Wireless Weather Station WeatherSleuth® - Professional IP Weather Station with Direct Real-time Internet Monitoring + Free Beginner’s Guide (eBook)

This is my 2nd weather station purchase, following the unreliability and eventual death of my Maplin station. My primary reason for buying this one was because it didn't require a USB connection to a PC, instead it talks straight out to the Internet (Weather Underground by default). The main sensor mast uses wireless to talk to a small ethernet connected base station. My sensor mast is at the bottom of the garden on a pole, with the base station inside the garage - the distance is at least 25 meters, and it works flawlessly. The separate sensor which measures inside temperature, humidity and pressure is the other side of the house, and also communicates without problem.There was slight confusion about which batteries to use for the outdoor sensor mast, as conflicting information and common sense suggests you should use rechargeable batteries (the sensor mast has a solar panel). However, an email to the UK distributor (who have been very responsive) advised to use regular Lithium batteries (not rechargeable). This is because they perform better in lower temperatures, have a higher voltage, and the solar panel is only used to assist powering the sensors, not charging the batteries.Set-up was very easy, just plug in the base unit, connect via ethernet (no WiFi) and the lights on the front of the device tell you the status. Configuration is done via supplied software or once you know the device IP address, I found using the web interface easier. By default, it sends data to the Weather Underground service, great for beginners who can start seeing the reported sensor data pretty quickly.However, there are downsides. The reported data is quite limited when you are familiar with software based collection systems. Weather Underground is pretty good for graphing data, but you won't get average wind direction, high wind gust speed/time, high and low pressure times from the weather station itself. For some, this is not a problem, but for more advanced users there is a solution......you can specify that the weather station sends its data to your own server instead of Weather Underground. It uses a simple HTTP GET with parameters for each data point (windspeed, wind direction, temperature, etc). I couldn't find any documentation about which key/value pairs it used, so I did my own investigation and I've added these onto the bottom of the review for reference. This allows you to interpret the data however you like using your own scripts, store it however you like, and even forward it onto multiple online services. For example, the data from my weather station is collected on my own server, and then I send it onto Weather Underground, and Met Office WOW as well as using it for my own weather website. If all this means nothing to you, ignore me, suffice to say, this weather station will provide a good introduction with minimal set-up and no dependency on a USB connected, always-on PC.I can't comment on the robustness of the outdoor unit yet, however it looks like it should last and the mounting hardware seems good quality, let's see how it copes with a Scottish winter!HTTP Key/Value pairs that the device sends:See Weather Underground Wiki for more informationIDPASSWORDtempfhumiditydewptfwindchillfwinddirwindspeedmphwindgustmphrainindailyraininweeklyraininmonthlyraininyearlyraininsolarradiationindoortempfindoorhumiditybarominlowbattdateutcsoftwaretypeaction=updaterawrealtime=1rtfreq=5

The WeatherSleuth was overall very easy to setup, install and get working but I had some issues getting it to report to Weather Underground. Basically the receiver part of the setup wasn't communicating with Weather Underground and the server light on the receiver wasn't on. The manual had a link to download a firmware update from Aercus Instruments but on the website there was nothing relating to firmware, only the IP tools.Doing a bit of digging I found that the WeatherSleuth was the exact same weather station as an Ambient Weather station. After downloading the latest firmware update from there (and also the IP tools as the IP tools provided with the weather station wouldn't find the station on my LAN. I just used my hub to find it and connect) it worked straight away, no problem.Having only used it a few days now everything is going well and it does all I need it to. It seems pretty accurate in relation to other nearby stations and has all the measurements you need. It is very easy to mount and I simply mounted it in my garden using an aluminium pole/tube held in the ground using a spike for a rotary washing line, which was very to do and works really well.

