Netatmo Urban Weather Station Review

 

• Brand: Netatmo
• Model: Netatmo Urban Weather Station
• Website: http://www.netatmo.com/en-US/weather-station
  
• RRP:  £139.99 (at time of review)

Netatmo are a Paris based company founded in 2011, which design products that monitor weather and environment. Their urban weather station is a new connected device designed for iPhone, iPod, iPad or Android. With the first Wi-Fi connected personal weather station with air quality sensors, they aim to create the largest weather monitoring network ever established!

I am lucky to have been given the opportunity to test one of these urban weather stations as being a mum I’m always checking the weather outdoors and monitoring inside to keep the temperature just right.  After reading the box, I’m optimistic that it will do just that and am quite excited to try it out.

So let’s gets started with the testing and see if it’s more than just another gimmick made for Apple gadgets and android technology…

 

• Size:

Indoor module:                   45x45x155 mm / 1.8×1.8×6 inches

Outdoor module: 45x45x105 mm / 1.8×1.8×4.1 inches

• Mechanics and design:

Single piece of durable aluminium shell. UV-resistant.

• Sensors and measurements:

Temperature (indoor):

Ranges from:     0°C to 50°C / 32°F to 122°F

Accuracy:             +- 0.3°C / +- 0.54°F

Temperature (outdoor):

Ranges from:     -40°C to 65°C / -40°F to 150°F

Accuracy:             +- 0.3°C / +- 0.54°F

• Humidity (indoor and outdoor):

Ranges from:     0 to 100%

Accuracy:             +- 3%

• Barometer:

Ranges from:     260 to 1260 mbar / 7.7 to 37.2 inHg

Accuracy:             +-1 mbar / +- 0.03 inHg

• CO2 meter (indoor):

Ranges from:     0 to 5000 ppm

Accuracy:             +- 50 ppm or +-5%

• Sound meter:

Ranges from:     35 dB to 120 dB

• Units:

US system:         °F and inHg.

Metric system:  °C and mbar.

• Cloud data storage:

Available from multiple devices, no storage limit.

Record frequency:          every 5 minutes.

• Free app and lifetime support:

No subscription fee.

App available on the App Store and on Google Play.

Free access to your online personal dashboard.

• Wireless specifications:

Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n compatible (2.4GHz).

Supported security: Open/WEP/WPA/WPA2-personal (TKIP and AES).

• Wireless connection between modules:             

915 MHz or 868 MHz long range 100m.

• Other functions:

Detailed 7-days weather forecast.

Outdoor Air Quality index.

Light indicator for direct CO2 reading.

Accessible from multiple devices.

• What’s included in the box:

One indoor module.

One outdoor module.

USB cable and USB wall-adapter.

Wall-mount kit (for outdoor module).

4 AAA batteries (for the outdoor module).

Here we see the front and side of the box; you can clearly see the name of the product and what it looks like. The side view shows you what it’s made for and some of the features you can expect from using the weather station.

The back view of the box isn’t shown; all it shows are the specifications in 4 different languages and what the weather station is compatible with.  So not really much to see.

 

Firstly in this picture we can see the USB cable and USB wall- adapter, wall mount kit used for outside module and Netatmo guide book.

In this picture we can see clearly the two modules, the larger one is the indoor one and the smaller is the outdoor one.

To begin with setting up the Netatmo urban weather station is relatively easy, although the instructions you get with this product aren’t very helpful, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to do the install and set the weather station up. All you have to do is install the netatmo desktop app on your tablet, pc or laptop and follow the on screen instructions.  Then download the iPhone and iPod app from the apple store or download the android app from Google play. Then Hey Presto! You’re ready to go.

As the outdoor module isn’t allowed to get wet (which I’m going to point to out is a tad stupid as an outdoor weather station should be able to get wet, but maybe that’s just me) I decided to place the outdoor module under my patio table, thus this should keep it nice and dry.  I placed my indoor module during in different places round my house to see what readings I would get during testing.

