I McGiver’d a bracket out of some construction straps and 2x4, got a some galvanized wire, clamps, and a couple of turnbuckles from the hardware store and strapped it to my chimney today.
The bracket is inspired by this - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00UUP97TK/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A28313T4QC2Y1U - but only cost me about $10 in materials and I had some fun doing it. It’s pretty sturdy and if it holds up in the el Nino winds and rain that we’ll probably get in March I’ll stick with it. If not, I’ll replace it with the one from Amazon. That one is really solid; I used it years ago to mount a dish on a chimney and it wouldn’t budge no matter the weather.
The bracket for the BloomSky is screwed into a piece of 2x4 attached to the bit that’s strapped to the chimney. Here’s a picture of the unIt.
I put it on the South-facing corner so the solar panel will get plenty of sun and adjusted the camera so that it catches the trees on the sides of the house and in front. Looks good. And, it was a fine day for climbing on the roof, Almost 70 today!
I am at least 30’ and I am not having any issues at all. No drops as far as I can tell. Of course your router and what your house is made of will impact how far away you could install it.
Hmm, I like the idea, but that’s definitely going to have to wait a few months. I need to get up there and seal the chimneys anyways. There’s a WiFi ap right below it too, so signal shouldn’t be a problem.
We converted our wood fireplace to gas, now our chimney is sealed… so for me it wouldn’t have any effect. But even if it still was operational, I don’t think that a fire in the fireplace would be a problem, depending on placement of course.
It might, depending on the wind direction. Generally the wind is out of the South when it’s cold and stormy and we’d have the (gas) fireplace going, so likely it won’t be a problem. If it is, I suppose I could move the mount down a bit. But, really, who cares? This thing’s all about the pictures, right?
Now I feel like Luke Skywalker when R2D2 was playing the hologram of the princess and it went off…"wait a minute. where did she go. bring back the entire message’
What happened to the post that was just in here? It was somebody sharing how they connected their BloomSky to their WU PWS account. Seemed like a very good piece of the puzzle, but when I clicked the Like button, it bonked at me.
Thanks. It’s the one I thought it was too, but it helps to know for sure.
Hmmmm…I’m pretty sure I’ve done that, but mine never actually shuts off. It still continues to give the periodic blink (which I think is meant to signal that even though it looks like it’s off, it’s actually on).
I will give it another try (as well as trying with a different device like somebody else suggested above somewhere)…
So mine is only pingable once I power off and back on (when the wifi light is green right after startup). Out of 41 packets, only 12 got through.
Ive removed it and readded it to my account several times to no avail. Still showing offline. There are no security settings that are out of the norm (blocking any ports, FW rules, etc.).
My lux is all over the place. Last night when dark it was reporting from 1200 to 2800 now in full sunlight I get 200, 38, all kinds of crazy readings. Since lux isn’t in their ifttt ingredients list I’m wondering if it’s not yet reliable?
Mine seems to have been slowly increasing over time, yesterday it was in the low thousands, now it’s up towards 20,000. Plus I think it must stop reporting when it gets dark because the lux is still in the thousands for me.
