I think it’s pretty well known this many years into production that the WF hubs are 2.4 GHz wifi only, and also rather well known that many people (including me) have asked for both 5 GHz ‘and’ wired ethernet since the earliest days of the betas for the usual network stability and performance reasons.
I personally didn’t worry much about the security wide of the hub using wifi, but the fact that the Hub requires/sets up a persistent connection with the WF servers in itself might be a concern to some, but it’s all well established+known this many years into their production that WF assumes internet connectivity to their servers (as does Ecowitt). Most folks who worry that would have a VLAN’d network at home to deal with that kind of concern.
FWIW - I stuck with my VP2 for a variety of reasons including it working without any Internet connection at all. I purchased the serial dataloger on mine when I purchased it (cough) 12-1/2 years ago. It’s nice having the device work without any LAN even.
why didn’t you return it, when you really wanted a device with ethernet port? (btw you can “convert” it to ethernet by using a tiny access point or router, they are pretty cheap, and security wise you can block all access except from your tempest, not a big deal. Latency is of course a non issue for the tempest)
I tried, but because WF does not pay back the customs cost, which is absurdly high from US to EU, especially when compared to Asia → Europe, which is practically free most of the time, it would actually be expensive to return it! Also, I had invested in a mount for it, and sure, I could use the mount for any other station, in theory, in practice not so much, since not all brands have a top of 33mm diameter pole mount option. I had already mounted the pole, it was waiting for the tempest to go on top.
Must say I’m actually a bit disappointed in the overall product experience, I expected way more of it, since it costs more than a complete netatmo set. The netatmo app for smartphones is much better, very well designed, in comparison. The WF tempest app is pure chaos, compared to that. Where do I even see the high and low values for something as basic as temperature? And the forecast is horribly chaotic.
I might still go and return it, it’s not as good as all the reviews say it is, it just isn’t.
Find somebody in your country who is looking for one and sell it for whatever you can get for it locally. There is always somebody looking for a system at a reasonable price.