The main aim of the Netatmo urban weather station is to allow you to disseminate the minute fluctuations of all manner of readings in your immediate environment. Indoor and outdoor temperature, air quality and humidity can be measured, while the indoor sensor also picks up pressure, sound and CO2 level readings. All of these measurements can then be tracked and recorded through the desktop and Apple apps.

This is the desktop application and as you can see it shows a summary of the outdoor and indoor temperature.  If you look at the indoor reading it shows the temperature, humidity, pressure. C02 reading and sound meter.  If you look in the right hand top corner it also shows you the Wi-Fi range of both the indoor and outdoor module and also the battery life of the outdoor module so very easy to keep track and replace batteries if needed or move modules if the Wi-Fi range hasn’t a very good signal.

This is the iPhone user interface and as you can see it shows you the temperature of both the indoor and outdoor module.  Just with the touch of button you can see a detailed graph of the results shown.

Both sensors also measure humidity, but only the indoor module can sense barometric pressure.

There are some default alerts, such as when the CO2 level exceeds 1000ppm, but you can set custom alerts for any measurements.

For me, that meant I could set alerts to tell me if the temperature got too high or too low in my son’s bedroom at night. You can create as many alerts as you like, and disable any or all of the default notifications. There are plenty of uses for notifications. One of the defaults alerts you if the pressure drops in an hour and another warns if the indoor temperature goes below 10 degrees.

Being able to view a graph of any measurement over time can be helpful in certain situations,  automatic measurements are taken every five minutes, so there’s plenty of data to look over, and it’s easy to zoom in and out of the graphs by just pinching, when using the apple apps or android app. You can even share your data on social network sites and all the data is stored online. So you can check what the weather was like last month or last week. There’s a lifetime of support from Netatmo and no subscription fee to pay.

To take a manual reading, you can tap on top of the indoor module and it will flash green, red or yellow giving a quick indication of what the air quality levels are like in the room the module is placed.  Green meaning everything is fine, red alerting you to high levels and yellow is in between the both.

You can even set a sound alert notification which would come in handy if placed near the front door; it would alert you to any changes of noise levels. So good to tell the kids have arrived safely home from school or that someone is at the front door.

There are endless possibilities for alerts or notifications you can use and all can be sent to or used from all devices connected to the two modules.  So whether it be your pc, laptop, iPhone, iPad, iPod or smartphone you can access your Netatmo urban weather station, where ever you are and whenever you like. For some people it might become an obsession to check whether the co2 levels are right in the house or what the day’s temperature is going to be like outside today. I know for me it has become somewhat like that maybe a little too much.

If I’m honest about the Netatmo urban weather station, even though I got all excited over it at first and loved checking my iPhone app, which I will say I did quite often.  The novelty soon wore off after a while and I got bored. This is me though and I get bored of gadgets and gimmicks easily, but please don’t let it put you off this cool gadget; it’s just my personal opinion. So if you’re interested in weather patterns and your surrounding environment or if you’re a green fingered budding gardener then this is definitely the gadget for you.

The price in my opinion is a bit steep, at £139.99 I wouldn’t say its good value for money, maybe coupled with the fact there is no subscription fee and you get a lifetime guarantee with the Netatmo Company, and you can use it on multiple devices, with all these factors some would argue yes it is good value for money.

I did however like the design, it’s quite eye catching  and easy to use and setup, there was no fandangled annoyance when trying to set it up and it was very straight forward, even if the instructions that come with were a bit on the non-existence side.  It was in my opinion so self-explanatory even a child could do it.  There is though, one flaw in the design as I touched on a little bit earlier in my review, and for this it lets down the whole concept of a having a weather station like this.  It is the fact that the outdoor module can’t be left out to the elements of weather i.e. rain.  In my opinion this is a big flaw and because of this I have marked it down in my ratings, if this was to be rectified in a later module then this would receive a design reward.

All in all I did enjoy reviewing this weather station and had fun checking and using all the different features it has to offer, but in the end it just wasn’t my cup of tea.  I do know that plenty of people out there would love this and I just hope that the many people who read this found it informative and helpful.

I would like to thank Netatmo for letting me review this; it truly was a fun experience.