Does anyone have suggestions for a temperature sensor that logs data on a set time interval? I thought maybe some of you have them, given all our talk about freezes lately.
I’d like to have it be wireless, and to be able to get the data off onto my computer. If it was cloud-based that would be neat too.
I have some USB-stick temperature/humidity loggers at work, and know that they are nice, but I don’t want to have to bring the USB stick in and out from the yard everyday.
Any suggestions?
I checked with someone in the business and this was his reply:
The stuff that comes closest to a single user, non critical application
would be Onset. They are about as low priced as possible and still be
above the consumer level. They have wireless but not long range, which
is the ultimate problem with wireless and where the bigger bucks come
in.
Thanks @Richard and @danzeb. Too bad the Onset HOBO is an indoor only product, as that is exactly what I’m looking for. Good to know about the pro-grade products. They both have leaf-wetness sensors which is tempting for scab control…
I think my price point is more in the range of some of the home-use stations recommended by Wunderground.
Davis is marginally a pro-grade product. There’s a lot of players in the latter field.
I don’t own this, but it looks interesting. I have a few different weather gauges that only record min/max…
We are a reporting weather station for the weather underground. We purchased a Acu-rite weather station that wirelessly communicates with a router inside the house that uploads the data to the weather underground site. The site logs the information and best yet, lets you use great sites like getchill.net to instantly calculate chill hours. I highly recommend it.
https://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/buyingguide.asp
This is our station
https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KAZARIZO4
Weather Underground is my favorite weather site.
Thanks for the recommendation. I am to hear that you recommend it. That station was the closest to my price range, and will probably be the one I get.
Sensaphone has a series of everything built-in appliance servers. I used the web-600 with 6 input channels and an ethernet connection. I ran a wire to a 10K ohm thermistor all the way outside in frozen ground. These appliances have come a long way in the last 30 years for quality readings.
The thought here is spending an extra hundred and include yourself a home security motion sensor to text you when your not home, then still 4 more inputs left over.
It is not cloud based so I opened up a logmein (computer remote control) account to arm-deactivate the output relay and text notifications when I’m not in front of my computer.
Cornell has a site that collects and processes information related to temperature, rain and leaf wetness for various locations and places the data into popular models to predict fireblight, scab and lots of other stuff. Unfortunately only 2 monitoring sites are located in NC, but many exist in the northeast.
Here is the link to the site. http://newa.cornell.edu/
I considered buying a weather station, but one that included the leaf wetness sensor was very expensive, so I’m going to settle for information from 60 miles away for a while. Lots of Weatherunderground reporting sites in my area, but none have a leaf wetness sensor which is an important input for various prediction models, like Mills or Marybylt.
Yeah, I’m a big fan of the NEWA site. I used it last year to time sulfur sprays on scab-susceptible varieties. I didn’t get any major scab on anything.
I do a lot of starting trees in doors so I have a cold room and several growing enclosures. I try to control temperature and humidity with heaters and humidifiers. The cold room is just a basement room that is blocked off from the rest of the basement with a window I keep open. I adjust temperature by simply opening and closing the window when necessary.
I started by using the inexpensive Acurite monitors. They are wireless sensors that measure temp and humidity and transmit it a short distance to a display unit. I had 3 of them.
When I started to look into data logging, I found a lot of expensive units including some by Acurite. After digging a bit I found this: Aculink Bridge
It is compatible with my existing sensors and works in parallel with the display units. You plug the bridge into your router. I listens to the signals sent by up to 3 sensors just like the display units. It then automatically sends the data to an Aculink server on the internet. You can then create an account on that server and view your sensor data using an internet browser on your computer on using a free app on your phone. So far, not really a data logger but wait. The server also allows you to graph you data history. You can also download it in an Excel readable format and save it and graph it how ever you like. Even better for me you can set up alarms on the server. For example, I don’t want my cold room temperature to drop below freezing. I set an alarm for 33 degrees. When it hits 33 degrees, I get a message on my phone and computer (text or email). I then go and close the window more. You could use this functionality in many ways.
If you don’t already have existing sensors and display units, Acurite sells the bridge packaged with 3 sensors for about $100. You don’t really need the display units since your internet browser or phone serves the same purpose.
This is not as sophisticated as some of their more expensive units, but it is low cost and provides all I need. I’ve been happy with it so far. They may have had some issues with it when it first came out. Before I purchased it, I read some internet reviews that indicated some folks were having issues with it. I have not had a single issue with mine since I bought it but it is less than a year old. It was pretty much plug and play for me.
Here is a picture of one of the graphs:
Thanks for the tip on the Cornell NEWA website. That’s a fantastic resource.
