How to tell if it's raining or snowing (Without looking outside!)

I’m not 100% sure why you need them.
If your in Yorkshire, isn’t it always raining? :wink:

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I invert the pupose for an ‘it’s not raining sensor’ !
Creating an ‘it’s sunny’ sensor wouldn’t be useful at all !

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Kevin
Those look great - I haven’t had mine long enough to really test reliability butso far so good :slight_smile:

Hi could you explain how do u integrate it to smarthings?

Can you also include a step by step or post a video of your project? Would be great to see.

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So, here is my update for the rain detector.
I ordered this puppy from Amazon:

Paired out of the box as a THING.
Changed the device type in IDE:
image
Use a 3 foot old two wire power cord and stripped both ends.
Connected one end to the terminal on the sensor.
Used a project box to insulate from elements and dropped one of the ends into the storm drain by my house.

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Hi can you show us ur project box? i lost you at the wire power cord

Will do. I will snape a photo of the completed device tonight.

I will check, but I think it was this one from Amazon.

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Hi, I just picked up a water sensor and other Foxx Project devices as they are on sale in the UK at Maplins.
My intention is to create a rain sensor but I’m having issues with the Foxx water sensor.
I can pair it to the ST hub but I don’t get any status updates after the pairing.
It automatically finds the zwave water sensor, should I be using a custom one, if so which one? On other threads there is a mix using the contact sensor and water sensor. I have tried both. Is there a modified one available? or do I have a duff sensor?

I’m just using the standard ‘z-wave water sensor’ dth but ‘tweaked’ to show rain/no rain instead of wet/dry
I have bought many of the Foxx project devices and haven’t had any problems connecting any of them

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Wondering if it would be better to wait for the aquara water sensor? could that work in determining if its raining

Eddy
Looking at this and it seems to be a standard sensor… the only difference is that it doesn’t have a cable and I don’t belive there is a dth for it yet
Of course the price is nice :slight_smile:

@sean-dev
I would remove it from ST then re add it
This may sort your problems.
I did notice that some of them need to be quite close to the ST hub to connect correctly

Hi, thanks for the replies.
Yes, I did try closer and new batteries first, strange that I initially did get a pairing but no further responses.
Today I went back to shop and brought another as cheap and that one works so I guess the first was a duff.
BTW, I also have a few Foxx Project door contacts, they are working well, do you know if the anti tamper switch can be used to get 2 sensors from the same device? My plan is to run leads to 2 switches to show doors closed and also locked, otherwise I will use a Fibaro binary module but would have to find a small box for it.

In smartthings I have not seen a separate ‘tamper’ reading which you could use for separate reporting
You could use a water sensor with a conventional ‘dumb’ door contact or other switch if you can’t use a door sensor in the conventional way

@Cobra I randomly came across this thread and I am quite impressed with your initial project. Similarly the other ideas that followed means that this overall idea of rainsensing will make it to my home as well one day. I particularly liked the tiny voltage regulator part of it. Very clever.

Off topic real quick: the screenshots of your app modifications show presence sensors for puppies and a guest. This peaked my curiosity. How are you presence sensing puppies and a guest? :thinking:.

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Thank you for your kind comments :slight_smile:

The puppies each has a presence sensor attached to their leads - I have a few apps that don’t work well with two dogs (who aren’t really puppies anymore) running around setting motion sensors off.
Apart from when in the rear garden, the dogs are out on the lead with us both so the house is completely empty (and I can turn on all motion sensors and the contact on the doggie door) The standard smartthings presence sensors have worked well for this.
As for guests, I have a number of routines that are not really compatible with guests so this is just a virtual switch that I turn on when we have guests to stop the relevant routines.
When I write a smartapp I usually put some code in for an enable/disable switch so I can quickly disable stuff if we have guests overnight.
For long term guest visits I give them a smartthings tag and switch it on to enable ‘guest mode’

Thanks for the response. I was curious because we have 3 dogs and a back yard / front yard and an electric fence. We open the deck door and they run out and do their thing for a while and come back on their own. I was contemplating some sort of ‘smart thing’ for their collars that would let us know the last time they went out (for example, if I let them out and left, and wife came home 15 minutes later, it would save the endless texts “did the dogs go out yet?”, or a smart app to alert me if the dogs were in or out or if a particular dog was outside more than 15 minutes, etc. I will leave that for another topic thread one day.

As for guests, that had me stumped but now I get it. I thought maybe you had a sensor linked to a new ‘unrecognized’ cell signal in your house that triggered presence (which would be wicked cool).

You could probably do this with Android phones but unfortunately iphones all shut their wireless down if it’s not being used

Hi Andy,

were you able to get it connected to the Smartthings Hub?
Just bought it on sale in Sweden, but cannot even get it to be paired with the Hub.
Before I send it back I would like to give it another try.
Perhaps on any tips on what handler you used?
Thanks…