What is the best way to detect rain?

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1

Has anyone able to detect rain when it is actually raining? If yes, may I know how?

This is useful to create an automation to alert me which windows or doors are not close when it rains.

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2

Depending on what you use for climate, you could do that. I use Dark Sky and it creates a sensor for “Dark Sky Precip Probability”

3

I have an ambient weather station that has a rain sensor and can report rainfall rate, but it has to be raining for a while before the sensor reports. I haven’t tried to parse the weatherunderground integration to try to use that data as a sensor.

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Thanks. I am using OWM and I find the weather forecast is not so accurate. Is Dark Sky better?

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Thanks. I don’t have a weather station but I have ordered this…

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Wireless-Water-leak-detector-water-leakage-sensor-bathroom-water-flood-sensor-for-Home-commercial-alarm-system/32667980933.html

I am still waiting for its arrival. Can’t wait to test it out.

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I’ve been using ‘sensor.dark_sky_icon’. Rather than returning multiple versions of ‘rain’ like light rain, heavy rain, thunderstorm, etc, it simply returns ‘rain’.

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I get a ton of sensors from Dark Sky. It seems pretty accurate as far as current weather goes. The short term forecast text is sometimes off (predicted snow for me when I got rain).

I get:

monitored_conditions:
  - summary
  - icon
  - nearest_storm_distance
  - nearest_storm_bearing
  - precip_type
  - precip_intensity
  - precip_probability
  - temperature
  - apparent_temperature
  - dew_point
  - wind_speed
  - wind_bearing
  - cloud_cover
  - humidity
  - pressure
  - visibility
  - ozone
  - minutely_summary
  - hourly_summary
  - daily_summary
  - temperature_max
  - temperature_min
  - apparent_temperature_max
  - apparent_temperature_min
  - precip_intensity_max
8

good idea.

@ih8gates, ok i will try it out for few days to see the accuracy.

In the mean time, i have purchased this 433Mhz water sensor.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Wireless-Water-leak-detector-water-leakage-sensor-bathroom-water-flood-sensor-for-Home-commercial-alarm-system/32667980933.html

I will use this to detect rain. Hopefully this is reliable.

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I think something like this would be more sensitive:

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Is it reliable masterkenobi? :slight_smile: I like the 433MHz stuff since it doesnt use much battery.

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at first it was quite reliable. it did send an alert before the rain gets too heavy. but after awhile, it has stopped working. maybe the PCB got damaged by the elements or no more battery. anyway, i don’t have the time to climb up the roof to check. i still got 10 to 20 sensors waiting for me to change the battery.

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I wonder what people in Germany are using to reliably detect rain. I am using dark sky right now, but it is not as accurate as for e.g. the USA. I was experimenting with dark_sky_precip, but it seems to show rain quite often. Therefore, one has to also look at the probability (dark_sky_precip_probability) to figure out if rain is likely or not. I would be interested in your thresholds you are using for your notifications or even other ways to detect rain.

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Did you find out a good solution to detect rain?

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I’m using this now. Still working until now.

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15

I look out the window… :duck:

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16

You beat me to it by 4 minutes

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17

Well, if you want to do something real based on whether it rains or not, that is not much helpful specially when you travel often…

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If anyone goes with the xiaomi door sensor style, I’ve created a case for it: Rainsensor with Xiaomi Door Sensor by ThaNerd - Thingiverse

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I use this sensor:

High sensitivity thin film capacitive rain sensor.

It’s tiny, entirely insulated (so no exposed metal and it doesn’t degrade due to the elements) and very sensitive. It also has an integrated NTC and heating element for de-icing, but it also works without them.

image
image1440×1076 215 KB

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I have a hard time finding these anywhere, at least in the UK. Quick question: How does a capacitive sensor different from the usual, cheap and more exposed ones ?