Mobile data weather station project

[aidan.f]

Hi,
I  am considering a remote weather station on our community allotment. - there is no power/LAN for the usual 433/868 ISM base station and internet hub therefore most commercial products are out. I'm considering how to deploy something like this Adafruit cellular module https://tinyurl.com/58wdvvke
I'm familiar with programing embedded systems plus  Arduino's and there are plenty of Wikis on micropower sensors connected using 433/868MHz ISM. Just need to get my head round how to get the serial data - I guess that an A&A mobile data SIM/account would do the job just need to be sure I  know how to use it. BTW  making this a hobby/educational project would add to our group educational objectives.

[rusky]

I would try to go for a 4G module as the power requirement will be less than 2G

[aidan.f]

yes, just realised that link is to an obsolete 2G module.

[quixoticgeek]

I have a similar project in progress. I have bought one of these:

https://aliexpress.com/item/32246337931.html

There are similar boards that do 3G and 4G. For such a small data payload, I am happy with GPRS. I may actually use SMS, because I'm looking at a single data message per day for my usecase.

Protocol wise, I'll probably use MQTT if I don't go the SMS route.

J

[jiberjaber]

LoRa with MQTT - have a look at That Swiss Guy on YT. eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMOwbNUpDQA

Quite low bandwidth, but if you structure your data and do any derivation of data (eg Dew Point, max/min etc) outside of the remote unit then may well work.

Reliable sensors to connect to the micro are quite important. Also some boards allow shields which make some of the work easier (i.e. solar charging of a battery)

I've been through a few iterations of my own weather station, in the end I am now using Davis instruments for my rain & wind and a IP rated humidity sensor (others die over time due to condensation) with an ESP8266 as the controller, Wifi is just about in reach for the location of the station. Majority housed in a home built stephenson screen.

https://twitter.com/ML_WXSTN1/media

This predates my 3d printer, so I suppose I could have made a more compact unit using that but I decided to go for stuff that was UV resistant and COTS - only maintenance I do is clean out the rain bucket leaf catcher every month or so.