3 Years with The Weatherflow Tempest: The Good, Bad, and The Ugly
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- čas přidán 30. 12. 2023
- The Tempest would be a great weather station, but it has a fatal flaw. Over three years I've had a lot of time to get to learn the Tempest and how it performs under different conditions. As an original backer of the Tempest kickstarter campaign, you'll find out if I'll purchase the Tempest again for another location, or If i'll go in a different direction.
Rainfall Google Sheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
Weatherflow Tempest & Smart Weather Station Facebook Group: / weatherflowgroup - Věda a technologie
Thanks for the honest review. Im tired of soldering and fixing my acurite 5 in 1. And was on the fence with davis looking at Tempest and wanting to have a dedicated pi screen. Will cost as much as vantage pro kit. And i was always skeptical of the rain and that's most important as my irrigation controller Waters based on rainfall at my house.
Was just about to pull the trigger on a tempest being offered with 10% discount when I decided to do a deeper dive and am glad I did. Living on the outskirts of Mojave Desert in SoCal I've been on the fence on which unit to purchase. Rain, wind, and temp accuracy IS important to me and you mentioning your choice being the Davis, I'm leaning in that direction as well. Thanks!
Hey Tom, I’m over in North Abington. Great video! For what it is, I’ve enjoyed mine. It has been my first experience with a weather station and a Davis wasn’t in the cards, $$$ wise.
My Barometric pressure sensor went in mine, Tempest sent me another one at no cost and extremely quick so I can’t be unhappy about the customer service.
I will agree with the rain sensor. It gives you an idea. Hard to beat an actual gauge.
Take care!
I purchased a Weatherflow Tempest and have it integrated with my local HomeAssistant instance via MQTT. I like the all in one unit and the idea of the sonic sensor and no moving parts. Unfortunately, I have found the unit not to be reliable. I have had to have my unit replaced three times due to failing sensors (usually pressure, and wind speed/direction but sometimes light UV among others). Tempest customer support is excellent and they quickly diagnosed issues and sent out replacement units to get me back up and running quickly. However, the 2 year warranty window has expired so they will not send out any more replacements but I can order a new unit for 50% off the retail price. My last free replacement unit has failed wind sensors now and I am struggling to pull the trigger for paying for another unit at 50% off that will just fail again. I'm currently trying to decide if I want to pay even more for a Davis or Ambient Weather station. Not sure I need absolutely accurate rain measurement values, but something that is durable given it is designed to live outside would be nice.
Nice review and thankful for comparisons to other data sources (at least for rainfall). I've seen many reviews claiming how accurate the Tempest is but without any comparative evidence. I also suspect that many Tempest users have the the WF 'Raincast' enabled where the Tempest apps reports rain data for the "neighborhood scale" not your individual Tempest. I found this "RC" to be fairly accurate, often suspiciously identical to the rain data from my co-located AW WS-2902 (which tracks fairly well with my co-located Stratus rain gauge). With this RC enabled, it often leaves a telltale sign on the WxUg charts where there is "negative" rainfall periods during the data (ie, rainfall graph being non-monotonic).
Like others, I've had 2 Tempest fail in 28 months and I decided to not move forward with a third.
Great and very detailed review! You covered everything I was looking for, great info and well presented!
Glad it was helpful!
My experience was the same. Had it for 3 years and liked it. Didnt trust the rain values and tried recalibration but was never satisfied. 3 Years in the battery failed. Replaced the battery by soldering a new one but couldn't get it working. Battery failures are very frequent with this unit after searching online for how to replace the battery. My latest station is an an ambient WS2000 which I love so far. My wind gauge did stop working in the snow though which made we wish for the WS5000 which is similar to the tempest for wind measurements.
Very helpful and appreciated. I just cannot buy one with the rainfall measurement being such an issue. That the manufacturer would tolerate such is unfathomable.
Thanks for watching Terry. Glad you found the video helpful!
I remedied the Haptic rain sensor rain measurement being off by using Weather Display software . Weather Display allows you to calibrate the rain sensor measurements to within a few hundreds of an inch . . As saying, with the weather Display calibration my Tempest now measures rain very accurately . I also have a Davis Vantage Vue station which I use to help in calibrating my Tempest . The Vantage Vue is mounted within 40 feet of the Tempest mount . It took awhile tinkering with the calibration to where it now measures rainfall within a few hundreds of an inch of the Vantage Vue rainfall measurement . I am very happy 5 ***** rating for the Tempest weather station . As for the Vantage Vue the anemometer bearing need replaced as 12 yrs wear has it to not measure wind accurately . I say that you can't go wrong with the Tempest when using the Weather Display software .
I had two of them in Texas. Full sun all day long for about two and a half years in two separate locations. Then, the batteries started failing to hold a charge from the solar panels on both units. WeatherFlow said the units are out of warranty and that the batteries are not user replaceable. They did not offer me any discounted price on new units. Looking for other options. Thanks for the advice and review.
I had the Tempest for few years. No good for rain of course so it is to expensive for what you get. Also wifi can be marginal and have to reset the hub or unit. Acurite is better and I also have Davis vantage vue but it does not support wireless wifi. Lightning strike is also not accurate. For the money it is not worth it mainly due to the faulty rain gauge.
I have a Tempest as well, and the rainfall readings have been quite inaccurate compared to the tipping-bucket rain gauge on my Ambient Weather WS-5000 station. However, I think the Tempest’s haptic rain gauge does a really good job at detecting rainfall onset and when that rainfall ends. Tipping-bucket rain gauges have an onset delay because that bucket has to fill up first before it tips over and registers as rainfall.
I’ve been researching the PWS market and am considering the WS-5000 and the Tempest. Frankly I’m put off by the non replaceable battery in the Tempest. OTOH, the WS-5000 solar panels don’t charge the batteries so they have to be routinely replaced.
I know my planned site will be a compromise with my 2 story house about 25 feet away and tall trees about the same. I plan to mount on a fence post in my backyard which is on the north side of the house. While the WS-5000 sounds like the better device, I hear support sucks in comparison to Tempest.
I don’t know what to think. Guess I’ll just keep researching. The Davis system is more expensive than I care to spend (maybe $500 max).
Thanks for the information. How do you share tempest with live video feed to say like to.... radaromega or other radar sites?
If you want accuracy Davis VP2 is the way to go!
What are you using the rain data for that it needs to be accurate? I am really curious. I have mine connected to my Rachio irrigation controller and it is accurate enough to allow the Rachio to may decisions on cancelling irrigation runs due to rain fall.
Nothing requires my rain data to be accurate but my expectations. My thoughts are if your data isn’t accurate, you may as well not even bother recording it. And since I enjoy looking back on data and comparing to previous months or years, having extremely erroneous rainfall readings bothered me. I always default to my CoCoRaHS gauge for the most accurate measurements, but my new Davis has done much better.
Loved my Tempest,
But after replacement number 3 broke down due to sensor failure, I gave up on them.
So 3 units broke in 3 years...this is absurd.
I've had 7 of them, 3 of those were barometer failures. They claim the one they sent me (as of July 2023) has a new "improved" design with less internal connections.
But the wind and rain measurements are completely inaccurate and cannot be trusted.
Ultrasonic sensor technology has limits and there are research grade sensors that can provide accurate readings but you're looking at 10X the price just for the sensor too!