Today I want to talk to you about the famous Meteorological Station of Netatmo. I have been using it for a while because they sent it to me for tests from Villarrazo, a company that carries Netatmo’s public relations in Spain and during these months I have compared it to Apple’s Time Service and the Carrot Weather application. I tell you my conclusions.
Netatmo Weather Station
I imagine the one who has heard more or less of Netatmo’s weather station. It is the typical device that everyone who has tried it recommends you. It’s not new and it’s not especially cheap, since your usual price around 110 or 120 euros Although it’s normal to go down a lot in Amazon Prime Days, Black Friday and so on, it’s usually one of the products I always put in the compilation of those days with my recommendations.
It is also signed by Netatmo, which you know is one of the Premium brands in HomeKit-compatible home-made and which have been on the market for many years. I use the Netatmo thermostat for the boiler, I have all the home radiators domesticated with the intelligent Netatmo valves that are understood with the thermostat, I have also tested the cameras… and I have recommended many times the intelligent Netatmo bell during the home consulting for people living in a villa or townhouse. Netatmo belongs to the Legrand group, which is a life-long French company of electrical material and components. I started using Netat products.
But many years ago, when they were on the market, Eve, Aqara… and little more. Now there are so many brands at reasonable prices but I must tell you that the products I have from Netatmo have never failed me, so I will continue to recommend them.
But, well, let’s focus on the weather station. Basically. is composed of 2 modules in your initial pack, the station itself which is what goes inside the house that has cylindrical shape and that makes bridge between the different components and the outer module. It is not a bridge itself as it does not use technologies known as zigbee or z-wave to connect with the different Netatmo devices, but it does act as a concentrator. To this gossip is connected the outer module, which goes to batteries and places wherever you want but out of the house in the open.
You don’t have to say anything. for this external module you can find all kinds of supports and protectors on Amazon, since it’s not the same thing to place him on the facade in the shadow that he’s giving him the sun all day, which can make him give you an outside temperature that’s not real. I have finally put it on the balcony above the plafonite of light, as there it always gives it the shadow because it is protected by the roof of the balcony.
In addition to this starter kit module, you can buy a rain pluviometer and tell you how many liters are falling per square meter and a anemometer that collects wind speed, bursts, etc. . Come on, you can set up a pretty complete weather station and put several sensors on different parts of your villa’s facade, for example.
The concentrator who told you before that he stays inside the house, is also measuring the air quality inside the house, so you can get data CO2 prices (Let’s see, this data is very interesting, it’s supposed that when the CO2 goes up a lot it’s because you have the air at home a little flawed and you should ventilate… But you can’t imagine the ass that’s on HomeKit with notifications every few minutes.…). It also tells us the temperature of the room where you have it, noise levels, you can buy different modules to deploy to the rooms and tell you all that data from each room in the house.
.. and all of it perfectly integrated with HomeKit or his app, which makes the time app the times where you can see the current conditions inside and out of the house, the forecast for the next few days and all that.
It should be noted that All that data stays in place, they don’t send anywhere… unless you want to., since there is a collaborative network called WeatherMap where you can upload the data from your station and you can check in real time the data that is rising the weather stations around the world, so you see the temperature of an area but based on real data from people who have the same station as you, not from satellites or generic stations 30 kilometers from your home. I don’t know, I like the idea very much, plus if there are several very close stations in the same area, it’s able to show you the average and rule out if any of them are giving data
Weird for whatever reason.
Integration of the Meteorological Station
Regarding integration, it is of course integrated with Apple HomeKit, it carries its QR as always you detect directly from the Home app. It also has an official Netatmo integration for Home Assistant, you don’t have to post it to Home Assistant using HomeKit bridge, it also integrates with IFTTT and you can do automations from there to let you know for Whatsapp for example if it’s going to rain, I’ve already told you about the integration of IFTTT with Whatsapp on other occasions.… and also has its own API open and documented in case you want to consult the
data from some app or system developed by yourself.
But well, The question of the million in this type of device is whether it is right, that is, if with all these data and the mogollon of sensors available, it gives us a good prognosis of temperature and humidity because that is already done by any mobile today.
So… is it reliable?
