RSSI -85 on Tempest device

Tempest Owners
1

Installed yesterday and early morning Tempest stopped sending information to Hub. Did the basics of rebooting the hub, Flipping the Tempest on/off switch. Holding the Tempest clear button, which just blinked green. Brought into the house and repeated. Finally connected.

Just checked the RSSI value of the Tempest and it shows -85. The hub is maybe 80ft from the tempest and the signal is either going through a glass door or a wall. Seems it should be a more robust value. Can’t move the hub much closer and may possibly locate the tempest further from the house.

Thoughts?

2

Just had a look at your station, it seems to run ok now … you got it to work or did it come back automagically

3

I had to do try several basics to finally get the Tempest to connect to the hub. That is when I saw the RSSI -85. RIght now it is -71. I didn’t move the hub, just turned it a little, I think aiming the thin side in the direction of the Tempest, but even soon after I did not notice an improvement in the RSSI.

4

From my experience I’ve noticed there is a directional tendency with the antennas in the Tempest Hub and Sensor(outdoor) unit. I found the best orientation is for the Hub (LED side) to point to the southside of the Tempest Senor if possible.

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5

This is something to watch. I wonder if WF has an antenna broadcast/reception map for the hub and tempest? This would be handy in situations where the signal is weak.

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6

Just something to keep in mind… Falling precipitation and/or a hot day does have negative impact on RF signals. I’ve seen this effect on my outdoor security cameras and with the Tempest itself.

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7

here is what you’re looking for regarding the hub

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8

@eric Would you mind marking up the images to show what we are looking at and add a frame of reference (like looking from the front, back, etc.)?

9

For the hub it is pretty simple, look at the little power connector :wink:
For a sky (my test sky in any case as I dismantled it), the antenna is the same side where you have the led button
And for the Tempest … I have no clue, I have not dismantled my only unique one I have :slight_smile:

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10

A hot day is when I most want to see an accurate temperature. We just finished 19 straight days of 100+ and one day at 113 official and would have wanted to know if our home was hotter or cooler and the temp as the day progressed.

I have been using Acurite and both myself and my next door neighbor have thought our Acurites were recording temps higher than reality, thus the desire to try the Tempest.

11

Do you have the Acurite Atlas?

12

No, Its an all in one Acurite. Mine was, and tempest is, mounted on a metal pole about 5 feet above the ground in my yard and on the ground is gravel and the wall is 4-5ft away, so I’ve assumed that there is radiating heat adding to the temp…

Next door is on a 10ft pole in the desert behind his wall and away from it. We’ve found that our Acurites have been very close in temperature. He and I have noticed how the sun has been beating up the solar panels and our devices have turned from white to yellow.

For now the Tempest is in the yard but I was also thinking about moving it to the desert but not so sure if it continues to loose connection.

13

I have the Atlas. It has a major design flaw. The top half is all black which causes it to absorb sunlight which leads to reporting higher temps than normal. It does have the solar power aspiration fan but it’s not powerful enough to eliminate the built up heat.

Both my Atlas and Tempest are within 6 feet of each other and on average the Atlas reports 10 degrees hotter when the sun is out.

I had a 5-in-1 before and the sun bleached it yellow like you described. Last year’s hurricane destroyed my 5-in-1.

14

I forgot to mention that my neighbor also thought that the fan was not powerful enough to work properly when the temps hit the hundreds.

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15

Hope the tempest does not turn ugly yellow.

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16

I’ll take a sun bleached PWS over the top half being all black. It should be common sense that black absorbs light while light colors reflect light.

I have doubts the fan on my Atlas will have a long life. It’s makes a lot of noise and can be heard 10 feet away.

17

I only have a Sky to examine. The direction of the antenna is on a slight angle and is on the South side of the battery compartment. Of course a Tempest will be different but it gives us a clue to imagine how the Tempest antenna will look. There were two blobs of glue holding it onto the angle of the outer wall.

IMG_3217 (1)
IMG_3217 (1)604×1280 102 KB

cheers Ian :slight_smile:

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18

I did that to my first beta sky. I removed all that white plastic.

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19

My hub is sitting vertical in the white box under two Skys. The Sky with black tape RSSI is -1 the red tape is -16. I am in southern hemisphere so my solar panels face north.
IMG_3187
View of the Hub from the south side.
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Then I have a Sky over 2 miles away to the north reading RSSI -85.

When the Sky is over 7 miles from the hub I have used a parabolic antenna to pick up a good signal. All displayed and described here:

It would be simple to create your own parabolic reflector out of any metal mesh. People extend their wifi using a tin can cut open so experimenting with anything simple might return results. The RSSI value might only update at your last ‘status’ time.
cheers Ian :slight_smile:

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