Any idea when the booster will be available for the tempest up here in Vancouver bc fall winter very little sunlight this time of year at least on the weather flow system you can remove the panel and run battery threw the winter months I here there is a booster in the works any one here anymore about it or when it will be ready
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Here we are in November in the PNW again and my station has just started going offline due to insufficient light. Last I heard from Tim, in March, they were getting ready to field test a prototype and hoped they would have something available by spring. I just pinged him again and will update here if there’s a useful response. Barring that, I’m considering putting a LED light source out next to the panels to (very inefficiently) give it a little boost to make it through the winter.
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Bit hard to tell. The final design was made a few weeks back and is in small testing but the real problem and challenge is to start mass produce them. As you have read/heard there are many shortages worldwide on many items and this design includes a few components having huge lead time. Logistics is trying to source them and in parallel the design is looked over again in case a component is just not purchasable, but it isn’t always easy to swap parts …
That’s about last I heard a few weeks back. Will try to get an update …
but maybe you can relocate your Tempest so it catches most sun it can while the solution comes ???
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For those of us that live in the dark PNW there are no options for changing locations to get more sun light.
Has any one created a hardware workaround? Maybe dummy battery inside that has wire leads to a bigger outside battery?
It’s not even December yet and my station is already going offline regularly due to low battery voltage.
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My Station which is almost 12 months old is now stuck at 2.11 volts and my sensors are off-line. I live in Sunny Florida. Today is bright sunshine, but the station is still stuck on 2.11 volts. Do I need a new battery or is something else at play here?
one day of bright sunshine might not be enough. Mine went offline at 2.12V but came back online at 2.31V, so it takes a while to charge. Note however that there isn’t a lot of energy stored in the range just above 2.12 V so it discharges and charges relatively quickly.
Lets hope it comes back to live soon.
Thanks Sunny, I suppose you are right. I have seen low voltages before when we’ve had consecutive cloudy/rainy days, but it has always recovered voltage quickly. Seems to be taking a bit more time to charge. I guess because the Sun is lower in the sky perhaps? Sure with the Booster Charge device was ready!!!
your station started to go south October 25th and from there on down the drain. Time to open a support ticket. Customer support will help you out but be patient, won’t be before Thursday I guess. Internal meetings going on so they are a bit low on staff for 2 days.
Hmmm, interesting discussion to read as I specifically asked support about the battery prior to purchase, but I was assured not to be concerned about it. I’d asked because I was surprised that I didn’t see any option for the user/customer to easily access and replace just the battery, nor power the device externally. Sounds like my concerns were well founded, and yet again I was mislead prior to purchase. 
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I opened a service ticket today for my Tempest issue. My station hasn’t responded in 19 hours, battery is at 211v after a full day of bright sunshine. Hub is on and operating fine. It feels like when the battery voltage dropped, it put the Station in SLEEP mode and now it won’t wake up.
This is the 2nd Service ticket in 12 months. Ugh.
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The battery it self is way more robust than anything else out there. The battery is very unlikely to be the problem. If the battery isn’t charging when there is plenty of sun, there is a different issue. My early field test units are still doing OK here in the pacific northwest, even the oldest one with a known charging issue.
There are contacts on the bottom of the unit for charging in situations where there isn’t sufficient sunlight to keep the unit charged up. There are some DIY options posted in this forum for charging and there is a power booster accessory currently in field testing. When it is released you will then have a commercial option in case your siting is such that it doesn’t get enough sunlight to stay charged.
Of the production units I have or manage I’ve only had a couple issues related to charging. One just stopped charging after it was powered off for a few hours and the other had a similar to the issue @algiorda is having. WF support promptly sent out a replacement. The vast majority are working without issue.
Thanks for your insight. I agree I don’t think my issue is a battery issue as my battery has been resilient and recharges quickly after a day of no sun and/or rain. However, It has stopped responding so there must be an issue with the software, firmware, or hardware recovering from a sleep sensor mode issue. It sucks because every time something like this happens, I have to get on a ladder to gain access to the unit. I wish there was a reset code which could be sent from the HUB.
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WF can send a reboot command to the Tempest but it has to be online to receive the command … which isn’t the case right now. As long it is talking to the hub, things can be done remotely …
Exactly the same thing. 2.11V And already at my second unit as my first one replaced 2-3 months ago. Tempest
I don’t think your station is broken. I had a look at your data and going back to beginning September it didn’t see a single day with enough direct sunlight (which is rather normal in your region). It just slowly depleted to a point it is now empty. Maybe you could try to find a more sunny spot but with winter near, not to sure you’ll find much where you are.
Since the PowerBooster isn’t yet available, could you charge it via for ex this topic or if you are handy maybe make this ??
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Yeah, starting to think that as well. It just doesnt seem to get charged anymore though. Today we had sunshine, but I never got it to start up and connect. Just flashed green a minute and then it died again. Power switch didn’t do anything.
We bought 2 units with a friend living nearby and his unit is still alive and also has charged a bit Tempest
His unit got charged a bit on the 8th of Nov 2021, whereas my unit is flattening out to its inevitable doom that was approaching 
I’m starting to get worried after about 10 days of the Great British weather casting its gloom over my Tempest and dropping 2.47< volts
At this rate, it looks like 2wks is the max without a charge?
Wireless charging for the next-gen I would think!
2 weeks is about right in my experience. Turn the sun back on, please 
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Great weather here in California for the last few weeks, but the redwood trees are enjoying the sun more than my tempest and it took about 3 weeks to finally drop to 2.18v and it started teetering with going offline. I’ve since moved the tempest in a non-ideal measurement location (wind-shrouded) to try and get some sun to it, and that simply delayed the inevitable.
I’ve clamped an incandescent 60w bulb next to it, and it’s already up to 2.32v in about 20-30 minutes. So my plan is to use either an IR led over one of the tempest solar panels and leave it on 24hrs, or to put a 4watt incandescent (aka night-light bulb) over a panel and run it from a timer, maybe during the day so as to not annoy the neighbors at night. Still have to figure out how to weatherproof this hack, but is where we are unfortunately.
[#thisisridiculous]
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