The short answer is: yes, quite. In the end, he’s measuring what’s in your house, not what’s predicted by a weather model or a station that’s far from your house. But to see it better, I’ve been testing the Netatmo station at the same time as the application. Carrot Weather and that Apple’s native time app.
I don’t know if you know Carrot Weather but you can configure a lot of different data sources to get time from your area. In Apple’s Time app you can’t do this, in fact if you go into More information within the app, it takes you to an Apple support page where it tells you the data sources you consult by country and in Spain is based only on the AEMET and the Weather Channel. In Carrot you can tell you to use global services such as Foreca, AccuWeather, OpenWeather, etc and Apple Weather service. There’s one thing that’s cool and it’s that You can tell Carrot Weather to take your weather station data from
Netatmo, which may be interesting because Carrot has widgets for the iPhone and Apple Watch, which Netatmo doesn’t have, so you can carry Carrot on the clock and when you press to see the time it’s actually telling you the real temperature of your house that it takes out of your Netatmo station… and This would be very good if Netatmo station gave a correct temperature, which is what has most boiled me of all this… to me does not tell the outer temperature correctly.
I have done thousands of tests during these months, both the Netatmo app and the House app to see the information the station provided, the Apple Time and Carrot Weather app… and the outer temperature the station says is usually something higher than the other apps say. But superior to the absurd, 5 or 6 degrees more sometimes. Be me pelao on the street in short sleeve with 13 degrees because Netamo station told me that it was 19 while Apple’s app and Carrot’s using different sources of data agreed to tell me that it was 13 degrees and that I had to wear a jacket.
I’ve tried to change the location sensor, I’ve had it on the floor of the balcony, on one of the outside windows, on the railing… and finally on top of the plafon that’s where I have it now so I don’t have the sun. at no time and most times it tells me more temperature than the other 2 apps or a small mercury thermometer that I have at home and is older than me.
However, The rest of the data is super reliable. If he says it’s gonna rain in a while, it’ll rain. I don’t know what system shit they use in Formula 1 that tell you ‘No rain is expected in the next 4 minutes’ and when it’s raining in the race they say ‘va rain for 8 more minutes’… fuck, and hit the second, male. Netatmo station doesn’t work that way, but if it says it’s going to rain at 6: 00 in the afternoon, don’t leave the house at 5: 30 without umbrellas because you’re gonna get wet for sure. Maybe it’s not 6: 00, but before 7: 00, it’s gonna rain.
I was talking to Martin Guiroy yesterday morning about the Mini podcast and he also has a Netatmo weather station… but of course, it’s that Martin lives in Donosti, there you can’t play it over time because in winter it’s gonna rain you yes or yes and We both agreed on the optimism of the temperature that returns the Netatmo station and how well the rain predicts. In fact, while I was talking to Martin it started to rain here in Three Songs and both Netatmo’s app and Carrot weather said it was already raining… but Apple’s app said it was going to be all day with clouds and clear. Not a single light all day, male.
Let’s see, In the end, Netatmo’s weather station measures what’s in your house as we said before. You can see how moisture changes when you open a window, if the air quality gets worse by cooking without extractor or if it’s raining on your street but not on the other end of the city. That all makes it great. If you just want to know if tomorrow is going to rain to run, you don’t need to buy the Netatmo station that with a price of 120 €is a little carilla, and both the AEMET app and your smart watch are going to tell you that data without any problem with a fairly high ratio of success, especially if you use Carrot Weather with the Foreca data source that
It’s the one that works best in my area, although this means a subscription of 35 €a year… and I get a little bit paid for applications that do something like Apple’s native apps. Is it worth paying that 35 €for a better prediction? I can’t even make sure it’s a better prediction, it’s true that in these months you’ve alerted me to the rain better than the Apple Time app… but it’s still a bit punctual and the summer manages it worse than the Apple app… or it’s been simple coincidence and they actually have both the same error ratio. No idea.
But if you’re interested in having your own temperature history over the years, control how it affects the air climate inside your house, or if you have a small garden, solar plates, moisture problems or some son with asthma at home… there the thing changes and Netatmo station becomes an excellent option above other devices to know the air quality of your house. And especially if you’re the one who enjoys «having the data you» instead of relying on external services as the data are yours, you can analyze them, use them as you want or export them to collaborative networks if you want.
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