The Netatmo Weather Station wants to take armchair meteorology to a whole new level. Its two modules are capable of monitoring factors like temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, and even noise levels both inside and outside of the home. A Wi-Fi connection means that you’ll be able to monitor all of it on your phone, tablet, or computer.
Each Netatmo module is a rather sparse-looking aluminum cylinder that’s packed with sensors. The indoor module is the taller of the two at 6 inches high (155mm), while the outdoor module comes in at 4 inches (105mm). You will find a Micro-USB port on the back of the indoor module, which is how you’ll keep the thing powered. The outdoor module runs on two AAA batteries (included), which Netatmo claims will keep things powered for a year. The kit consists of two sensors, one which stays indoors and another which resides outdoors. Information is sent via Wi-Fi to your router, and uploaded to Netatmo’s servers.
To view the data, including temperature, humidity and pressure, you can install the free app for iOS or Android. As long as you have an internet connection, the app connects to the same servers and downloads the latest data from your station.
The Netatmo Weather Station is easy to set up and use and features a well-designed app that’s bursting with information. IFTTT integration is another nice touch. However, for casual weather tracking, there isn’t much separating Netatmo from the scores of free weather apps out there. If you live in a rural area, where location-specific weather information can be hard to come by, or if you need to monitor the conditions in something specific, like a wine cellar, a greenhouse, or maybe, a second home, the Netatmo makes sense. Otherwise, you’d probably need to consider yourself one of those full-fledged weather geeks in order to justify spending this much money.
If – like most of the British population – you’re obsessed with the weather, and you also love gadgets, Netatmo’s Urban Weather should be right up your street. It works with an iPhone, iPod touch, iPad or Android device, but even if you don’t have one of those, you can see the data on Netatmo’s website.
The Bottom Line- This system works well, but the appeal might be too limited to justify the price.
Source: BestBuy