How does this PWS look to folks?

Am thinking about using this PWS: http://weather.gladstonefamily.net/site/search?site=D1017

It 2 miles from my house and also on the river like we are vs the one at the local airport, KHPN (http://w1.weather.gov/obhistory/KHPN.html), which is inland and 8 miles away.

What do people think about stats for this PWS and the use of PWS’s in general. Curious to see if this has changed at all based on the release of 2.5.

The accuracy of a PWS can vary considerably. I have one in the back yard, but still rely on the local airport, albeit only 0.8 miles distant. For instance, my PWS presently needs an aspirator fan replacement to render accurate daytime temperature readings.

When looking at a PWS that has a Madis number make sure you check the Madis rating. If the rating is two thumbs up or higher it has passed their consistency test for accuracy. This PWS has two thumbs up so you should be good to go.

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Rain can vary significantly across a county. Look at the map view for your county on CoCoRaHS.org for a rainy day and see the variation. CoCoRaHS stations are not part of CWOP so not available for rachio but they do show the variability of rain in an area. Their gauges are typically not automated so more accurate. My gauges are usually very close unless we have snow or freezing rain.

As others have said your mileage may vary when using a PWS. It depends on the station and the owner’s efforts to make sure it is reporting accurately.

I would not worry too much about which you select but if your are concerned then consider your own PWS.

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On that note, curious if anyone has any thoughts about this PWS:
Ambient Weather WS-1400

Looks like it has all the right bells and whistles. Can anyone comment on it’s accuracy?

This is a very good PWS for the money. Many of the PWS in my area are Ambient 1200 or 1400 units. You may need additional hardware and/or software to connect to the internet and post your data. Look on Weather Underground at the PWS lists and see what brand & model people use. If you get their Madis number then look at their Madis rating. If it’s 2 thumbs up or more the accuracy is very good. Most of the Ambient WS-1400 or 1200 I saw were 2 thumbs up.

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I have bought this unit and is easy to set up and install. You will find that it’s only capable of publishing to Weather Underground and that Rachio doesn’t support Weather Underground due to the cost of the WUG API. There are a few threads that are available on this board that have solutions for doing this data publishing via WeatherSnoop and other programs. The most interesting post that I’ve found so far is: Using WUnderground.com to integrate Personal Weather Stations

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Thanks for the feedback on the PWS. My own meager community contribution is in the same thread you posted. If you’re linux savvy, you can use it to ship data posted to Weather Underground to pwsweather.com, where it will be picked up by Rachio.

Not ideal, but a workaround until Rachio firms up its PWS strategy.

That’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’ve requested my WUG API Key and just ordered my Rachio today, so will be hacking together some PHP Code to do it that may be run by cron. I happen to have a linux server that I use for my DVR that has plenty of cycles and is on 24/7

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We definitely want moar PWS weather, for sure on our roadmap :wink:

There are also some other very, very cool weather features we are looking at.

:cheers:

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I almost pulled the trigger on the Rainmaker box because they had a personal WUG integration. Ultimately it was this community that swayed me to buy the Rachio. (That and figuring it was a good programming project) Looking forward to getting it installed and running.

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WunderGround has a PWS buying guide HERE that might be of interest. I have an Acurite 5&1 weather station that IMO is pretty inaccurate.

If I were to do it over again I’d go with THIS. Not the cheapest … but definitely not the most expensive option out there. :slight_smile: The Weatherlink IP data logger can push the info to Wunderground & CWOP.

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that’s a bit of a tease, but good to know there’s a healthy feature development pipeline :cheers: