Do you want to make a weather station with Arduino? We help you

If you have some free time and want to invest it in a project that could be useful for your home, a good idea would be to make a weather station at home. In addition, the number of projects based on Arduino, developed both personally and professionally, has now increased, so if you like technology and computing, you can combine these two components to make the best weather station with WiFi and Arduino.

This type of project can be carried out efficiently and quickly thanks to the simplicity of its implementation, allowing any user to easily execute any project that arises. In addition, the options in microprocessors are becoming more varied and more powerful, as is the case with the different sensors and electronic components.

In case you want to venture to make a weather station with Arduino, you will have two options. The first alternative is to mount a variety of sensors and then collect the information on your own, and the other option you have is to be able to connect to a service that, after analyzing the data, returns the information to you by area. For this alternative, an Arduino board, a digital or touch screen and the respective humidity, atmospheric pressure and temperature sensors will be used to carry out the measurement.

In addition, it is important that you keep in mind that, if you are going to add a touch screen, it will be necessary to have an application with which you can view the data. Another possibility, if you do not have any type of screen or display, is to use a computer to view the climate values, so you can use a USB connection as a means of communication. The communication tools are very variable, so you can choose whether your Arduino weather station will connect via USB cable, WiFi or Bluetooth.

But what exactly is the Arduino?

First of all, it is important to know what Arduino technology is about, so that you can have an idea of ​​the possibilities that you will have with this system. Arduino is a creation platform based on free software and hardware, so it has electronics that are very easy to use thanks to its great flexibility when you want to experiment with this system.

With the Arduino platform, you can create multiple systems and types of microcomputers, according to the needs of each user, so that each creator can give an Arduino board a completely different use.

It is recommended to also know and understand the concepts of free software and hardware, since we will be using them in their entirety. First of all, free hardware are those products or devices that provide free access to all their diagrams and specifications, so that anyone can use them. In other words, with an Arduino system you can lay the foundation for building your own system from the same motherboard.

On the other hand, free software refers to computer programs that offer their source code so that any user has the possibility of modifying it. In addition, Arduino has an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) platform, which is the environment that provides the possibility of developing specialized programs that will provide the Arduino board with a specific use, being able to provide all kinds of utilities.

In addition, we can connect a wide variety of different peripherals to the Arduino microcontroller thanks to its input interface, through which the information of the peripherals that you have connected is transferred, reaching the microprocessor, which is where all the data collected is finally processed..

The wide variety of peripherals offered on the market varies as much as the use that can be given to them, so you can easily get some output devices on the market such as screens or speakers, or input devices such as cameras, keyboards, mice or any another device that allows you to enter data, as well as the sensors that you will use in your weather station.

How to build one of the weather station models with Arduino?

In this case, we are going to explain how to make a weather station with Arduino, capable of recording relative humidity, temperature and pressure. However, if you want to incorporate an air sensor or rain detector, for example, you can add them later.

For this project, we will use an Arduino board, an LCD module, a small breadboard, a BMP-180 pressure sensor, a DHT-22 humidity and temperature sensor, a switch in case you want to control the power, and a set of cables.

You must follow the steps indicated in the connection scheme of your choice. On the net you can find several easy-to-follow schemes that perfectly fit your needs.

After having assembled the cables and sensors on their respective connection pins, simply program the Arduino, installing the most recent libraries from the Arduino programming environment. After having the updated libraries, you must copy the source code of the program that will make the sensors work, which is freely available on the Internet, since these codes are in the public domain.

With this program installed on your Arduino, you will have the option to display on the LCD screen, on the one hand, the humidity and temperature information thanks to a sensor such as the DHT-22, which works perfectly, and with the help of the sensor BMP-180 you will be able to record the average pressure level. It is important to remember that there is a line of the code where you must enter the altitude of your weather station so that you can guarantee the correct registration of some values.

Finally, many users choose to design a small box and print it in 3D, where they can put the weather station and keep it in good condition. Take care that all the cables are well connected and the program is copied correctly to the Arduino controller board. In short, with Arduino you have no limits, so you can modify any system developed with one of these boards at will.