I want to be able to monitor temperatures and humidity levels to enhance my irrigation programs.

Are there any inexpensive temperature monitoring devices that are Insteon Compatable?

Not related to these products,

 

I saw a program on "Moder Marvels" that showed a new device that works with your irrigation system.

 

It receives data from your local weather station, that includes forcasts, precip, temp, and humidity. The system decides when and how much water to give!

 

Sounds pretty interesting!

C Martin,

 

How about the INSTEON thermostat itself? Not that inexpensive but it would surely do the job.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

I want to be able to monitor temperatures and humidity levels to enhance my irrigation programs.

Are there any inexpensive temperature monitoring devices that are Insteon Compatable?

You've got two options, really, you can get a weather station and sensors and hook it up around your house and outside, collect rainfall, etc. Or, you can get the data from the internet. Both have their pros and cons.

 

I get my data now from the internet using a small program I wrote, which then feeds the data into Powerhome, which in turn can make decisions on ... well, anything really -- but irrigation is one example. If it's windy, I can either water longer or wait until it's not windy -- if it's hot, I can water a bit extra, etc.

 

Because I wrote the software myself as a stand alone app, I don't have clean integration with powerhome, but I do update it via socket calls.

 

So my hope is that the ISY can take in custom variables like this, and through the API I'd be able to feed them to the ISY as well.

 

It's not 100% ideal at this point, but it has worked flawlessly for about 6 months now. The advantage of owning a station yourself is that you can place more sensors -- for example, in the attic. Also, it's possible rainfall totals will be slightly off, as it's not unheard of for storms to pass over one area here but not another.