What it doesn't measure doesn't exist - BlitzWolf BW-WS03 weather station test

Even at the other end of the world, you will know which way the wind blows at home.

Introductory

I've been thinking about buying a smart weather station for quite some time. Of course, smartness here also means that I can check the weather at home on my phone from anywhere. Then last year, in mid-November, I decided to surprise myself with it for Christmas.

This article will therefore be partly a long-term test, because I have been using the BlitzWolf BW-WS03 weather station for almost a year.

Fortunately, I wrote a good part of the article back then, so now I don't have to dig up the details of installation and commissioning from my memory. So let's dive in and see what this "instrument" can do in real life!

Packaging, accessories

Blitzwolf's most advanced weather station comes in a fairly large box. The 40 x 40 x 13 centimeter box would be scary if I didn't know what was hidden inside. Unfolding and pulling out the inner storage compartment, despair takes over, mother, I didn't want such a horse, I can assemble this for hours.

However, the thing is deceptive, when you unfold the nylon, it turns out that the structure comes completely together, nothing needs to be installed, screwed or tied. We get a large indoor unit and we get an even bigger outdoor one and some screws and dowels for mounting.

There is a large booklet to help you get started, luckily I didn't need it. We also get a USB power cable for the indoor unit, but no power supply was packed in the box. Fortunately, any old phone USB charger will do, I dig one out from the bottom of the drawer.

External

In the rest of the article, I will divide the description into two, the outdoor and the indoor unit, it is worth presenting them separately. That's what I'm doing now!

Indoor unit

The indoor unit has a large 7,5-inch color display. On the side of the control there is a stack of buttons, on the back there are two fold-out legs and a battery holder that can hold two AA batteries. I put, say, 1,2 volt AA batteries in it, and it works with them too. There are two connectors in a recess on the back panel, they can be used for power supply.

The structure itself looks good, but the plastic looks a bit cheap and thin when you hold it in your hand. Let's say we won't bet much, the view is fine. The huge, color display looks damn good, its brightness can be adjusted in three levels, it is not disturbing even in the dark.

The buttons on the side are quite small, unfortunately I need the glasses to see what is on them and what they will do. They feel well installed, the click is good, so these are fine.

Outdoor unit

The outdoor unit is a rather large and rather complex piece, because the manufacturer placed all the sensors on it. From back to front we find the following:

Bottom:

• Humidity/temperature sensor
• Rain gauge outlet
• Support rod
• Battery cover
• Wind direction sensor

Above:

• Solar panel
• Light sensor/UV sensor
• Rainwater collector
• Bubble level gauge
• Anemometer

There is also an air pressure gauge somewhere on the structure, but I won't tell you where if I get killed. I didn't write this down, and I don't remember it anymore, so I won't dismantle it. The point is, it is.

The structure is really not small anyway, its height is not nearly 40 cm and its length is over 30 cm. The support rod itself is 13 cm long, which extends beyond the lower sensors as far as necessary, so we can screw it not only on a wall, but also on a horizontal surface.

In terms of materials, it can also be felt here that we are not dealing with a top-of-the-range instrument, but how well the plastics will withstand the weather, how well the UV will eat the plastic, will be revealed over time.

Paper form

Indoor unit

As I wrote, the indoor unit has a rather large display, but it is necessary because we receive a lot of data. Some of them come from the Internet, others from the outdoor unit. The former typically means data such as the weather forecast, the latter and everything else.

I'm trying to list what we see on the display, I hope nothing is left out!

• Forecast
• Graphic display for sunshine, cloudy weather, rain
• Temperature and humidity data from the Internet
• Amount of rain (millimetre display can be selected)
• Wind strength
• Wind direction
• Calendar, clock, alarm
• Indoor temperature
• Indoor humidity
• Outdoor temperature
• Outdoor humidity
• Feeling of heat outside (it may differ from the real temperature, for example in case of strong wind)
• UV index
• Brightness
• Air pressure
• WIFI connection status
• The status of the connection with the outdoor unit

We can set the alarm with the buttons on the side, but there are also the buttons needed to access the various logged values, and of course the brightness of the display can also be adjusted from here.

