Ladislav Soukup A range of accessories +Plug it is quite comprehensive and currently offers a scale, a thermometer, a weather station and a distance meter. The last two named - weather stations - were lent to the editorial office +weather and a distance meter + ruler.
Connecting to iPhone
Both products connect using Bluetooth 4.0, which means you need at least an iPhone 4S, iPad 3rd generation, or iPad mini. On older generations, you simply won't be able to connect.
If you have a supported iOS device, just install the app from the App Store and run. The application guides you through the connection process. The first connection will happen almost automatically - just press the button (according to the instructions in the application) and that's it. For each subsequent connection, you already need a four-digit code, which is generated just for the first connection. If you forget it, it can be found at any time in an already connected application or easily deleted and start connecting all devices again.
Weather station +weather
The weather station can be set to two modes: indoor and outdoor. You may be surprised by the fact that you should not expose the weather station to rain and snow, which can complicate outdoor placement. Accordingly, I did not find resistance to rain anywhere, and according to the infographic, the weather station should not be exposed to it.
The weather station monitors temperature, humidity and pressure. Based on this data, it prepares a weather forecast. The range of the connection is very decent and, depending on the interference in your area, it can cover an average house or apartment in the city (the range indicated by the manufacturer is up to 100 meters). The data is stored in the internal memory, so you can also download it as hourly values for the whole day.
An interesting feature is the "social network" of the owners, or you can share your data along with your current location and you can look at data from other users around the world. Thanks to this, you can get accurate data from almost anywhere. I assume that the number of stations will grow and the application then makes theoretical sense even for users who do not own their weather station.
The values that the weather station offers you are relatively accurate. Of course, it depends on the location, it is not good to leave the weather station in direct sunlight. The forecast itself is also correct in most cases and has a higher success rate than the ČHMÚ. On the other hand, I encountered a snow forecast at 21 degrees. Another interesting fact was the fog in our fridge (but I admit here that the location in the fridge is probably not quite standard). However, the refrigerator test showed that it takes a relatively long time for the weather station to react to a change in temperature, or it took almost half an hour to drop from room temperature to refrigerator temperature. But this probably won't bother users so much in real operation.
Functionally, the weather station is therefore very pleasant, the range of data communication is without problems, energy consumption is minimal. I've had the weather station on for three weeks and it currently has 80 percent battery. The price of around 2 CZK is not the lowest, but it can be accepted.
Distance meter + ruler
The distance meter is a small "box" with a laser pointer and an ultrasonic distance meter. In addition, it also contains an oscillometer, thanks to which it can determine tilt in two axes and can thus also be used as a spirit level.
Connecting is again easy, with the only difference being that after starting the app, you always have to turn on the meter and wait for it to reconnect to the app. Then you can start measuring. Just press the button to turn on the laser pointer. You aim at the object and press again. You will immediately see the distance in the app.
The accuracy is very good, but it should be taken into account that it is measured ultrasonically and not optically. It is therefore necessary to stand as perpendicular as possible to the surface of the measured object, otherwise you will measure incorrect data. The measurement is very fast and, thanks to the laser pointer, it is not a problem to accurately hit more distant objects.
For longer distances, you will see the data in meters with an accuracy of two decimal places, for shorter distances, the data is in centimeters and again with an accuracy of two tenths. The overall accuracy of the measurement is very good, and you will encounter a larger deviation only exceptionally.
The application saves every measured value in the history, so it is always available for you. It also offers support for projects, under which the grouping of measured values is hidden. But I couldn't get the projects to work, which is probably just an app bug in conjunction with iOS 7. Everything else worked. It slightly freezes that the tilt angle is not saved in the history along with the measured distance. But this is a feature that can easily change at any time with an app update.
It's worse with the price, which in this case is perhaps too high - 2 CZK per "meter" seems quite a lot to me. Personally, I'd rather see laser distance measurement than ultrasonic, but that doesn't mean there's any major problem with this method of measurement.
For zapójcens.ro, operator of the store network Qstore.
And what is it good for?
Thanks for the article. I still personally don't see the real added value of linking to iOS. If it was linked to a successful weather forecast application such as My Measure, I would start thinking about buying it.
what is the weather station for, please, I need it for school