We need beta testers: Revolutionary home weather station.

[windfind]

Bay Area, Southern California and Gorge people,

We need some dedicated weather geeks to do some beta testing.

Weatherflow / iwindsurf.com is in the final manufacturing stages of a truly revolutionary multi component home weather station.

All the existing consumer weather stations have moving plastic wind sensors etc. that fail in a short time. They are difficult to connect to the internet or your phone for graphs, mails, texts etc. Or they do not integrate with other “Smart Home” devices or they are simply unreliable. And they simply look geeky to be attached to your house with all the parts hanging off them.

As you can see in the link below our new weather station senses wind and other weather variables with NO moving parts and it is as simple to operate and as reliable as your smart phone. Plus all the components are beautiful:

http://weatherflow.com/preview/

The beta testers do NOT have to be in a location that provides useful information for windsurfing or kiting. Rather we are looking for people to test the usability and reliability of our new home weather stations.

For questions and to see if you qualify as a beta testers mail me at mike@iwindsurf.com with information regarding:

1. Your location & internet access.
2. Your experience, if any, with other home weather stations.
3. 3. Locations in ordinary neighborhoods are ok but we also want sites with serious wind, rain, salt spray, temperature, birds, leaves, dust etc.

Thanks

Mike Godsey
mike@iwindsurf.com

iwindsurf.com/ikitesurf.com
Weatheflow.com

[superkraut]

me me me! could it replace this one that is such a pain to deploy with the wire and all?? plus the cups have a habit of departing...

[windfind]

Hi Superkraut,

This first model of our home weather station is wireless. It uses WIFI and/or blue tooth to communicate with your smart phone or our LED display panel. However the wireless range will only be 100 feet. Which is more than enough for the average house or your application.

Later we will product an even more ruggedized version with solar charging and cellular transmission and reception. This will be for really remote applications.

Mike Godsey
iwindsurf.com/ikitesurf.com
Weatheflow.com

[cgoudie1]

Hot wire "anemometer" Mike?

I could put one outside my condo terrace, I'll ping you when I get into town in late May

-Craig

[jse]

Any need for a Maui tester Mike?

Steve

[airwave]

How about one out at Sherman Island. That's a spot that always needs more info and has some pretty wide ranging conditions. 50deg - 100+deg and plenty of dust and wind. Maybe the camp host or a summer full time camper.

I'll ask around if it makes sense.

[shreddbob]

Mike,

Looks like a neat piece of tech. I just checked out what BLE is. Seems like it’s a lower power and less data dense version of Blu Tooth. Sounds good. Hey, are you guys thinking about configurable transmit power output, and update interval, in line with the BLE capabilities? This would save on battery power, though I ask because the airwaves are getting crowded and it may actually be important as a society to attempt to limit the ever increasing RF energy flowing around us.

Here are a few ideas:
- Allow transmit power to be configured to minimum needed for a location
- Have update interval user selectable, so excess transmissions (like every millisecond) are not the only option (like the silly cordless phones we have that blast out full power 24/7 even though the phone is not being used). I personally would not need to know the weather stats more often than once every 5 minutes. And, like existing iWindsurf stations, the system could backfill with data that happened during a longer update interval.
- Be able to activate WiFi or BLE, not necessarily WiFi AND BLE all the time.
- A mode that turns off the data transmissions during certain hours at night, so we can sleep without unneeded transmissions rattling our nervous system during the body’s rest and repair time. BTW: I do not sleep with a cell phone on in the bedroom, nor should anyone in my opinion.

I’m sure you would come up with other ideas. I think our society has reached a crescendo of “more wireless data more often”, and it may be time to rethink that philosophy. Providing options like I’ve mentioned is a step in this direction. Such extra functionality might only appeal to some people, but it would not adversely affect others who don't care. It's only programming!

An example of successful marketing of a lower transmit power cordless phone is the Siemens "Eco DECT". This phone is more popular in Europe, but there are versions for the US.
https://www.easyecoblog.com/416/siemens-eco-dect-green-cordless-phones/

Bob

[isobars]

Is it self-powered and autonomous? Can we just buy one, add it to our sailing gear milk crate or duffel bag, and tape it to a pole at whatever site we're using on a given day?

[MrFish]

Hopefully it'll be every bit as accurate as the ones you have now.

Oh wait...

[gerritt]

While exciting, there are other threads vying for space which are equally as exciting.

Or I could hijack this thread: Trump, the new face of fascism?