UDP Reporting Lightning Strikes

Tempest Owners
1

I have Tempest and HomeSeer. I use MQTT to import the UDP to report weather to HomeSeer.

Recently the UDP has started falsely reporting lighting strikes. The Tempest app does not show any lighting strikes. There physically is no lightning in the area. Yet if I watch the UDP stream it shows the strikes in both the observation and as an ‘evt_strike’.

Any idea what could be causing this or actions I can take to troubleshoot it?

2

You’ve got something by you emitting electromagnetic activity that the sensor is identifying as a lightning strike. Tempest algorithms on the back end validate any strike detection your tempest receives to see if it was real or not using other sources. If it determines it wasn’t a real strike, it won’t display it in the app.

I would recommend using websockets for whatever the purpose it is you are looking to use for strike data as the websocket data is more accurate, not only for strike events, but also for strike distance.

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3

Did you recently turn your heating system on???

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4

So, let me get this straight: The Tempest could be detecting a lightning strike but then it is sending it into the cloud and it is determining there is no weather in the area so it is not an actual lightning strike and so it does not report it in the app? Meanwhile it has already sent the packet via UDP so my home automation thinks there was an actual lightning strike.

No, I did not recently turn on my heating system. However, I did recently install a RDK/GPS unit for my robotic lawnmower close by my Tempest. I’ll bet that is what is causing the false detection in the Tempest. Now I wonder how far away the two units will have to be to make it stop.

Thanks for the help.

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5

You could switch from UDP to websockets, the websocket data has the adjusted value that filters out false positives and fills in missed strikes.

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6

Sounds like a nice controlled test of your guess would be worth your time…verify there’s nothing detected, and then play around with your lawnmower …

7

I had a similar issue. Turns out it was caused by an electric fencer shorting out around 30m from the tempest. It was useful to know the fencer was not working correctly!!

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