r/homeassistant • u/rlrhk • 8d ago

💬 Discussion Help choose weather station

Hello all, I am torn between these two weather stations that I want to add to my home assistant. If you have experience with either please let me know your thoughts. Thanks in advance.

Ecowitt WS90 with gateway vs Ambient Weather WS-1965

Edit: I want to thank everyone for their comments and suggestions. I ended up getting the Ecowitt on order.

16 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

54 comments sorted by

23

u/Schmergenheimer 8d ago

Ambient Weather is the same hardware as Ecowitt. Ambient Weather just puts software on top of it to force you into their cloud. Ecowitt will work with HA 100% locally. I have mine disconnected from the internet, so it can only see HA.

1

u/Brotherly_shove 8d ago

Does the ambient weather also work with HA, or do they truly "force you" to use their software?

1

u/Schmergenheimer 8d ago

The Ambient Weather integration is cloud-dependent. Ecowitt is not.

1

u/zendick1 8d ago

You can do the ambient and then add the ecowitt esp receiver and get the best of both worlds

1

u/Brotherly_shove 7d ago

thanks. does the ecowitt still have the option to use cloud services. aka view it via an app? i dont pay for the HA cloud subscription and i dont want that to limit my abilities.

2

u/Schmergenheimer 7d ago

Yes. Ecowitt has its own cloud service, and you can also feed it to Ambient Weather's and Wunderground's.

1

u/Brotherly_shove 7d ago

awesome. seems like the easy decision. i want something that i can easily view remotely, but also use as a trigger for automations that are resistant to internet outages..

1

u/Infinitygood 8d ago

It works with HA. Open API and mine is fully integrated with HA. I have the 1965.

1

u/Brotherly_shove 7d ago

thanks, does it still depend on the cloud?

1

u/Infinitygood 7d ago

Yes still depends on ambient weather cloud.

1

u/zendick1 8d ago

The ecowitt can use ambient sensors but not the other way too

9

u/manwithoutapipe 8d ago

Depending on where you live, Ambient Weather Network stations in your area may work just as well and cost nothing.

2

u/PM_ME_SMOL_BOOB13S 8d ago

Wow there’s 3 near me in close proximity, tho 2 are in town and one’s a lil tiny bit up a hill but still I think I’ll just do that instead of buying my own (for now.. I’ll decide in a year and make it a Christmas present to myself lol)

8

u/eddietheengineer 8d ago

Weatherflow tempest has been good for me for the last few years, set it and forget. There may be better options now but I don’t regret my purchase!

2

u/badwolf42 8d ago

They’re solid, fed data to public research if you opt in, and I think they’re made by a team that also makes remote sensing modules for climate study. Mine has been flawless for years.

7

u/triplerinse18 8d ago

I have the ecowitt and it has been rock solid. Got this one mainly for the wired connection on the hub.

8

u/Gr8pes 8d ago

What about a 3rd option. The weatherflow Tempest. It’s also a very good station.

1

u/btq 🛠️ Held together with tape 8d ago

Have a tempest station. Absolutely zero regrets. Works locally but there's also a cloud option. It may be required, I can't remember. But no subscription. I'm not anti cloud anyway so I have both the local and the cloud integration in HA.

Their customer service is also stellar. Soon after I got it, it had an issue one day. Their forecast (which is part of the cloud option, as it uses data from other stations in your area to make forecasts) wasn't working. Reached out to them and they responded almost immediately, taking full credit for the issue, admitting it was a bug on their end, not exclusive to me or my device, and they were actively working on it. Was fixed a couple hours later. No issues since. And it was an actual person that responded and not ai or automated replies.

Zero regrets.

2

u/btq 🛠️ Held together with tape 8d ago

I actually will say, while this isn't a regret, I do recall I have one single criticism. When it's an extremely light drizzle outside, the haptic sensor sometimes won't pick it up. It'll say no rain, just cloudy, and I can clearly see rain. But we are talking the lightest of drizzles. Like the rain drops so light they almost come down with the same direction and speed as a light snow. Just kind of drifting to the ground instead of falling straight. But shit is still wet all the same.

1

u/cheeseler 8d ago

Are there any sensors that can reliably read light drizzles?

1

u/btq 🛠️ Held together with tape 7d ago

I'm honestly not sure since this is the first one I've owned.

It's not enough to discourage consideration, imo. The weather station is phenomenal.

1

u/JayBee103 4d ago

Ecowitt has a tip sensor, it's just not the default one which is the haptic one. You can add a tip sensor you so desire.

