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    Help Me Pick A Weather Station

    OK so my young son was kicking a ball around on our patio and knocked over and broke our $5 digital thermometer that we use to see the temp outside. I told him it was ok and I'd get something to replace it. The wife was like... I bet you will. Thus, I think that's justification to spend a bunch of money on a weather station.

    I don't really care too much about the rain and wind sensors, but really just want a temperature sensor outside that I can report to HS. I was looking at the Oregon Scientific WMR100, but there is one thing I can't figure out. It says that it reports the outdoor temperature, but I don't see that it comes with an external temp sensor. If I have the main unit inside plugged into my computer, how is it getting the outside temperature? Does anyone have one of these?

    Do I need to purchase an extra THGR800 right off the bat? My long term plan would be to purchase a bunch of those to report the temps in various rooms in the house. If I understand correctly, I'll need an RFXCOM antenna, but that seems to add at least another couple dollars to the equation and I'm not ready to spend that kind of money yet.

    Anyone know if there are any Zwave temp sensors coming (outside of the HSM100)?

    I've read about 1-wire, but I'm not much of a wiring guy.

    If I could display the temp inside and have the wife see it's the same as the sensor outside, I could definitely nudge the WAF up a bit.

    #2
    According to the Oregon Scientific web site, the WMR100 "Includes five sensors for comprehensive weather information"

    http://www2.oregonscientific.com/sho...cid=84&pid=685

    If all you want is the outside temp, there are many options that are much less expensive

    http://www2.oregonscientific.com/sho...scid=5&pid=417
    http://www2.oregonscientific.com/sho...scid=5&pid=671
    Mike____________________________________________________________ __________________
    HS3 Pro Edition 3.0.0.548, NUC i3

    HW: Stargate | NX8e | CAV6.6 | Squeezebox | PCS | WGL 800RF | RFXCOM | Vantage Pro | Green-Eye | Edgeport/8 | Way2Call | Ecobee3 | EtherRain | Ubiquiti

    Comment


      #3
      How would I get any information from those devices into HS? Those are just the equivalent of the one my son broke, but just a little nicer. I assume with the weather station and some plug in or a script to read the data I can get everything into HS.

      Besides one wire, how else is everyone getting real time temp data from their own house into HS?

      Comment


        #4
        RFXCOM Receiver with Oregon Scientific sensors is the most common non-wire solution.

        Comment


          #5
          RFXCOM Receiver with Oregon Scientific sensors is the most common non-wire solution.
          That's how I do it here in the UK. I have the Oregon WMR928NX 433MHz weather station, RFXCom receiver and the RFXCom Homeseer plug-in.

          Getting set up with the RFXCom receiver and an appropriate Homeseer plug-in can be quite expensive but once you have it, you can keep adding more sensors.

          The sensors can be purchased individually here, but I wanted the rain, wind and barometer as well, so I got the whole package with console for just a little more than the cost of the individual sensors.

          Prior to getting the full weather station, I had an Oregon THGR122NX sensor mounted outside under a weatherproof hood.

          Attached are pics of the solar powered outdoor temp / humidity sensor and a screenshot showing it in my homeseer status screen.

          Paul..
          Attached Files

          Comment


            #6
            HI Sooty! I don't see the wmr928NX on the OS site. Do you think this is a new version of it: http://www2.oregonscientific.com/sho...scid=7&pid=711

            Comment


              #7
              HI Sooty! I don't see the wmr928NX on the OS site. Do you think this is a new version of it
              I am in the UK, so perhaps we have different model numbers here. This is the one I have:

              http://www.ukweathershop.co.uk/acata..._WMR928NX.html

              It was £50 extra to get the whole kit over just the sensors, so I went for it.

              Your link http://www2.oregonscientific.com/sho...scid=7&pid=711 does not work for me here.

              Sooty (Paul)..
              Last edited by sooty; April 19, 2008, 06:47 AM. Reason: Incorrect link.

              Comment


                #8
                I'm not even sure of which RFXCOM receiver I'd need, but it seems it would be upwards of $250 if my Euro conversions are right. Plus the expense of the sensors pushes it up over $300 and that's too much to spend right now.

                I do like that outdoor sensor. Seems more in line with what I need.

                Does anyone know about any Z-Wave temp sensors besides the HSM100? If I go that route (I would need a Z-Wave controller), I'm still looking at $200+. I didn't imagine it would be this expensive.

                Comment


                  #9
                  You need wire if you want cheap. The RFXCOM Temperature transmitter and a MR26A receiver is a RF solution at about 1/2 the price, but still not cheap and does not have the low incremental cost associated with the OS sensors.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    The RFXCom solution is perhaps a bit on the expensive side. The cheapest 433 MHz receiver would be the USB version here http://www.cheapertronics.com/produc...=64&item_id=23. I suppose there will be shipping and / or sales tax to add to the price and you will need a compatible plug-in to get the readings into Homeseer.

