1 Month with the BloomSky Weather Station

I have been running the BloomSky Weather Station now for about a month, and I figure it is time to give it a longer term review.  

After moving it a few times, I settled on a spot in my landscaping.  I wanted to get a nice view of the sunset and so I had to find a good spot facing towards the West.

In order to keep the WiFi signal, you need to keep the unit relatively close to the house, or use a WiFi repeater to boost your signal.  Over the course of the month, I did not run into any connection issues, and the solar panels kept the batteries charged the entire time.  Although the station does not measure rain fall, it will alert  you via the app when it is raining.   I eventually turned that off, as it became annoying after a while. If you happen to live in a normally dry area,  I can see how it can be useful.

As far as temperature accuracy goes, at night or cloudy days, it was usually was within 1 or 2 degree's of my Davis Vantage Vue.  In direct sunlight on the warmer days, that increased to about 5 degree's.  Now the Davis is mounted on a 7 Foot pole with grass under it, so the height difference and location may also account for the higher reading.  Humidity and the Pressure readings have been very close also.  The real test is going to be during a humid 95 degree day in July.

You can also now register the station to report to wunderground.  I registed mine so I could compare my Davis (KNJWASHI4) to the BloomSky (KNJWASHI26).

The real reason to acquire one of these is for the camera.  The image on the right is the final image it took for the day and it does a very nice job in low light.  I have been very happy with the quality of the camera so far.

There is no way to access the unit directly.  The system stays off online, connecting once every 10-15 minutes to send the weather data and upload the latest image, then it disconnects.  I am a little uneasy about not being able to access the unit, for the simple reason is that you are dependent on BloomSky's infrastructure and if something ever happens to them, you will not be able to use the unit.

Even with no direct access to there unit, there are still many things you can do with it.  The guys at wxforum.net came up with some scripts to add the BloomSky photo's, time lapses and weather data to your website, and there is a whole channel on ifttt.com that has pre-defined recipes.  I currently use that to send each day's time lapse video to my Dropbox.  You can also run Weather Display and get the data from wunderground and create some of your own graphs.

Conclusion
This is one of those products that really is in a class of its own.  I don't consider it be a replacement for your Davis or other higher end weather station, but to compliment it.  I have 2 other web camera's setup and neither one can capture the sky like the BloomSky.  Even in direct sun, the pictures still come out very good.   If you are just interested in basic temperature and don't care about rain amounts or wind, this would be a nice step up from a basic remote thermometer.  The small foot print would also work well for condo or apartment dwellers.  I am looking forward to seeing what it captures during some of our summer thunderstorms.

You can see my BloomSky camera and other weather data on my website http://www.warrenskywarn.org.

Bloomsky Weather Station - First 12 hours

https://www.bloomsky.com/

After seeing a review online, I became very interested in this.  I already have a Davis Vantage Vue, and several Web Camera's, but this is an all in one unit, plus it creates the time lapse automatically.  Although I couldn't really justify the price, Bloomsky offered me a community program, which gave me the weather station for just the price of shipping.

TK Bay of XDA Developers posted a nice unboxing video, so I will skip that part and let you watch that on your own.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWuRPZwF8Mo

Essentially the unit itself is a bit larger than a softball.  It also comes with a mounting bracket, a set of solar panels, and a long stake so you can just shove it in the ground if you do not feel like mounting it.  The initial setup is very easy, if you follow the instructions.  It was already dark by the time I got to mess with it, so I decided to just charge it up and stick it in the ground for now without the solar panels.   Once charged (which only took a couple hours), I had it connected to my WiFi and outside in less than 5 minutes.

It was in the low 30's outside at the time, and it took about 2 hours for it to get down to that temperature.  Once it got there, the readings at night were very accurate, always within 2 degree's of my Davis temperature, and usually within 1 degree.  Humidity was about 10% lower, however my Davis is mounted on a 7 foot pole above the grass, where this is only about a foot above the mulch, so that may account for the difference.

The camera seems decent, however with the weather front coming in, all I have to show right now are gray skies.  The camera angle is somewhat adjustable, so you can either point to the horizon to strait up into the sky.  My hope is to catch some nice sunsets, so I will be pointing more towards the horizon once I have it permanently mounted.

Bloomsky has a map on their website, so you can view all the devices in your area.   You can also send your data to wunderground as well.  Speaking of wunderground, if you look on their weather map, you see a large variation of temperatures, due to people using crappy weather stations and inconsistent upload times.  Because the bloomsky devices are all the same hardware and have similar upload times, the weather map appears more consistent.

 Final Thoughts Overall, this appears to be a decent well made product and I am happy with it so far.  This is a nice setup if you live in a condo, where space is at a minimum.   Since this requires a WiFi connection, you have to give thought as to where you put it, as you need to be close to the house, yet have a clear view of the sky.  One thing missing is a wind meter, however it does have a rain gauge and of course the camera.  With the upcoming rain event, I am interested to see how the rain collection compares against the Davis.  I thought the $229 price was a bit high at first, however it is about half of what it cost me for my Davis setup, plus you can get it online without a computer.

I will post a follow up in a few weeks, hopefully by then I will have it mounted in a better location.