Photos of Tempest Installations :tempest:

Actually where the camera is might be better. And pick the Tempest off the patio before somebody trips over it :slight_smile:

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Installed today (in the snow !) Peterborough, England


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My new tempest installation , UK

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Installed my new Tempest in New Jersey on Friday.

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Got it installed ahead of coming Storm Dora: Tempestade DORA. Condicoes meteorologicas adversas nas proximas 24h. Fique atento. Siga recomendacoes das autoridades. Info: 800 246 246 / www.prociv.pt /ANEPC

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Looks great! I like how you included a north indicator. I simply marked the pole at ground level.

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Thanks. It’s easier for orientation with that little stick :crazy_face:

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Timeline:

  • Took delivery of the first unit on August 28th.
  • Installed it on the roof with a short 12" mast bolted to a concrete wall, virtually eliminating all vibrations (see image below).
  • Connected to a Ubiquiti Unifi nanoHD access point (-42 dBm).
  • Replaced the unit on October 12th because it kept going offline.

Pros:

  • Reliable temperature, humidity, pressure and illuminance readings.
  • Excellent iOS/Android/web application.
  • Looks good.
  • Great WeatherFlow customer support.

Cons:

  • Last night (December 5th) we had a light rain (woke up to wet streets) which went completely undetected (see image below). No notification. No accumulation. Like it never happened.
  • Station keeps going offline once or twice a week. If I’m not at home to power-cycle it, it becomes useless.
  • False lightning strike notifications every now and then, triggered by traffic (heavy trucks, fire engines etc.) in front of my house. Cry wolf in full effect now.
  • Light wind reporting, although accurate in intensity, is all over the place in direction, with subsequent readings swinging wildly, often with diametrically opposite values. Again, basically useless.
  • Very expensive $330 temperature, humidity and pressure sensor. Not really good for much else IMHO.

Would I buy it again: no.
Would I recommend it: no.

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Nice to read but let’s go over a few points

  • Last night there was no rain predicted for your region (from what I can see) and this could influence the false rain evaluation. Drizzle can be extremely close to background noise and the trigger level between both levels too tight. This can be adjusted over time.

  • False lightning is possible but for sure not by a passing truck nor car … That has absolutely nothing to do with vibrations and a truck and car do not have such high level ignitions that can spark a trigger. Maybe you have some other electrical device nearby that can trigger like a relay that sparks, ignition of a heater etc but again not a passing vehicle.

  • Regarding wind going all over, just have a look at your setup, no wonder at all as wind will swirl all over with that ‘beam’ just under it. Depending direction you get upward winds etc. This is just not a suitable setup. That beam is way too close to the Tempest.

regarding disconnects from Wifi, I pushed a newer firmware to the hub that might help (all depends also on Ubiquity versions as there are known problems their side).

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FWIW, your location ‘will’ cause crazy wind readings, you have the sensor far too close to the roof. But yeah. Sounds like a stressful experience.

I also PM’d you some more info to think about…

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I’d ask Google if rain is predicted in my area. I want Tempest to tell me if it’s raining at my house. I have a bunch of home automations depending on it. Last night it did rain at my place. Tempest didn’t notify me.

The closest electrical device is the wifi access point itself, a good 15 ft below. Overhead power lines are about 100 ft in front of my house (you can see them in the above picture behind the trees) but the nearest PG&E transformer is a good 300 yd away.
If this is causing enough false positives to make lightning notifications essentially irrelevant, then I don’t know what else to do.
An interesting fact is that I only started getting false lightnings with the replacement unit. In the two months I got to use the original unit, mounted in the exact same location, I didn’t get any.

I choose a short antenna mount specifically to avoid false rain notification triggered by vibrations of a longer mounting pole.
If I have to pick my poison, I’d rather have unreliable wind readings but reliable rain detection. Right now unfortunately I’m getting neither.

I have $10 tuya-based devices that never went offline once in years. Of the 40+ wifi devices I have, yours is the only one that, routinely and for no apparent reason whatsoever, goes offline. @rderr confirmed in a PM he sent me 2 month ago that it’s an issue on your side. That you are working with the device manufacturer to solve it and hopefully a new firmware fixing it would come soon. After three months I haven’t seen anything and I’m now frustrated to the point where I lost confidence in the tempest ability to reliably report current local weather conditions.

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You need to have the Tempest higher 100%. Check the siting page, consider the ground your roof for your application.

This is my set up, bracing and sturdy pole and I have no vibration issues.

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@GaryFunk not sure why my “Tempest 3 months in (and one replacement) review” post was merged here. My main complains were:

  • Hub keeps going offline and becomes useless
  • Failure to detect rain
  • Too many false lightning event

None of which have anything to do with this thread.

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As much as I’d love to, I live in a complex and HOA will probably kill me if I put up an installation like yours.

BTW, love your solar panels.

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Hi everyone, newbie here to weather systems and installations.

I’m looking to install my Tempest on a PVC pipe mounted to a fence post overlooking a lake. Since I’m new to this and not sure what parts to buy, was hoping someone could point me in the right direction.

I live in Florida so I am concerned with Hurricane wind. I was thinking of using about 5’ of 1inch PVC pipe and mounting that to the fence post. This should get it about 9-10 foot in the air.

Could someone tell me if this would be secure enough to not get false rain and what clamps I should buy to anchor it to the fence post? Any other parts I should get?

Thanks in advance, looking forward to installing it and getting accurate weather readings.

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nice clean job, that’s not going anywhere. only thing is I’d hack-saw those extra threads off so no one gets caught on it.

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A lot of snow here in the Dolomites!

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beautiful! :cold_face:

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I remember seeing the image of your Tempest a month or so ago. . . when there was absolutely No snow around what-so-ever!

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Yes, exactly, 2 weeks ago.
This year the winter came very late but with a lot of snow, 180cm at 2000 meters altitude!

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