Weatherflow Tempest

[MrBill]

Does anyone that owns a Tempest need to reset/reboot the outdoor sensor?  If so, about how often and how long have you had the unit?

For me, I installed the original at end of July 2022, on or about Dec 31st it quit reporting during a massive rain event. The trouble shooting guide only suggests moving the hub closer to the unit, but the RSSI values are good or excellent historically (graph from HA entity) , so that's wasn't the case here.  I contacted support and on the first reply they said "we're sorry the unit has failed" please verify your shipping address and we'll send you another.  All in all that went smoothly...  At the end after the work replacing it (it's not easy to get to) and shipping the old unit back, my feeling was "I got a lemon and they admitted it and replaced it immediately, no big deal... it happens, great support", I was beyond satisfied with the response.

Yesterday, during a early morning massive rain event, just after the rain started very hard (the leading gust front had winds around 45mph and there was a lot of lightning and energy on the leading edge of a fast moving storm), Tempest failed again.  Just after ~100 days since prior installation... again the HA graphs show history of good or excellent RSSI values in both directions. 

This time Tempest support said, "A random disconnect once a year isn't too uncommon so I don't want to jump to the conclusion that this new device is faulty. It may come back online on it's own, however, if you're able to I'd recommend rebooting the Tempest device to see if it'll come back online: "

Rebooting isn't an easy task in this case, I don't want to have to do this even once a year, but it's only been ~100 days since the last time.    How often do these need rebooting?  Am I just having bad luck?

Additionally, in my opinion, the haptic rain gauge doesn't really work very well in very light rain.  One morning Tempest either had .01 .03 as of around 6AM, the rainwater on the pool cover told a different story.  At that point I put out 4 glass rain gauges that I have around for sprinkler maintenance. The light drizzle remained another 5 hours... in the end: Tempest was reporting .06 and the glass rain gauges had collected about 1/3 inch since they were put out after 6AM.

Anyone else question their Tempest? or need to reboot it on occasions?

[Techman]

I had my Tempest lose contact with the Hub about 30 days after I first put it into service.  The RSSi between the Tempest and the Hub at that time averaged -72. Just prior to losing the connection it showed -87.  I moved the Hub closer to the Tempest and now have an RSSI of -46. I've only had the unit for a few months, so far so good.

I was also told by support that it's possible for the Tempest to lose its connection about once a year.

It's possible that rain, etc. degrades the Tempest signal which could account for it losing its connection.

What's your RSSI on the Tempest and the Hub?

The haptic rain gauge doesn't do well in light rain, however Weatherflow uses additional data to populate the rain amount.

Putting all the above aside, I'm quite impressed with the technology, the Tempest web page, and their customer support.

 

[tazman]

I first received my Tempest 3/2021 and did not have to touch it until 12/2022 when I had a battery failure and they easily/quickly sent me a new replacement unit and I have not touched it again since then. So before my failure I went over a year without problems but I have a small single story home where the units are less than 60' from each other.

[bpwwer]

I originally had a field test Tempest that was in service for a bit over a year.  I did reboot it when the sensors stopped reporting, but that had no effect and the unit was replaced.  The new unit has not been rebooted (5-6 month old).

I don't pay attention to the rain values so no comment on the sensors accuracy. 

[MrBill]

22 hours ago, Techman said:

What's your RSSI on the Tempest and the Hub?

I forgot the enable the RSSI entity in HA when the sensor was replaced but the last value from the Tempest app is -48

For the hub to tempest here's the graph of this week:  you can clearly see the point of failure, the X-Axis legend appears to be GMT, not sure why I've never noticed that til now.

[Bumbershoot]

I had a replacement sent after some sensor failures, but that was in Feb. '22.  I had to occasionally reboot the unit that failed, but I haven't had to do it with the latest one.  I've had a few data failures (the RSSI between the hub/Tempest is normally -77), but I've never had to reboot this one.  I've just restarted the hub and waited a while.  The data very occasionally drops/returns by itself, for reasons unknown.