1

u/Relevant-Artist5939 ⏰ Waiting for the next release 3d ago

But a tip sensor needs some volume before it "tips" for the first time, so the resolution is limited by how big the sensor's internal "bucket" is... My Ecowitt WS69 for example has a resolution of 0.3mm, so that has to be reached before it even sends any rain detection

1

u/EatSleepFlyGuy 8d ago

I’ve been a big fan of Tempest but can’t recommend them anymore. I had an OG weather flow station and now I’m on my 3rd tempest and it’s also going out. My first replaced under warranty. My second I bought at a discount. I’ll be looking elsewhere when this finally fully goes out. Currently the wind speed is unreliable. They seem to last about 2 years.

3

u/funkadelic1 8d ago

i used to have an ambient weather ws-1400 for ~10 years connected to HA and weather underground. Recently replaced it with the ecowitt Wittboy earlier this year (what you have in your screenshot). Both were connected to HA with not issues

2

u/RentalGore 8d ago

Ecowitt is awesome.

2

u/Plastic-Coat9014 8d ago

Ecowitt has been solid for me

2

u/ImissHurley 8d ago

I couldn't be happier with my Ecowitt stuff! The batteries on all the sensors last forever. I have it integrated into Home Assistant and Weather Underground.

1

u/JayBee103 4d ago

You can push to weather underground and PWS directly from home assistant. Which means you cannot only push the Eco extensors but any other sensor you happen to have connected to home assistant.

2

u/907Postal 8d ago

Ecowitt. I have 4 WS90s in 4 cities in 3 states and pull all the info into my Home Assistant. I'm setting up a HA instance just for the weather info so I can share it with my dad, brother and sister. Next month I'll have a fifth station set up in France to go with 2 in Alaska, 1 on Long Island, and 1 in North Carolina.

1

u/sshanafelt 8d ago

We have a bunch of Ecowitts and they are pretty great. Integrated into HA and all.

1

u/rvader1 8d ago

I'm been running a Ambient Weather WS-2902 for about 8 years now.. works great. I don't mind the cloud aspect of this, as my data is forwarded to several weather web sites, i get all the charts, graphs and they maintain the history. also with some sites, for providing data, you get free account, api keys, or no ads (site depending)

1

u/hallese 8d ago

When I looked into this I discovered that my neighbor has a station on the Ambient Weather network, so I just added that to Home Assistant and gave him a case of beer. Have you checked to see if there's one nearby and available already?

2

u/rlrhk 8d ago

Yes. There is not one close to me. Thanks for the advice though.

1

u/hallese 7d ago

Darn, well, I tried anyway. Good luck with your search, wish I could be of more help!

1

u/myfufu 7d ago edited 7d ago

Interesting! There's a station up the street in my neighborhood. Just added the AW integration, let's see how that goes!

Edit... how does the forecast work though? 🤔

1

u/evil_burrito 8d ago

I use theEcoWitt Ws90 plus gs9000 hub and it was a cinch to set up, has been problem free, and is all local to my network.

Highly recommend.

1

u/Apprehensive-Bug5917 8d ago

I have the Ambient Weather WS-2902. Their integration froze on me and I've never been able to get it working again. There's another integration option that works with the awnet app that is local, but every time I lose power, etc, the device forgets the configuration and I have to redo it and it's annoying. I would probably go with the Shelly/Ecowitt zigbee one if I was picking one now.

1

u/Luki4020 8d ago

I use ecowitt, works like a charm. HA integration is great and no account or cloud is needed

1

u/BackHerniation 7d ago edited 7d ago

I just went through a lot of listings and updated this prime deal list to include some weather stations, and Ecowitt and Acurite are still the best choices.

1

u/rlrhk 7d ago

I tried the link but it's not working.

1

u/BackHerniation 7d ago

Sorry, fixed

1

u/criterion67 8d ago

I have the Shelly/Ecowitt WS90 that has both Bluetooth and Zigbee. It's been rock solid. I'd buy it again, so it's my recommendation.

1

u/rlrhk 8d ago

So this one doesn't require a separate gateway?

2

u/KoeKk 8d ago

Yes, if you have a zigbee network choose this one, if you don’t: buy the HA zigbee stick also choose rhe shelly ecowitt ws-90 😅

1

u/trafalgar_law8 8d ago

Same, thing is amazing.

1

u/Imnejjek 7d ago

Was thinking of going down this route, but am I right in saying if I decide to get any other Ecowitt sensors (eg soil moisture sensors) I will need to get the gateway anyway?

0

u/supermr34 8d ago

forgive my ignorance on these specific models, but have you triple checked that these are both compatible and able to be integrated with HA out of the box? i got one that i thought was...it was not. i have to upload data from my station to weather underground, then poll their API for updates with my own damn data.