Eleven and a half years ago, I built my first RaspberryPi weather station using sensors from Tinkerforge. Today, I shut it down for good. Not because it failed — but because its job is done. It’s been replaced by a Netatmo setup, and unfortunately, I don’t need it anymore. But admitting that a project’s lifespan is over always takes some effort — well, to me at least.
A Decade of Reliability
This little #weatherstation was a real nice fun project. For 11.5 years, it ran almost flawlessly. Out of the four sensors (humidity, air pressure, ambient light, temperature) I started with, only one ever failed. Of course, I always hoped that I never had to deal with sensor defects, but the quality of Tinkerforge’s hardware was really satisfying! If you’re looking for reliable, long-lasting sensors for your DIY projects, give them a try.
A Learning Playground
More than a decade ago, this project was a learning opportunity in multiple ways. I wrote about it in a 3 parts story: Of course,I learned how to add sensors to the RaspberryPi and read the sensor values. But to display the values, I decided to connect another RaspberryPi to my TV, learned to display the frontend on the TV via JavaFX and how to handle the UI using my TV’s remote through CEC (LibCEC). That was quite some learning! Later I replaced the TV-frontend with a simple but useful web frontend. Turning on the TV just to check the values was a bit too cumbersome 😉
For years, I loved checking the data (also from remote). But over the past year, I noticed that we barely looked at it anymore. I guess because we added some Netatmo devices to also check our indoor air quality. The Netatmo devices were just cheaper, smaller and had more usability than building the devices on my own. (But having the RaspberryPi weather station was still cool!)
Why Now?
The final nudge came when I recently fiddled around in the network config and well – lost the connection. Even after a reboot. I could have fixed it, but before investing the time I evaluated whether the time to decommission it had come. The Raspberry Pi deserves a new purpose, and I’m excited to see what’s next for it. Still, shutting it down felt a little bittersweet.
Why You Should Build One
If you’re a bit into tech and haven’t played with a RaspberryPi + sensors yet, do it. Just recently I combined the Netatmo API with RaspberryPi-controlled LEDs. 😀
It’s fun, educational, and they don’t consume a lot of energy. My setup ran on the same SD card for years without a hitch.
What’s Next?
The Raspberry Pi isn’t retiring — just this project. Just recently I ordered another bunch of LEDs. I’m sure that I will find something interesting (or just fun) to visualize …
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