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Becoming a rain detective with a backyard weather station
London summers can be the most arduous of times. Since early July, we've had highs of 98 and lows of 48. We've had sun, rain and everything in between. Planning where to go or what to wear more than a few days in advance is an impossibility. I do my best, of course, combining AccuWeather's useful-but-often-inaccurate extended forecasts with the Dark Sky app for up-to-the-minute weather alerts. Over the past week or so, however, I've added a new tool to my arsenal: the BloomSky. It's an all-in-one outdoor weather station that, for currently $169 and up, provides you with hyper-local weather information. Although it hasn't changed my life, becoming a meteorologist has been quite a lot of fun.
Netatmo's Weather Station scores customized climate alerts, helps you avoid frost bite
IFTTT, an internet service that lets you connect various devices and apps together using a set of triggers and actions, has long played nice with home products like the Philips Hue lights, the Belkin WeMo Light Switch and the WiThings WiFi Body Scale. Now it's added one more to the list, and that's the Netatmo Personal Weather Station. As a reminder, Netatmo's weather station is an aluminum cylinder tricked out with WiFi-linked sensors that can tell you all sorts of information about the surrounding air quality, humidity, pressure, temperature, noise levels and even CO2 levels via a mobile app. IFTTT's integration, however, adds the ability to create personalized alerts. For example, you can set it so that your Philips Hue light glows red if the Netatmo station detects extremely high CO2 levels. Or you can have IFTTT send you a text message to put on a sweater if the temperature drops below 40 degrees. There are plenty more trigger-action recipes you could come up with of course, or you could just head to IFTTT's Netatmo channel to see what others have created. Now you no longer have to rely on, like, your five senses to figure out what's going on around you.
Netatmo Urban Weather Station tells iOS users when it's safe to brave the great outdoors (video)
We haven't seen weather stations garner the same level of clever mobile integration as other pieces of household gear -- like, say, thermostats. Netatmo wants its newly available Urban Weather Station to inject a similar dose of life into a category that some of us still associate with the thermometer by the window. The aluminum tube design certainly gives a fresh look to the WiFi-linked indoor and outdoor sensors, but the real trick is the matching iOS (and eventually Android) app. It's for more than just gauging the wisdom of biking to work: the free app tracks historical trends and shares them with fellow users in a network that Netatmo hopes will provide a better understanding of wider-scale and longer-term trends. The sensors go beyond just obvious air quality, humidity, pressure and temperature conditions as well, flagging noise levels and warning if the CO2 levels are high enough to warrant airing out the house. The $179 price for the Urban Weather Station isn't trivial, but neither is knowing just how well you can cope with your environment.
Oregon Scientific's Remote Weather Access Platform links up weather stations to your phone
Another phone-related product coming out of Oregon Scientific this year is the Remote Weather Access Platform. As the name suggests, this little box acts as a LAN bridge between Oregon Scientific home weather station sensors (via RF) and the web, thus allowing users to monitor home microclimate from a personal website or an app on their smartphones (Android or iOS). Yep, that's pretty much it, and the hub will cost you a dear $149 when it eventually hits the market.
Woodstation acts like a weather station, looks like a dead tree
Usually the intersection of woodcraft and gadgetry consists of little more than taking a piece of gear and putting it in a box. Woodstation may be no different, but at least it does its thing with some style, placing its LED display beneath the surface, allowing it to seemingly display weather data on the wood itself. And if that weren't enough, the device contains a motion sensor (it turns itself on when you enter the room) as well as date, time, and alarm functions. Available in a maple or walnut finish, this bad boy is currently available in the UK for £89.95 (about $147). And unlike the Amazon Kindling, this thing actually works.[Via Pocket-lint]
Oregon Scientific introduces solar-powered +ECO Clima Control weather station
It may not be the snazziest thing to ever leave the labs at Oregon Scientific, but it's still a new take on the average desktop weather station that Ma Earth would certainly appreciate. The sun-powered +ECO Clima Control weather station is equipped with a built-in solar panel and enables users to monitor the current temperature and humidity in up to four locations within the home and outdoors. The device relies on remote wireless sensors, and considering that it can operate for up to three months with just an eight hour charge, even folks under the clouds in Seattle can take advantage. Those interested in bringing one home can do so for $119.99, and if you're still not convinced of the value proposition here, you can look forward to two more +ECO wares this September. Tap that read link for more information on the both of those.
Oregon Scientific Crystal Weather Station brings some flair to the forecast
Oregon Scientific has been busting out some pretty slick gear lately, and its new BA900 Crystal Weather Station is no exception. The acrylic block features three laser-engraved 3-D icons that light up in color to represent sunshine, precipitation, or cloudy skies, while the radio-controlled atomic clock in the base switches to a temperature readout with just a wave of your hand. We're hearing this thing will ship in December for about $60 -- just in time for that rain icon to be rendered totally inaccurate.[Via Red Ferret]
AWS-2000p monitors weather, freaks out neighbours
So you've got your place all decorated but still think it's lacking a bit of a mad scientist vibe? Well, South Korea's Karak Electronics has got a solution for you in the form of the AWS-2000p weather station. Just hook this sucker up to your PC and you'll be able to monitor the weather outside in realtime, without having to look out your window. Out of the box the system will measure the amount of rainfall, direction of the wind, and wind velocity, although with a few modifications it looks like you could use it to harness lightening and power your house, or perhaps turn into a death ray of some sort. Availability and pricing information are a bit hard to come by, but we're guessing that they go something like: "not here" and "more than we can afford."[Via Digital World Tokyo]
