I have written 2 previous articles on this weather station. Click here to recap https://gavinsgadgets.wordpress.com/?s=netatmo&submit=Search

After owning the Netatmo Urban Weather Station for over a week now, I am writing my full review. Before I start I will just say this is one of those products that does exactly what it says on the tin. If you look back at the previous two articles you will see screen shots of the functionality from the iOS app, web app, WeatherPro and baratmo mac app. Below is the indoor sensor.

Rear of indoor sensor. Outdoor sensor looks identical, except one inch shorter.

It comes in a box with two sensors, the indoor sensor is taller than the outdoor one by about an inch. You also get a micro usb cable, UK plug, startup guide/installation of sensors, a screw and raw plug, strap for indoor sensor and that is it. Oh, there was also 4 AAA batteries. I downloaded the app, created a user ID and password, after which then took me into the setup. So all you do, is install the 4 batteries into the base of the outdoor sensor, drill a hole in to an outside wall, where the sensor wont be exposed to direct sunlight and rain, screw the screw into the raw plug and then slide outdoor sensor onto the screw. 5 mins after completing that task, I then connected the indoor sensor to the mains. I then continued to follow the iOS app instructions for setup. At each turn you get a pretty picture of what to do and written instructions. Really, really simple and clear instructions. You next connect your phone directly to the indoor sensor and it updates the sensors firmware, reads your wifi setup and copies it across. The indoor sensor then talks to the outdoor sensor and voila. The screenshots below give you a clear idea of what data you can obtain but this includes indoor and outdoor temperatures, CO2 indoor, humidity, air quality (via CiteAir), mbar, sound levels, weather forecasts (provided by MeteoGroup), graphs plotting data over a given period and more. As an example the rain mode gives you: the amount of rain per 3 hour period (represented by blue bars) and the probability of rain (represented as a red curve). By touching on the icon button on the air quality gauge, you may switch between background air pollution index,
traffic air pollution index and complementary information about the main pollutant.

Screenshot from iOS app which will look the same for android. The Windows Phone app takes on the tile look of Windows Phone.

This displays details of the indoor and outdoor sensors. Buy scrolling down or flicking up you can reveal more data.

You can also go in to the settings and retrieve information on the sensors and their battery and wifi strengths. Turning the phone horizontal will allow you to show graphs on all the different measurements. Pinch and zooming allows for the data to be expanded or shortened depending on your requirements. The web app is excellent and shows nearly everything across one page.

It is great that you can integrate the Netatmo Urban Weather station into other apps. So far I have found WeatherPro on iOS and Baratmo for mac. Screenshots below.


and for the mac, Baratmo provides a quick list of data from the status bar.

The key aspect of this solution is that it all has to be linked to your home network via wifi and logged in to Netatmo servers. You need 4 AAA batteries in the outdoor sensor which requires installation on a wall, preferably not in direct sunlight and directly exposed to rain. i.e.. perhaps under the eaves. And apparently the batteries last one month, but at present I cannot provide confirmation of that as I have not had the product long enough. A caution, if Netatmo’s servers go down, you will not get any data.I have had this a week, and for 2 hours last Wednesday they were updating their servers so I received no data.

The sensors send data every 5 mins, can provide notifications for high levels of CO2 or weather warnings from sensors, you can manually check for a CO2 reading immediately update by pushing the top of the indoor sensor. When measuring on demand, the indoor module displays the CO2 level using the following color code:
– Green = Good
– Yellow = Could be improved
– Red = Room should be ventilated.

You can also invite friends into the Urban Weather Station to share you data too. You can also act as a contributor for your outdoor readings. This is still a work in progress, but this is a map of what people would see.

All in all it is an impressive experience, albeit expensive at £139. Additional indoor sensors, up to another 3 can be added to the system too. There is also a PDF manual that you can download which is seriously comprehensive.

So far I have really enjoyed using the Urban Weather Station, and is probably my favourite gadget of the year.

Update – after a week, the following notifications appeared.

Update 2 – last night mapatmo tweeted me and invited me to be part of the Public World Netatmo World Map. More details here – http://www.mapatmo.com