Outdoor unit

Here, I have already described the essence in the previous chapter, it may have been revealed what sensors are on it, so I will not repeat them, but rather I will describe the measurement ranges provided by the manufacturer:

• Indoor temperature measurement range: -20 ℃ ~ 60 ℃
• Indoor humidity measurement range: 20 ~ 95% RH
• External temperature measurement range: -40 ~ 70 ℃
• Outdoor humidity range: as 95% relative
• Barometric pressure measurement range: 600-1100 hPa and 17,72-32,48 inHg and 450-825,1 mmHg
• Wind direction measurement range: 0-359 degrees

Another important fact is that, according to the manufacturer, there can be a distance of up to 30 meters between the outdoor unit and the indoor unit. For me, this means in practice that the distance is roughly 10 meters, there is no line of sight between the two devices, but there is an entrance door and some exterior and partition walls between them, and thus it is functional.

It may also be important for some that I also put a battery in the outdoor unit, three AA format batteries. This is interesting because pencil batteries are 1,5- and batteries are only 1,2 volts, so a lot of gadgets won't start with batteries. The outdoor unit works this way, although I suspect that these batteries will not be charged by the solar panel, but it is still cheaper and more environmentally friendly.

I haven't bought a battery for over a year now, I use rechargeable batteries everywhere.

Equipment, commissioning

Actually, the only negative experience was during the installation, because the fixing clamp is some kind of inhumanly stupid solution. The part on the side of the support rod is even recessed a little, so that it can be picked up by a pipe, although the recess is so small that a maximum diameter of a beach handle can be considered, which of course I did not have.

There is also an indentation on the counter piece, it is true that it is smaller, but that is not the problem, but the fact that this indentation is perpendicular to the main piece. WHY??? It's a plus that the screws provided next to it are so short that only the broom handle remains. WHY???

However, the solution would not be complicated, the mast clamps are smooth bent stems with threads at both ends of the fold. You just have to thread them into the counter piece, put the nuts on it and you're done. Two pennies and it works.

Of course, I didn't think too much about the stupidity, I took two quick ties and tied them, it's been like this for a year, it's perfectly fine. Well, even then.

Anyway, there is really nothing wrong with the piece at the end of the rod, it can also be rotated, so if you want, you can screw it to a vertical surface, say a house wall. This will probably not be good from the point of view of operation, but the possibility is there.

There is one more important thing about equipment. There is a small arrow with an N on the top of the outdoor unit. This north marking is important, we have to set where the structure should stand, because if it is set incorrectly, it will indicate the wrong direction of the wind.

Installation was simple and completely smooth for me. The WeatherSense application must be downloaded to the phone, for which you will find a QR code in the attached description.

I first paired the outdoor and indoor units. First, I took the outdoor one outside, installed it in its place, then went outside with the already switched on indoor one. I started looking at what I had to press for pairing, but it didn't take a minute and the sensor data was already there indoors. So I don't know if there is another way to do this, for me the pairing happened by itself in seconds.

Then, already in the apartment (it was the beginning of December), I started the app, searched for the device (the indoor one) and it worked. For some reason, the app wants us to create our own account to use it. This does not make much sense, the maximum is that without authentication strangers will not be able to see how many degrees it is in my apartment or where the wind is blowing from. This is quite sensitive data. Oh no…

However, creating a user account is unavoidable, without it you will not be able to use the app.

Application

I could write litanies about it, but it's unnecessary, because it's as simple as wooden wedges. At least it looks good. On the main screen we see the essential data, outdoor, indoor, temperature, humidity, UV, brightness, wind, advance.

There is also a logging function, with which we can look back at the humidity, air pressure, amount of precipitation and, of course, the temperature values.

No other. There is also a simple settings section, where e.g. we can select the celsius and millimeter units, and we can request an alarm in indoor data, we can set limit values ​​for temperature and humidity, and outdoors we can receive an alarm in case of strong wind, heavy rain, high temperature or high humidity.

