent wake interference with each other.
We also have numerous CCTV camera hardware including PTZ cameras. Recording 24/7 including audio. With the autonomous station, I can put the history slider right on the timestamp where a gust/max value is recorded and can see/hear matching action.
The timing is OFF with the tempest system. The values are every five minutes.
I have access to wind tunnel hardware and one day plan on testing it out.
I do want to add a hardwired ultrasonic anemometer to my collection, however. This way I don’t have to worry about snow/ice/etc. And a display that shows speed in perfect realtime! Example:
Like the new update and look. The feels like is shown in the top window, is there any way to show the feels like in the hourly window, that would be great to know for planning outdoor activities. It looks like there is room to display that in each hour slot along with wind, direction,etc.
That sounds like a Tempest with a low battery. It should be reporting every minute the results of the previous minute. You should also be able to watch the 3-second wind updates in the app or web.
This topic is supposed to be discussing the App update.
If my reply begins a discussion on how the anemometer determines the 3 second published speed and direction then I am happy for this reply to be moved to a new topic.
The Tempest anemometer takes many samples between all 4 ultrasonic sensors to calculate a value which is published every 3 seconds. The many samples taken to calculate the published figure are calculating the times between the sensors to produce a single 3 second value. I can only guess that weatherflows algorithms try to calculate the average for the 3 second period.
It is a ‘digital’ instrument recording a single resultant value every 3 seconds.
It is not an analogue instrument that would be continuously recording.
I expect that everyone who bought this instrument would be very happy with a wind speed and direction every 3 seconds.
I use the 3 second values and I am happy that I can now see more live wind information on the front page of the Web page.
cheers Ian
The Tempest anemometer takes many samples between all 4 ultrasonic sensors to calculate a value which is published every 3 seconds. The many samples taken to calculate the published figure are calculating the times between the sensors to produce a single 3 second value.<<
This is what I thought. It would be a waste to just fire a pulse every three seconds.
And RE: low battery…the display does update every 3 seconds (battery is typically around 2.65V between days of sun), the issue is the graph needs to be zoomed in full to realize the 1 minute posting interval. The timescale displayed appears to be behind actual time, however. A trip to the wind tunnel will actually show just how much.
Having issues with the Android app V4.36 (123) on my Fire HD8 (6th gen) OS 5.6.8.0. Lots of screen update freezing and wind card problems where the bar and rapid wind number disappear. Similar issues on the main screen view. Sometimes it works again on its own while other times I have to close and reopen the app. I’ve cleared data/cache, power cycled and deleted/reloaded the app, but no change. Pervious production version worked fine.
Update; after a few more app restarts, it has now run trouble free for over 2 hours.