This is my 3rd Personal Weather Station, I purchased the Watson W-8681 about 6 years ago, at the time was not interested in capturing or sharing the data it collected so it suited me but after 5 Scottish Winters it finally started to play up so I replaced it with a the Netatmo WS which sends it Data to a Cloud, which you then view online in a web browser or via a mobile app, I really liked this concept but sadly the Netatmo was plagued with hardware issues or at least mine was and after 8 months I was eventually forced to return it. Which lead me to research and finally purchase the WeatherSleuth.The first thing to note is that the WeatherSleuth does not have a hard Displayand like the Netatmo, the data is sent directly to an online service, by default this is Wunderground. Out of the box this setup will suit a lot of users but not all, but there is plenty you can do to manipulate the Data yourself if you want to.Setting up the WS was a doddle, really it was, as others have said though make sure you get the indoor and outdoor units communicating with the Receiver Unit before you mount the sensors etc. The Receiver must be connected to your home network via an Ethernet cable (it's not wireless) and the instruction tell you to plug it directly into your Router for me this would have not worked because my router is too far away from where I wanted to mount the Outdoor Sensor Array, so I connected it to my home network via a Homeplug Powerline and it works just fine. Once connected to your LAN the next step is to configure the Weather Station by logging into the Receiver via a simple web browser GUI and you do this by entering the receiver's IP address in your web browser, there is a software tool provided that can Scan your network for the IP of the Receiver but I suspect most users will be able to get this just as easily from the Admin Section of their router. Once logged into the Weather Station, there are a number of options to configure it, Network, Weather Network, Station Settings, Live Data and Calibration. Once you've added your Wunderground account information, the Receiver will start sending Data to your Wunderground and you'll be able to view it and see it update every minute.I have to say at first I was quite disappointed by how Wunderground then presented the Data it gleamed from my installation on its website, namely there is no indoor temperature/humidity and no ability to set UK units (metric temp/imperial wind speed). So I tried the Android App on my phone and found that to be quite lacking as well. Wunderground have an app called Wunderstation but it is sadly only available for the IPad, which is a shame as I had a chance to try it and it has everything most people would want, it's fully customisable, displays indoor temperature and humidity, and also shows history and trend graphs, it really is very nice, and for lots of people that own an IPad it will I am sure be more than enough. I don't own an IPad so this lead me to seek out an alternative solution.I eventually did this with some help from some members of the wxforum.net community. There are currently lots of options available to do this and it very much depends on what you want to do with the data to which route you take. All solutions basically use the same method and that is to capture the data on a local device (man in the middle) before passing it on to an online service. At this stage personally I am not concerned with setting up my own online Weather Station to share with the World Wide Web I just want to be able to view my live data at home on various devices depending on what I am doing, in an easy and user friendly format. Which I have done by directing the receiver to a local webserver I have running on and old but always on NAS drive which I have on my network at home for backing up family photos and videos on. This could just as easily be done on a standard Desktop PC but I did not want to have a PC on all the time, mainly because of the power mine consumes. I can now open a web page on this local webserver on any of my devices at home and view live weather data, I even have an old obsolete Android tablet continuously connected, mounted on the wall, which mimics a traditional weather station display. Once the Data has been gleaned locally it is still passed to Wunderground, so if I am out and about or away from home I can still view my current data online!I’ll share what I hope will be some useful information for people looking on how to modify their installation/data capture.Firstly, when searching for information online you'll get better results if you search Ambient Weather WS-1200-IP as the WeatherSleuth is a rebadged version of this more Popular North American Weather Station.A thread on WXForum where I received help on how to do this - [,,,]A blog post with some useful information about capturing data for those that might want to use something like Weewx - [...]For those interested in having the function of the WeatherSleuth but also having a no nonsense Traditional Hardware Display without going to the trouble of making your own, then Aercus do a more expense version called the WeatherRanger that combines the receiver within a Colour Display - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00ZVFZRRK/I’ve also include a photo of my homemade Weather Display and Station, I've just seen that the Station has a Gold Star on Wunderground, which means it has provided accurate readings for at least 5 days in a row.My WeatherSleuth Wunderground PWS id is IABERDEE138 for anyone that is interested.I hope this review helps someone if does not though please remember all I can do is share my own honest experience.