On this day in 2020, the Tempest Weather System launched retail sales after successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns. To celebrate, we're taking a look back at the last three years and sharing some of our favorite Tempest resources to help users optimize their experience!
Tempest FAQs
When the Tempest Weather System launched on Kickstarter, the campaign was fully funded in less than three hours. It quickly became the most popular tech campaign on Kickstarter, and the momentum only continued, with Tempest now available for sale on our website, Amazon and Walmart. But while Tempest is extremely simple to use, people have A LOT of questions about the technology, features, and integrations. Here, we break down the most common questions we receive about the popular home weather solution.
Nearcast™ Technology For a Better Forecast -Guaranteed
What makes your Tempest forecast so accurate? It starts with weather observations from your Tempest Weather Station, then adds a massive amount of data from satellites, radars, government surface networks, and more. Initialized with these curated data sets, we run our own high-resolution numerical weather forecast models and train our AI-based output models to produce the most accurate point-specific forecasts available anywhere. The result is a guaranteed better forecast for your exact location.
“WeatherFlow-Tempest has pioneered a new approach to weather observing and forecasting that benefits all of our customers and partners,” WeatherFlow-Tempest's Chief Science Officer, Dr. Marty Bell explains. “We have data and tools that no one else has, enabling us to deliver more accurate and actionable weather information. From individual Tempest owners and app subscribers to our professional clients, every customer can leverage better data to make better decisions.”
Tempest Smart Home & App Integrations
The Tempest Home Weather System enables users to integrate outside environmental information into smart home tech, third-party apps, and other services. Use your Tempest data to adjust your irrigation schedule based on the rain that’s fallen or the rain that’s forecast to fall. Turn on ceiling fans if the temperature is high, or configure freeze alerts to help protect your outdoor passion projects. Tempets integrates with:
- Rachio Smart Sprinkler Controllers
- IFTTT
- Amazon Alexa
- Siri
- Google Home
- Weather Underground
- WeatherBug
- Crestron, Homey, Indigo, PiConsole, and many more.
More complex integrations are possible with our rich set of developer tools. The Tempest System exposes a collection of self-service APIs and documentation that make it easy for developers to build apps and integrations that access data on behalf of a Tempest station owner. Tempest integrations can save you time, money, and energy while helping you maintain your home and yard. With Tempest, you can turn your smart home into a genius!
A Beginner's Guide to Leverage Tempest Data in Your Smart Home
Smart homes are gaining in popularity, with 32% of households in the U.S. using smart home technology, and that number expected to jump to 57% by 2025. However, the term is often used to mean that instead of having to walk across the room to flip a switch to turn on a light, you replace that task with a voice command. A smart speaker from Amazon or Google is a marvel of computer engineering. But although the use of voice commands to control lights and thermostats in your home may make it more convenient to live in, it really doesn’t make it very smart. For a home to truly be smart, it should sense what is happening in and around your home and take action to anticipate your needs based on that input.
Notable Press Mentions
Tempest has been featured in Wired, Innovation Nation on CBS, Better Homes & Gardens, Bob Vila, Tech Hive, Gadget Flow, Wall Street Journal, Popular Science, USA Today, Washington Post, and more media outlets. Our favorite quote might be from this Gizmodo review: "Weather stations are sort of like a pocket protector for your lawn. They tell the world that the person inside the house is kind of techy, kind of fascinated by the weather, and kind of a dork. Thanks to the Tempest from WeatherFlow, you can now hide your dorkiness with a device that looks more like a lamp than a clacking wind sensor attached to an android’s severed head."
Who Needs a Home Weather System?
New to the weather station scene? Here's everything you need to know: A home weather station (also referred to as a personal or residential weather station) is a weather measurement tool operated by a private individual. The home weather station isn’t a new idea, but recent innovations have resulted in more feature-stuffed models compared to what was available just a few years ago. If you are completely content looking out the window or checking the weather app that came with your phone, that's wonderful! You may not need to invest in a home weather system. However, if you think that home weather stations are just for weather geeks, think again. Even casual weather observers can benefit from this handy piece of technology.
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