WetherCat 4 (currently in development, see
https://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=3671.0) includes support for the range of Fine Offset weather gateways and consoles, marketed under a variety of brands, perhaps the biggest of which is Ecowitt (
https://www.ecowitt.com/shop/homePage).
The last time I dealt with FO was coding up their USB based stations for WeatherCat (see
https://wiki.trixology.com/index.php?title=Fine_Offset) and fine tuning the USB timings to try to avoid locking the thing up - not an enjoyable experience.
Time moves on, and they've now moved onto IP based gateways and consoles. These are provided at relatively reasonable prices and reasonable quality levels. As such they appear to be pretty popular.
These newer 'stations' are simpler to talk to, but the protocols are still just slightly on the wrong side of what you might call 'good professional software design', i.e. in a lot of cases completely bonkers (see
https://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=3672.msg35073;topicseen#msg35073 for an example), with multiple API's available e.g binary based, some json and historical access via .csv files (and WeatherCat uses all to communicate to these stations, because you have to
).
But having said that, they seem to be remarkably reliable and perform well. I've been running one in parallel with a fan aspirated Davis set up and the readings are (mostly) comparable (after a little tuning). Now granted, it's mid-winter here in the UK and I only have a few weeks of running under my belt, but so far, I'm suitably impressed! Right now, I like 'em.
A few pics are attached to this post. You'll see one with two internal temp/hum sensors side by side and indeed they are pretty close to each other, which impressed me. You'll also see the main sensor array mounted on a pole. This is a WS90 which has ultrasonic wind and haptic rain - it also has a small, in-built solar panel to keep a 'supercap'* suitably charged, which even in the depths of a central England winter is doing a sterling job of keeping it running (which is just as well - we fitted that pole and the station in very cold temperatures and I really don't want to go back up there to change the batteries
)
The rain from the haptic sensor is 'interesting' - it does detect very fine drizzle (that the Davis, with its 'traditional' tipping bucket, does not detect) but it tends to over-read by large amounts. The 'gain' of the piezo rain sensor (as it's called) can be adjusted, and this has been going on for a few weeks now, but it's still way off compared to the Davis bucket. You do have the option of adding a more 'normal' tipping bucket to the system (a WH40), but I haven't (yet) and it'll be interesting to see if I can get it and the Davis roughly agreeing on rain amounts
They also do a variety of other interesting sensors - particulate matter for example (I procured a WH46D for testing with WeatherCat 4) along with a lighting sensor (which I do not have) and laser depth sensors (snow), again I don't have this either**, all at reasonable prices. I can't make a comment as to the reliability of these somewhat more interesting sensors, but the fact that they are available for the system is impressive!
--
*A large capacitor which can act as a power supply for the unit - indeed it's the main power supply (two AA batteries are fitted for backup).
**Anyone with these, please go test with WeatherCat 4
