Two failed sky light sensors it seems

@WFsupport - I’ve noticed that ‘both’ my Sky units have nulls for light values in their broadcasts. Pretty odd. One happened about 13:00 local time on 2/11, the other happened around 12 hours later (coming back briefly a number of times that day). Both are consistently null for the last 36 hours or so.

Hub and sensor ids are in my profile.

Did you had a look to the status page?
Especially, what does the “Sensor Status” fields of both Skys say ?

Your ‘sk-00013695’ shows wind failed and light UV failed (rebooted about 10 hours ago when I post this) and your ‘sk-00003874’ shows ok right now for me.

Did you reboot the Sky ? It seems indeed to have intermittent loss of sensors since a few days. Could you reboot it manually ? I think you use a SPA so disconnect it, wait at least 10 seconds and then reconnect, see if it comes back and if sensors are ok …

Sigh - of course it’s the one that is 18’ up and a royal pain to pull down to reset, and another Pineapple Express has arrived for a few days of gloom and rain. That one’s going to have to wait until we get a day without rain. But no, I didn’t reboot anything.

Thanks for the note on the sensor status incidentally, I’d forgotten that. Maybe I need to tweak my udp listener to decode the status messages a bit more and email me or tweet or something so I notice these things.

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ok, the rain let up for a few minutes so I pulled down the high solar sky and put the low-AA sky in its place, just in case I have a future hardware replacement in my future. One thing I noticed was that the SPA came off ‘really’ easily in my hand, although there was no moisture inside.

I reattached the SPA to the Sky and it did not come online. Hitting the reset button through the slots did nothing. Finally gave up and used AA in the Sky (which came online instantly with no reset needed) to verify the Sky hadn’t failed. I’ll let it run that way for a bit and see if it stays stable off batteries.

The SPA is charging hopefully in a kitchen garden window but given the greyness this time of year it might be April before there is a sunny enough day.

update - I see sensor_status=64 (failed wind) so we might find the Sky has failed, but lets let it go through the weekend and see if it loses its mind again.

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Would love to have a reboot function for Sky and Air from the app.

Some of us have to crawl through deep cold snow and wind, pull along some kind of ladder that won’t sink too much in the snow, then manage to climb up the pole to shake the thing :slight_smile: … then reverse the process to get back in the house.

A button from the comfort of a screen inside my winter home sounds good to me :slight_smile:

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Agree.

Annnnnd it’s back to sensor_status=320 (both failed) off AA too, so the Sky is the issue. I’ll contact support about a replacement I guess.

FWIW, I am ‘so’ glad that I used stainless bolts+nuts and conduit hangers to put the fencepost pole up. Came down and went back up in a snap once I got a respite from the rain.

Indeed, the sky seems to fail and best way is to open a ticket. They’ll help you out early next week.

I’m also looking into a telescopic mast, the way I do it now is not handy when there is wind. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:Bit unhandy, 6 meter pole and guys when the wind blows … Just contacted a company for a quote.

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yes - my VP2 is on a Harbor Freight telescoping pole that I scored on a sale for under $50. The anemometer is at 18’ up. No guys as I didn’t want to give the birds any excuses to perch.

@vinceskahan I’m waiting to hear back from @WFstaff about replacing mine as well. I have documented it in one of the other threads, but I have had failed wind sensors on and off since before the end of last year, and the UV/Light sensor has been failed for a while now. Seems odd so many are failing around the same time, I hope WF are able to take some of these failed units back for analysis to see if they can find the source to improve future models.

I have mine on a telescopic pole - its only 8 or 9ft up, but being telescopic it has been so much easier to deal with! I was looking at some much taller telescopic flagpoles to try and get it a little higher, but haven’t committed to anything yet - something for the summer me thinks :slight_smile:

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that’s a very good idea. Currently weatherflow staff and some friendly support people can do this remotely. Which is NOT the way it should be. Reboots (and firmware upgrades) should only be possible when initiated from the local network.

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I have a sky that’s reporting a failed light sensor too. And it too is on a pole that take a bit of effort to get to. Maybe today I’ll get around to pulling it down and resetting to see if it comes back.

update - replacement Sky on the way to me from WF. Gotta love good support.

I did check my SPA with a multimeter and see 3.26V across the pins yesterday, but it’s nice and sunny today so hopefully that’ll be fully charged when the replacement sky gets here Friday or Saturday hopefully.

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Replacement sky in place working on solar. Great support. Love it.

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