Holman Aspect Wi-Fi weather station - product review

Tried & tested

by Richard Beattie, “Carossa” Moree, NSW

A quick pre-Christmas visit to Bunnings with the kids resulted in a cost-effective purchase that ticks the boxes.

Three months into the purchase and Richard has found that the Holman weather station ticks most of the boxes. It tracks; wind speed & direction, temperature, rainfall, air pressure, humidity and UV.

Instead of a screen, you use your phone and the Weather Underground app or website. Richard has found this website to be quite a user friendly and relatively stable.

This model (without the screen) was around $200. Bunnings is now listing the model with the screen Holman Aspect Wi-fi Analyst for $229

Weather underground = www.wunderground.com

On this US website, settings can be changed to metric. Data can be viewed for your own station as well as a range of public and private weather stations.

Accuracy.

Richard has generally found the data to be comparable, but rainfall measurements under 5mm sometimes seem to under register.

If you want to save your weather stations historical data this might not be the option for you.

There is no simple way to download or save historical data from wunderground.com. I did find some sort of code on the internet that was supposed to save a file to my computer - but those instructions were beyond me.

Another downfall, if the internet connection is lost, the data for that period is not logged. A power outage, while Richard was off-farm (and a modem that didn’t power back on), meant the on-farm rainfall couldn’t be viewed or recorded. The times you are away are often the times you most want or need the data.

Simple set up.

The weather station was simple to install - just a post in the ground within 150m of the WiFi receiver. This enables the reading, such as wind to be out in the open, away from trees and the house perimeter.

The verdict.

A very cost-effective weather station (compared to other popular brands that can be up to $3000). A good choice, if you are happy to view the data most of the time and saving the historical data, isn’t a priority. Limited to areas where WiFi is available also.

Data graphs on wunderground.com

Holman station snapshot on wunderground.com

Want to share your experience with a weather station or app?

Email us at: farmerforecast@agecon.com.au

Windy.com a neat weather website & app

www.windy.com was a subscriber suggestions for our review… we are not quite sure why we didn’t already know about this one! A free yet comprehensive website and app - if you have time to browse through windy.com it has so much more to offer than just wind detail.

Features:     windy.com has a whopping 47 climate overlays on its maps. Temperatures, precipitation, humidity, air pressure and even paragliding spots (it that’s what you are in to) just to name a few apart from wind speed & direction.

Data is from two of the leading global climate models GFS & ECMWF. You can choose which model you are viewing and easily switch between the two for a simple comparison.

Precipitation forecasts are displayed as an accumulation for various periods; 12 hours, 24 hours, 3, 5 and 10 days.

10 day precipitation ACCUMULATION forecast by ECMWF

A neat radar that presumably uses the BOM radar network, shows rainfall and lightning activity in a modern display.

Pros: Free, detailed and accurate forecast maps from go-to leading global climate models such as ECMWF. The home page on the app gives a fantastic visualisation of what’s going on.

Cons:          Due to the immense detail, some of the menu’s are difficult to read on a device. Additionally, there does
not seem to be a way to save user preferences.

1. Windy.com on the App store
2. The home page with a simple forecast for your current location
3. Heat forecast map

Overall:        An excellent resource for current and forecast weather conditions. I’d preference the desktop version to take in the
detail, however the app is very useful too.

Cost:           FREE

All images for this review are shown for the free version. Upgrading to premium version for USD $20.89 / year gives you higher resolution 1 hour forecast maps (rather than the three hours in the free version). Data that is updated 4 time a day (rather than 2) and technical support. All versions of Windy.com are currently advertisment for free, however during 2021 you’ll start to see targeted advertising.

Not all the overlay options fit on the screen - this is most of them!!

Weather Live

Cost:           $6.49 AUD / week

$40.99 AUD / year

You can download this app for free, and there is a 3 day Free trial period, however it is essentially a paid app (which does mean there are no pesky ads).

Features:     Visually appealing and easy to navigate, this app has some handy features. The usual inclusions of current weather conditions (with the ability to add a list of set locations), forecasts temperatures & wind and weather alerts or warnings. The options of changing layouts etc.

My favourite feature of the app was the forecast rain maps. With location settings on, your location is marked with a dot on the map. The third image (and the blue dot) suggests our headers are not going to get back into the paddock today :-(

If you’re all about your Apple Watch®, this app has been designed for it.

Overall:        This would be my preferred weather app so far, so I will continue to pay unless I find a better one.

Apple’s ‘Weather’ App

Pre-loaded on every iPhone – just how good is it?

Accuracy:     High Accuracy (according to global reviews we could find). Data is drawn from The Weather Channel (An IBM Business) which incidentally
has its own app. 

Cost:           FREE

Features:     A simple to read

                        Current weather conditions

                        Hourly forecasts for the next 24 hrs

                        10-day forecast

                        Quick swipe to view saved locations

                        Click through to The Weather Company which has further detail, but is full of ads

Pros: Hourly updates. This is a separate computer than the usual BOM and other suspects, which can offer a new perspective on a change coming.

Cons:          No ability to get further detail. No probabilities of precipitation or winds.

Overall:        A simple, yet accurate app that can give a quick overview of conditions.