So today I found out that my Tempest hasn’t charged since Feb. 18 and I didn’t find this out from Weatherflow. How I found out was my WeatherFlow PiConsole I have running on a raspberry pi wasn’t showing any weather data. After troubleshooting that I came across and error that included “wind” and “divided by zero”. This lead me to the WeatherFlow app and I found their hasn’t been any wind data since earlier today and there was an exclamation beside it which tapping on said the Tempest was in power save mode, which lead further to looking at the battery voltage which has been dropping for 2 weeks. What I don’t understand is why there is no notification from the weatherflow app as to when power save modes are triggered. It will notify me for rain, lightning, if it’s offline or returns online, but it’s odd it wouldn’t notify me about consistent abnormal voltage drop. If it wasn’t for my raspberry pi PiConsole, I wouldn’t have found out until the unit shut off and I had no data in my app. Note that my primary use case for the WeatherFlow app is to look and the current conditions via the Android persistent notification and usually daily I click on the notification which take you to the default screen on the app which is the current conditions and forecast. On this screen there is no indication that anything is wrong with the Tempest. Now if the default screen was the actual station readings then I would have seen the small exclamation mark (to be honest I wish this was the default screen for the app, but that’s another topic).
I do agree that the ongoing notification needs customization and not only showing the given info Plus a notification would be able to trigger an IFTTT recipe to turn on a smart plug to power the booster.
The app needs updating to accommodate the power booster and provide more features NOW!
When Battery Voltage drops below… say 2.61V (as it takes about an hour to fully recharge from there) to start sending notifications every .06V drop, like when it sends Rain or Lightning notifications.
Come on WF! how hard is that?
That would be a very poor choice of a voltage to start charging at. In fact, that is often the voltage used to terminate charging of LTO cells. There is very little energy storage above that voltage. It is perfectly appropriate to not report anything about low voltage until close to 2.4V.
Why, the PBA already takes care of that automatically, provided the Tempest has at least firmware 164? No network connection needed. Take a look at Tempest for an idea of what the charge discharge cycle looks like. This is prototype PBA#5 so it’s cycle is slightly different from the production version but the idea is the same.
Okay, so when it drops to the Voltage of the battery rating then!
…and IFTTT for us on charger only (No Batt’s)
The Tempest I linked is on charger only. Why would you need IFTTT when the function you would be using it for is already implemented locally?
Oh, it’s my FW then that needs a kick up the butt.
Apologies for not comprehending (reading) your reply!
So what’s actually going on there then? it drops to just above 2.5V then boosts it up but not fully!
Edit; I’ve just read the battery modes article again and guess it goes on that principle
* The battery will quickly charge to full capacity in strong sunlight. The battery charge controller will halt charging around 2.6-2.8v (absolute max capacity) and then discharge the battery, decreasing voltage to a safe operating range around 2.55v.
Yes, and on battery it won’t charge until the Tempest reaches 2.42V. This gives the sun a chance to charge rather than use up the batteries.
Maybe @eric or @WFSupport can bump the firmware to the current release since it is on v156 right now.
I opened a ticket for you regarding the firmware. You should have a return later today.
Was there an upgrade to my FW?
Looks like I’m going to have to get acquainted with my ladder AGAIN!
EDIT; Manual intervention has now prevailedWeatherFlow noreply@weatherflow.com
To:**********;
08/03/22 07:45
1
Your Tempest device ST-00028365 at Pipeline is now online! What will you do with all your data?
Failed to reboot from the Upgrade no doubt!!!
All this leads to more notifications needed, apart from just Rain/Lightening
…After getting it down again I had a severed cable.
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