Sun detection and rain gauge

Hello,

I’m trying to detect precisely when the sun is shining or not. I’ve tried many geolocated online services but none of them prove to be 100% accurate here in France (even the national service Meteo France).
I will try with some modules like Philips Hue PIR Outdoor that can measure the light in lux. I will see if I can precisely determine if the sun is shining or not, if some small clouds or large clouds are in front of the sun,… I’m trying to find out when I should open or close cover to protect from the sun in summer or to get some free sun heat in winter for instance.
I’m curious to know how HA users do it.

My second weather question is about the rain. I don’t need any live data but I would like to have a pretty accurate value of the daily accumulated precipation. I also have some trouble to find accurate data with geolocated online services. So why not try to measure it myself. Would you have an idea about a connected rain gauge that could be integrated in HA ? Cloudfree would be better.

Thanks.
David

It looks like Netatmo public data could fulfill my needs about rain gauge. 3 available weather stations in my small city including rain gauge and the 3 values for today are consistent, less than 20% maximum differnce between the 3 values which is totally fine for my needs.

I will try Netatmo public data integration in HA tonight. :slight_smile: