Power Kite Forum

An idea during my daily shower brainstorming; Deployable Online Anemometer

barnes - 13-2-2012 at 11:52 PM

I was thinking about the viability of making anemometer's talk with cell phones and actively sending out the reading online. The idea being to have your phone broadcast the wind speed from your local spot. Not a permanent fixture, but just while you are at the spot, you set up and start broadcasting wind speeds for your friends and locals to check out. Can't get a better reading then from someone at the spot.

Just an idea. I've been meaning to experiment with making an anemometer from scratch, mine as well see if I can get it to send data to my Android phone.

macboy - 14-2-2012 at 12:08 AM

Great idea! I've always wondered why they don't make (or why I haven't found) a portable wireless anemometer that you can put up on a big boom to get the wind reading from the kite's perspective. And maybe track the realtime wind so you can download it and see.

arkay - 14-2-2012 at 12:22 AM

sounds like something i was toying with... to get the signal to the phone w/o modification you'd need bt, wifi, or usb. since I want my phone on me in the buggy... would need to go with a custom rf to get any distance out of it. If you just wanted to use the phone as an internet relay, then the simplest design would be to use usb. in fact it would be pretty simple to hook an arduino/netduino to a anemometer (did that) and just write a file over usb/mass storage to an android phone.

barnes - 14-2-2012 at 12:28 AM

Ah, arkay, we are completely on the same page here. Android just recently opened up USB hosting, allowing for full USB I/O to a phone. They built it around Arduino...if you've got an anenometer talking to the Arduino, using an ADK (Android Developer Kit) board, you can get the data actively into the phone...then the task is actively writing it to the internet.

ADK docs: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/usb/adk.html

I need to get a new anemometer, then I'll start tinkering with this idea.

zero gee - 14-2-2012 at 12:50 AM

The Canadian Wheat Board has this program called WeatherFarm. It is a network of wireless weather stations. I think it works this way. A farmer can buy this station. Put it on his farm. He can access it via smartphone. It also becomes part of a huge network of wireless stations used for more accurate forecasting. The farmer also has access to these more accurate forecasts. If I recall a station was $800 back in '09??

Anyways, I think the tech is out there.

zero gee - 14-2-2012 at 01:02 AM

It looks like it's a Davis Telemetry station...
http://shop.davisnet.com.au/index.php?main_page=index&cP...

dandre - 14-2-2012 at 06:43 AM

yah colorado mountaineers/kiters use deployable stations pretty frequently.
I think I've heard about them on Mt. Majestic and whatever peak is directly adjacent

barnes - 14-2-2012 at 02:24 PM

Well, the idea is a much simplier, much cheaper version of those Davis devices, and teethering with your own phone rather then its own GSM. Nothing that crazy, just an anemometer for kiters with a few more bells and whistles for sharing wind readings with friends at home deciding if they want to go out or not.

dandre - 14-2-2012 at 05:11 PM

The ones I've seen operate like gps uplink to google earth or a data table

shaggs2riches - 14-2-2012 at 05:47 PM

I was gonna mount one of the home weather stations to a ten foot length of sched 40 PVC, to stick in the sand when I'm at the beach. But this would be an awesome thing to have.

Bladerunner - 14-2-2012 at 06:37 PM

What would be cool is to have one in your kite.
Knowing the wind speed + apparent wind speed that your kite is experiencing could be of value?

barnes - 14-2-2012 at 07:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bladerunner
What would be cool is to have one in your kite.
Knowing the wind speed + apparent wind speed that your kite is experiencing could be of value?


...adding to my list of projects. I wouldn't mind making a living off of making kiting electronics gadgets, perfect way to merge my passion of kites and my studies (and passion) of electronics...and at this point I think I've got enough gadget ideas to do so. :thumbup:

dandre - 14-2-2012 at 07:15 PM

I always thought it would be sweet if there was a recreation social network that relayed GPS from cellphones.
Say you enter into active "kiting""mountain biking" "rockclimbing" "fishing" so on.

Then other people in your area get alerts that someone is kiting within X vicinity, and can send you messages.

