[hdjjhhvvhga]

My first thought was, "Why would I need SDR to read temperature/humidity from sensors", then I realized these are more like wireless weather stations.

Out of curiosity: why did you decide to purchase ready solutions instead of rolling your own using ESP32 for a fraction of the price?

[gh02t]

These devices actually end up being kind of hard to engineer, measuring air temperature accurately especially can be kind of tricky. And then add in that for a weather station it has to be resistant to the elements and low power. Speaking from experience, you end up spending more money and a lot more work going the DIY route except maybe at the high end. You can get an Acurite temp/humidity/lightning sensor that is fine outdoors and batteries last for ages for like $25.

Not that there isn't value to rolling your own, just I wouldn't assume it's as cheap and easy as you might originally.

[simcop2387]

It's not likely going to be cheaper to roll your own once you add a case and weather proofing and battery handling. These things can be had for as cheap as $15 on amazon, https://www.amazon.com/Crosse-Technology-308-1409WT-CBP-308-... or even down to $5 on aliexpress, https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003408554165.html

Along with that using 433MHz means that there's a much longer range, and they generally also have much lower power usage compared to doing wifi, which makes the batteries last a lot longer.

[margalabargala]

Not the person you replied to, but someone who did the same thing:

Most of the things inside my house are ESP32 or zigbee things I put together myself. Things that go outdoors, though, I'm much more likely to purchase an off-the-shelf solution for longevity's sake. Especially if the whole point of the item is to be rained/snowed on, be left in direct sunlight, and so forth.

[sgt]

You can always build a tiny little house for your outside ESP and leave it outside.

[tlavoie]

Yeah, mine's under a deck, in a travel soap dish with holes drilled in it. Works great! Power for that one is one of those little solar panels with a micro-USB port on it, used for battery-powered security cameras.

[tomcam]

Love that! Battery backup for night & downcast days?

[tlavoie]

Yes, I have a 2200 mAh 18650 cell in there too, which the panel will mostly keep charged. In the darker, cloudier winter, I swap in a battery and recharge manually if it's not keeping up.

Running on an Adafruit ESP32 Feather board, it wakes up, sends its current readings over Wi-Fi to an MQTT service (that is on a Raspberry Pi), and goes back to sleep for 10 minutes. A little daemon running saves to Sqlite database, and another ESP32 unit inside has its own sensor, as well as displaying both (outside pulled from MQTT).

I've got some pictures and such, though haven't quite gotten to the much-belated blog post yet.

[tomcam]

> haven't quite gotten to the much-belated blog post yet.

Thanks for the preview. Looking forward to it.

[sgt]

Thought about getting a bigger solar panel for those cloudy days?

[flyinghamster]

> why did you decide to purchase ready solutions instead of rolling your own using ESP32 for a fraction of the price?

I already had the sensors long before I had the SDR; they're paired with display units as well.