Hydreon RG-15 rain sensor

actually I just installed the RG-9 and it works quiet good. I also must say that I bought a Tempest Weather station (Tempest Weather System | WeatherFlow Tempest Inc.) and will install it the upcoming days. Maybe it will replace the RG-9 if it detects the rain as good as the RG-9.

Iā€™t looks like I canā€™t order the Tempest Weather station here in The Netherlands. Itā€™s also more expensive. I will try to find later otherwise I will order the RG-9.

you can enter your details here Notify Me When Available in My Region - WeatherFlow and should get an e-mail in a couple of hours to get access in order to buy the station. I live in Switzerland and just got mine a couple of days ago.

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Thanks will do!

Hi, also rainy Netherlands here. I have the RG-15 running since the summer, and it works very well for me. Let me know if you have questions about it.

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Hi Joris, I donā€™t know what to buy yet. Or a RG-15, RG-9 or a Tempest Weather station. Only the last one is very expensive but very nice. I saw DrZzs video today and was really impressed.

it depends on your needs, if you only want to detect rain, go for the RG-9, if you want to measure a LOT of other things, go for the Tempest.

I have decided i go for the Tempest. Where did you ordered it?

I ordered directly at their store. first you have to enter your e-mail here: Notify Me When Available in My Region - WeatherFlow a couple of hours later you get a special link to order the EU-version and you should get a discount code for 40$ to lower the shipping/custom-fees

Thanks, stap one has been taken :wink: keep your posted

** Edit **
Order placed

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Hi Joris, I have the RG15 and have been getting some false positives and wondered if youā€™d be kind enough to let me know how you have yours set up. Connections, power setup, etc.

Iā€™m using an ESP8266 as the platform and powering the RG-15 from the +5v thatā€™s shared with the 8266.
My sensitivity is set to high as well so that might be worth reducing if that proves to be an issue.
Thanks for any help you can provide.

Hi! I am using an ESP-32, with the esphome configuration below. I did not anything special with the connection to the ESP-32 ports. Also the 5V is from the esp. It shouid work with the ESP8266 as well. I believe it has only one usable UART port, so you need to check you are using the correct one.

What kind of ā€˜false positivesā€™ do you get? I once had a false positive when it rained before, and the sun started to shine. There was some water on the sensor, and due to the sunā€™s warming, the water flowed off the sensor, causing a ā€˜rain eventā€™, but only one droplet.

substitutions:
  device_name: rainsensor
  device_description: "Rainsensor Hydreon RG-15"
  friendly_name: "rainsensor"

esphome:
  name: '${device_name}'
  comment: '${device_description}'

esp32:
  board: esp32dev
  framework:
    type: arduino

# Enable logging
logger:

# Enable Home Assistant API
api:
  encryption:
    key: "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

ota:
  password: "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

wifi:
  ssid: !secret wifi_ssid
  password: !secret wifi_password

  # Enable fallback hotspot (captive portal) in case wifi connection fails
  ap:
    ssid: "Rainsensor Fallback Hotspot"
    password: "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

captive_portal:

uart:
  tx_pin: GPIO17
  rx_pin: GPIO16
  baud_rate: 9600

time:
  - platform: homeassistant
    id: homeassistant_time
    
binary_sensor:
  - platform: status
    name: "${device_name} Status"

text_sensor:
  - platform: version
    name: "${device_name} ESPHome Version"
  - platform: wifi_info
    ip_address:
      name: "${device_name} IP"
    ssid:
      name: "${device_name} SSID"
    bssid:
      name: "${device_name} BSSID"
  - platform: template
    name: "${device_name} Rain intensity class"
    id: ric
    icon: mdi:water-outline

sensor:
  - platform: uptime
    name: "${device_name} Uptime"
  - platform: wifi_signal
    name: "${device_name} WiFi Signal"
  - platform: hydreon_rgxx
    model: "RG_15"
    update_interval: 60s
    acc:
      name: "${device_name} Rain"
    event_acc:
      name: "${device_name} Rain event"
    total_acc:
      name: "${device_name} Rain total"
    r_int:
      name: "${device_name} Rain intensity"
      id: rain_int
      device_class: precipitation_intensity
      # https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain#Intensity
      on_value:
        - if:
            condition:
              sensor.in_range:
                id: rain_int
                below: 0.00001
            then:
              - text_sensor.template.publish:
                  id: ric
                  state: "No rain"
        - if:
            condition:
              sensor.in_range:
                id: rain_int
                above: 0.00001
                below: 2.5
            then:
              - text_sensor.template.publish:
                  id: ric
                  state: "Light rain"
        - if:
            condition:
              sensor.in_range:
                id: rain_int
                above: 2.5
                below: 7.6
            then:
              - text_sensor.template.publish:
                  id: ric
                  state: "Moderate rain"                
        - if:
            condition:
              sensor.in_range:
                id: rain_int
                above: 7.6
                below: 50
            then:
              - text_sensor.template.publish:
                  id: ric
                  state: "Heavy rain" 
        - if:
            condition:
              sensor.in_range:
                id: rain_int
                above: 50
            then:
              - text_sensor.template.publish:
                  id: ric
                  state: "Violent rain"             

Hi Joris, Thanks for the reply.
The communication from/to the 8266 is not a problem and seems to work well.