Experiences

Let's start by saying I love it. I'm not saying that I look at my phone forever when I'm not at home, but there was an example of it because according to the radar, a really big storm was headed our way, I looked at it, and it turned out that the wind only affected the house. So it can be reassuring, or if there's a problem, the tornado took the house with Dorothy and Toto, so you'll know it even if you're roasting your belly in Kansas.

At first I also checked the values, obviously what I knew, e.g. I also measured the temperature and humidity with a Xiaomi sensor. Interestingly, there was no marked difference, only tenths, which was surprising to me, I expected more.

Honestly, this all-in-one sensor thing is convenient, but when you look at measurement accuracy, it's not very good. To measure temperature and humidity, you should usually choose a shady, windless place. There are those plastic rings at the bottom of the structure to dampen air movement and eliminate direct sunlight, but even then, it is no coincidence that such instruments (at professional meteorological measuring stations) are placed in airy cabinets, so-called thermometer houses.

There are, for example, open and semi-open solutions, but basically it can be stated that the wind measurement will be accurate in a place where the wind is blowing, and the temperature measurement in a place where it is not. The two are difficult to reconcile.

This is a problem, because if I really want to get accurate values, I could measure the wind strength and wind direction with a sensor placed on the roof (garden city part, built-in, dotted with trees), while the temperature and humidity can be measured 2 meters from the ground in a shaded, windless place.

So, it can definitely be stated that this structure cannot be called a PROFI weather station, even because of its design. Let's say to its credit, it's not sold as such, just as a device for home use that can measure a lot of data.

I say, despite these doubts, the verifiable values ​​did not turn out to be false, or if they were, then the Xiaomi sensor also measured incorrectly.

As I wrote in the introduction, a year has slowly passed since the installation. During this time, I did not experience any problems with the operation, it still has the batteries that were inserted at the beginning. This is also true indoors, there I gave it power via USB with a phone charger.

So far, nothing is visible on the outdoor unit, as it was when I installed it. It has been raining for the past few days, it has washed away the dust, the plastic looks like new. So far, there are no signs of UV, the upper part does not look matte, the lower black is not affected by direct sunlight, so I am not afraid of aging there.

For now, the plastic bandage I used to strengthen it is also holding. Someday, when I have a lot of time, I will measure the hole distance on the fastener and see if I can get a U-clamp in this size, I would trust it more.

Finally, a few words about the application. It didn't hurt me, but it might for others. Although BlitzWolf is a weather station, it cannot be connected to the BlitzWolf smart home system, so it is not possible to create rules (e.g. lower the motorized blinds if UV radiation is high, etc.).

I think nowadays it would be essential to be able to use a device that knows so much in some kind of smart home system. I suspect that the problem is not insurmountable, because all units communicate at 433 MHz, so e.g. you can buy sensors for the weather station (plus 3 pieces) that talk on this frequency, and the indoor unit and the app also display the data of these sensors.

So, if these work, I would suspect that I would find a receiver that communicates on 433 MHz, whose incoming data could be connected, e.g. Under Home Assistant. However, this is a rather cumbersome solution, it would be much easier to manage this data under the BlitzWolf system or other smart home systems.

But this is really just nonsense, and it is suspected that at least 90 percent of the customers are not affected by it, as well as me, for example.

Summary

I hope I have described the essence in my previous chapters, so it has become clear to you that I am basically satisfied with the capabilities of the BlitzWolf BW-WS03 weather station. The stuff is not flawless, I could have imagined some refinements in connection with the equipment or in connection with the application, but the fact is that it correctly knows what it promises and what is in the description.

The measurements are not surgically accurate, but as I wrote, there are no crazy differences. I don't know if these structures are calibrated somehow, but if not, there is no problem, because they are essentially flawless.

The past year, winter and summer, left no visible marks on the structure. The solar panel is working, the sensors are sending the data, the plastic does not want to get tired yet. I hope it stays that way, because this package is not cheap. True, knowledge has to be paid for, so this expensiveness is only relative.

The original price of the package is HUF 63, but the BGHU2583 get it now for ~ 40 a week with a coupon code. Delivery will be free and fast from the Czech warehouse, plus no customs or VAT.

If you liked it, you can find it at the following link:

BlitzWolf BW-WS03 weather station