                    As Michael says, once you have the receiver the incremental cost of adding further sensors is quite low compared to some other solutions. This is the way I did it. I got the receiver first and used one of these http://www.cheapertronics.com/produc...=67&item_id=31 sensors outside under a weatherproof hood and then upgraded to the weather station sensors as funds permitted.

                    The strong Euro has made goods from Euro countries expensive here in the UK too. On the other hand, imports from the US are very good for us just now.

                    Paul..

                    Comment


                      #11
                      WRM100--RFXCOM and Virtual Weather Station

                      I have the RFXCOM receiver, the WRM100 weather station (just installing) and the Virtual Weather Station software.

                      RFXCOM sees the WRM100 and I have configured the virtual devices. That seems to be working well.

                      But the Virtual Weather Station (VWS) software (Internet edition and not the HomeSeer plugin) is not seeing the data. I have selected the WRM100 as the weather station for the VWS.

                      The VWS support person says that the WRM100 console must be plugged into a usb port on my computer for the software to see the data. That just seems wrong, since the data is coming into the computer through the RFXCOM receiver.

                      So what do I need to do in order for the VWS software to read the WRM100 data coming in through RFXCOM? Oh, I realize this is really not an RFXCOM or HomeSeer question.

                      Thanks.

                      Bill

                      Comment


                        #12
                        I have no experience with VWS or WRM100, but my guess is that VWS is used to provide an interface to a weatherstation such as the WRM100 and it pulls the data, produces the graphics and does the data uploads.

                        You need to look to see if there is a mode of operationn where VWS gets its data from somewhere else other than a weather station. If it does not then it has no way to see what is comming from the WRM100 unless it sees it through the USB port.

                        The RF signal from the WRM100 can be seen by the USB interface and the RFXCOM one simultaneously. You should be able to run both together and pick off the data from either interface to satisfy your needs.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Bill,

                          I have no direct experience with the WMR100 as I have the WMR928 console but I think it will work in much the same way.

                          The RFXCom receiver, receives & decodes the RF signals transmitted by the weather sensors, (wind, temp, etc), the RFXCom plug-in processes these signals and passes the result to Homeseer. The RFXCom receiver does not communicate directly with the WMR display console.

                          The WMR100 display console is also a receiver / data processor. It receives signals from the remote sensors, processes the data and displays it on the console screen.

                          If the WMR100 is connected to a PC via USB, then the received data can be displayed on the VWS software in realtime and recorded to file if required. The WMR100 will probably have internal memory to store limited historical data if it dissconected from the PC. The VWS software can be used to connect to the WMR100 via a USB cable to download the stored data from within the console.

                          So what do I need to do in order for the VWS software to read the WRM100 data coming in through RFXCOM?
                          The RFXCom receiver / plug-in and the VWS software are 2 entirely separate things. The data being stored by the RFXCom plug-in, if you have charts enabled, is unlikely to be in a format that can be used by the VWS software. It is also unlikely that the data being received / processed by RFXCom can be recorded directly to the VWS software.


                          Paul..

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Thanks Paul. Your answer is not what I wanted to hear, but I appreciate the response.

                            So does anyone who has the RFXCOM-WRM100-VWS setup agree that I need to plug the WRM100 console into the computer in order for the VWS to see the WRM100 data?

                            I suppose I could take the information from the virtual devices created by RFXCOM from the WRM100 data and write it to a .csv file and then have the VWS use it, but that just seems so kludgy.

                            Thanks.

                            Bill

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Originally posted by bhogsett View Post
                              Thanks Paul. Your answer is not what I wanted to hear, but I appreciate the response.

                              So does anyone who has the RFXCOM-WRM100-VWS setup agree that I need to plug the WRM100 console into the computer in order for the VWS to see the WRM100 data?

                              I suppose I could take the information from the virtual devices created by RFXCOM from the WRM100 data and write it to a .csv file and then have the VWS use it, but that just seems so kludgy.

                              Thanks.

                              Bill
                              The way I interface my weather station (Davis Vantage Pro II) with HomeSeer is via Weather-Display. I connected my station to to my PC using the associated hardware. Weather Display collects all of the data and stores it as well as graphs it in many ways. Then to get the data into HomeSeer, Weather-Display comes with a set of free HomeSeer script files that you simply setup in a recurring HomeSeer event to read the data from Weather-Display and post to HomeSeer devices. At this point all of the weather data is available to be used for triggers in HomeSeer. Here's the out of the box Weather-Display web interface with a sampling of the built in graphs.
                              http://weather.ruppworld.com

                              Here's a screen shot of some of the information available from Weather Display:
                              Attached Files
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