Smart Weather and for your Smart Home

What’s your take on this article? Interesting but clearly a fluf peice.

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Fluff it is! But the point about home automation integration is certainly valid.

I, personally, am awaiting the weather device that also knows where its owner is (like by cellphone location) so that on a hot day it can trigger your internet-connected refrigerator to prepare a beverage for you as you approach home (sort of joking about this one . . . sort of . . . ).

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A lot of people integrate geo-location but it’s so hit-or-miss it just not reliable and most are totally reliable on a cell phone. It’s just not ready for prime-time.

However integrating weather into “Home Control” and “Home Automation” is rather easy.

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FWIW, I have Apple HomeKit set up to unlock my front door and disarm the alarm system whenever I turn onto my street from the main road. If it is after sunset and before sunrise, it will also turn on the house and garage flood lights. The lights turn off and the door re-locks itself after 5 minutes, so the whole thing is 100% hands-off.

The only weather-related automation that I can think of that would be useful to me is one that turns on the electric cab and engine block heaters in my diesel pickup at 5:00 AM weekdays if the outside temperature is below 20 F…

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Agreed! Many very rural areas here in Adirondacks of New York and the Green Mountains of Vermont have such poor cell phone coverage that locating someone by cell phone is almost impossible. As a matter of fact, I have a microcell here at home so I don’t need to go outside to make a call. But your point about home automation/weather integration being much easier is right on the money.

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I know a lot of people do that. I don’t because it’s too easy to have a phone lost or stolen. For door and alarm entry I give my kids NFC tags and a keycode because kids can’t be trusted with security. I relock doors after 30 seconds.

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I became interested in observing weather back in 1968 when i was 10 years old and
official sites only reported every hour, oh wow they still do that now. I like observations
every min. A lot can happen in an hour.

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