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+title = "Self-hosted weather station"
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+author = ["Colin Powell"]
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+date = 2023-01-24T00:00:00-04:00
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+tags = ["weather","data","foss","weewx"]
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+categories = ["self-hosting"]
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+draft = false
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++++
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+
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+For a few years now, I've had a cobbled together weather station using Ecowitt
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+sensors that one can readily buy on Amazon, and the fantastic open source tool
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+`WeeWx`. I really don't think I can sign the praises of WeeWx loudly enough.
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+
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+The components of the setup:
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+
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+* Ecowitt GW3000 "gateway"
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+* Ecowitt XXXX temperature sensor
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+* Ecowitt rain guage
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+* Ecowitt anemometer
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+* FreeBSD jail (or any unix-like 24-7 server, an RPi would be fine here)
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+
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+Ecowitt is better know in the agricultural community for making very expensive,
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+very high performing sensors for farms. But thankfully they've dipped their toes
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+in the commercial waters and provided a highly cost-effective way to build a
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+home weather station cluster, without dropping hundreds of dollars on a Davis
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+instrument (and then being locked into their ecosystem).
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+
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+See, the real beauty of Ecowitt is that all the sensor communicate with the
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+gateway over a 900Mhz channel which the GW listens for, parses and then
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+transmits to a given IP address on the local network. The recipient of the
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+gateway's communication is supposed to be a super janky phone app. But we can do
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+one better and send it all to WeeWx!
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+
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+WeeWx handles a lot of different sensors. So you could probably replace
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+everything I just said above with plugging in a $300 Davis weather station and
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+use that with WeeWx. But your mileage will vary depending on model numbers and
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+firmware and honestly, nobody got time for that. Instead, we'll use the Ecowitt
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+plugin in WeeWx to intercept the gateway's messages, store them in a sqlite
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+database and let WeeWx generate a really nice HTML page for our weather station
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+(demo of mine here: https://wx.unbl.ink).
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+
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+Of course, now all that fine weather data is parsed and stuffed ina SQL data
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+store, so you can also re-process it to a heavier weight DB engine, like
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+postgres and go nuts. At least, that's what I've done. Having raw, time-based
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+data from sensors on your own property gives you a chance to run historical
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+calculations of specific events, and it also allows me to pull local data into
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+other projects, so my run tracker doesn't get data from the airport 90 miles
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+from my house, but can use super local weather data.
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