My ā€˜false positivesā€™ seem to be at regular times every day and Iā€™m wondering if Iā€™m getting some RF interference from something? Apparently the RG-15 is known for its sensitivity to stray voltages so Iā€™ve fed the RG-15 from a separate DC (12v battery) power supply yesterday with nothing else attached (no charger) to rule out that itā€™s something coming through the mains - e.g. off peak power ripple, but Iā€™m still getting some small amount of recorded rainfall when there is none.

I also switched the sensitivity to the lowest setting and that seems to have reduced the amount of falsely recorded rainfall. Currently I have the sensor connected via about 2.5Mtrs of CAT6 cable so I think my next step is to change the cable out for some shielded stuff and see if that doesnā€™t fix it.
Quite frustrating.

Thanks again for your response.

Can anyone enlighten me on how I can add/include ā€˜Yesterdayā€™s Rainfallā€™ into my dashboard along with the other weather data I have there. This is using the RG-15 of course.

I see under my entity ā€œTodayā€™s Rainfallā€ that thereā€™s an attribute called ā€˜last_periodā€™ which is the rainfall from yesterday! Now, how to get that displayed?
image

the way i would do this is that on the esp run 2 template sensors looking at the minimum level of the total since last boot statistic one of them with the window size set to 24 hours of data and the second set to 48 hours of data then subtract the 24 hour result from the 48 hour result and thats yesterdays rainfall (which the advantage that it moves so its always the last 24-48hours, if however you want achall yestday so midnight to midnight then use some global variables to save the data at the end of each day (so we have 2 globals A and B at midnight i would save the value of variable A to variable B then save the total since last boot to variable A, this would mean you have the amount of rain the sensor saw at midnight yesterday in variable B and midnight today to vaiable A, find the difference and thats your yesterdays rainfall
as for how to stop the false readings i wish i could help but i have the same problem which is why i was looking online for other peoples issues, ive got my sensor on 5m of cat 8 sheilded cable with a LM7805 and 2 stage RC filter circuilt for the RG15 and then off the same 12V battery as the LM7805 is powered from a seperate feed for the ESP using a xl4015 to step down from the 12-15V of the battery so even the esp is some steps removed from the power noise of the esp and i stillhave noise so really cant help you here, im probably just gonna code my own rainfall ignoring anything under 0.5mm/h (maybe 0.6mm/h) of rain

Hello I installed Hydreon RG-15 over the weekend. Sensor updates are 60s

I have a question about the ā€œRain Eventā€ / event-acc. When does it reset? When does it consider the rain event has finished? According to my data it took 30 to 60 minutes after the last reported rain measurement. Is it waiting for the perspex dome to clear?? Still testing but spikes and data looks pretty solid. Need to test in a good shower!

event_acc (Optional ): Amount of rain for this event (i.e. since it last stopped raining), in mm . Only on RG-15.


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hello! Has anyone managed to resolve the issue with the rain intensity sensor giving a false positive? grateful

No. I see that some people have reduced sensitivity. I havenā€™t and observe that I will get a trigger at mere dampness but a Hydreon rain event is not triggered internally until a much higher level. I have created a HA rain sensor template at 0.1mm/hr. I sort of was guessing that this is the level that a rain bucket would start collecting. Dedicated power supply and a shielded short cable. I went out of my way to cut down on any external noise.

Thank you for your attention and response! However, I noticed that it sends a false positive signal to the rain intensity sensor! but only when the sun is shining directly on the lens!

I have read, possibly on this thread that other people have suffered similar. And it sorts of makes sense; it is an optical domed sensor. Fast moving clouds etc might trigger it. On 0.01mm it is super sensitive. I choose a location that is vaguely behind two buildings which gives some sort of protection when the sun is reasonably low. So far in the six months active I have not noticed ā€œfalse positivesā€ but it sure is sensitive.

You have not said what sensitivity you have it set to nor what intensity reading you are receiving on a ā€œfalse positiveā€ trigger. Is the ā€œfalse positiveā€ a problem? In what way??