Not only that but you could post a warning that you will be kiting at X gps coordinate at 00:00 whatever time.
It would help small fringe group enthusiasts grow the community. Especially in metropolitan areas

barnes - 14-2-2012 at 07:22 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dandre
I always thought it would be sweet if there was a recreation social network that relayed GPS from cellphones.
Say you enter into active "kiting""mountain biking" "rockclimbing" "fishing" so on.

Then other people in your area get alerts that someone is kiting within X vicinity, and can send you messages.

Not only that but you could post a warning that you will be kiting at X gps coordinate at 00:00 whatever time.
It would help small fringe group enthusiasts grow the community. Especially in metropolitan areas


I do love this idea, but at the same time, dangerous, training intensive things like climbing, kiting, paragliding wouldn't work out. God knows some days I just want to kite and not attempt to teach someone to fly. However, if people could rank themselves (also other user feedback) on their skills, it could work out. Especially if there is a user who is skilled and can check off 'Willing to teach people!' or something like this.

Though, this is the same idea, except kiters/windsurfers/paragliders can also see the wind speed where a user is! (Direction would be a bit more difficult to automate...)

dandre - 14-2-2012 at 08:06 PM

well the idea is you wouldn't post or be "active" unless you wanted to be

I think sport specific engines wouldn't justify the expenses of development, it would also make for greater ad revenue to have an all inclusive site.

BTW I don't know if you've seen that paragliding site that uses INTENSE satellite data processing, but it's just about the most beautiful thing I've ever seen on the internet.

I'm sure some OG pilots can remind me what the site is called

rtz - 14-2-2012 at 08:13 PM

One thing I'd like that I think would be handy to have is have a device broadcast to an earpiece it's wind readings in real time. I'd like to select a male or female voice and also the duration between reports(every 2 or 5 or 10 seconds for example; maybe less or more). Just have it be in the background(sound wise) and only say the number(if I have it set to mph for example).

It might be neat on a novelty level to have the wind sensor upwind so I get a little bit of a heads up to a gust and it would keep me informed to changing conditions and trends(wind increasing or decreasing overtime).

Maybe utilize an existing anemometer that has the ability to output data and build the device to transmit it to possibly an existing non bluetooth(for more range) earpiece.

van - 14-2-2012 at 08:16 PM

No need to re-invent the wheel. This service is already offered by wunderground.com . You buy a davis instrument weather station with wifi capability and send the data via your home wifi to their server so to your android phone's internet by sharing out your internet as a hotspot. I use wunderground to check current windspeed at the local beach. The data is updated as fast as every seconds.

here's a link to the info if you want to share your weather info... http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/index.asp

shaggs2riches - 14-2-2012 at 08:23 PM

I like the idea of the gps to cell phones....what about an app that you could download that would sync to a anemometer/gps. This would allow you to record session data, plus you could make it show you are "online", or "offline" like a messenger type thing. Every ten minutes or so it would upload your current location, and the latest wind,temps,and humidity readings. Have it able to send out alerts and invites based off of your desire. Endless possibilities with current technology.


I seem to recall that someone was doing a text based thing a year or so ago, where people would text in their location and conditions. Everyone on the list would get the text and know when and where there is favorable conditions. It was from someone on this forum actually.

shaggs2riches - 14-2-2012 at 08:27 PM

Actually going back a bunch of pages I found it...........

http://www.powerkiteforum.com/viewthread.php?tid=17637&p...

barnes - 14-2-2012 at 10:42 PM

@van, well reinventing the wheel for a more affordable, every day user is worth while. Davis instruments are high end, the idea is to build a >$100 device for sharing wind readings from your exact location over a cell phone. I mean its like saying no need to reinvent printers if print shops already have them. Building an affordable at home printer was obviously a worth while market.

@shaggstoriches, Exactly the idea! I only think that their may need to be redesigned anemometer's to make this work easily. But the text/email chain is certainly part of the idea, though I think a service for just that purpose isn't much better then things like Twitter or Google/Yahoo Groups. Adding in data like wind speed puts it on a whole new level. (Though broadcasting that data through Twitter or a Groups service is certainly an easy way of doing it too...just how do we get that data onto phones easily!)