The 'Weather@Home' range of Oregon Scientific weather stations, developed by Hong Kong-based IDT Technology Limited, sends immediate local weather and home environmental updates collected by embedded sensors in the station and/or wireless sensors located in and around the user's home direct to a smartphone app
Oslo, Norway - February 12, 2014 - Ultra low power (ULP) RF specialist Nordic Semiconductor ASA (OSE: NOD) today announces that IDT Technology Limited - developer and owner of one of the world's most recognized consumer weather station brands, Oregon Scientific - has specified Nordic μBlueTM nRF8001 Connectivity chips to provide the Bluetooth low energy wireless connectivity to Bluetooth Smart Ready iOS and Android devices in its Bluetooth Smart 'Weather@Home' consumer weather station range, due to launch this Spring.
IDT Technology says these are the first weather stations of their kind to be able to communicate directly with smartphones and tablets. This allows users to access, via a free partner app over a station-to-smartphone range of up to 50m, immediate local atmospheric pressure (barometric) and weather forecast updates, plus temperature and humidity readings collected by embedded sensors in the station and/or up to five wireless sensors. The latter can be located inside or outside the end user's home (and given unique user-assigned names from the app).
Three models of increasing sophistication are available from the more basic but simple $29 EMR211 (indoor/outdoor temperature), through the more advanced $39 RAR213HG (adding humidity and time display/synchronization with smartphone or tablet), up to the fully-featured $59 BAR218HG (adding weather forecast info and moon phase). The partner app also supports a 7-day weather trend history and (BAR218HG only) 12-hour (plus) weather forecast.
This is the first Bluetooth smart weather station product family of its kind to send collated weather and environmental data direct to a smartphone instead of that data being sent from sensors themselves," comments Chris Yeung, Product Manager at IDT Technology. "This allows users to get instant snapshots wherever and whenever they wish within their homes using the convenience of a smartphone, instead of having to rely on using the main display on the weather station.
In operation, each weather station measures data and then works out an average every hour that is recorded on an internal 7-day data logger. However, when the user activates their smartphone or tablet app the data polled from the weather station will be most recently recorded data. IDT Technology says its weather stations are popular with people who want to know what the local weather is (e.g. in order to decide what to wear or whether or not to embark on a camping or hiking trip) without relying on third party forecasts that can be slow and inconvenient to access. In addition, the home monitoring feature allows parents, for example, to monitor the temperature and humidity in a child's bedroom.
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